This New Mask Optional Policy is a Huge Mistake

I’m vaccinated and went grocery shopping last weekend without a mask for the first time in over a year. Felt weird but great.

I’d say it was about 35-40% of shoppers had no mask. I was surprised to see a few very old people without a mask.

The mask announcement happens to come on the heels of the CDC admitting that the virus is aerosolized, with its particle size being around 0.1 micrometers. I say "admitting" because it is beyond comprehension that they could not have known this all along. The safety guys at my workplace, who are not epidemiologists, recommended the installation of a huge, expensive air handling system last year. I guess they're smarter than the folks at the CDC.

The implication of the small particle size is that the crap masks/face coverings that folks have been using are probably not all that effective in environments where masks would actually be effective in preventing the spread of the virus (i.e. enclosed spaces with enough folks to fill the air with covid goodness).

This is my conjecture: tying the removal of the masks with the effectiveness of the vaccine gives the CDC a small bit of leverage to tout the effectiveness of the vaccine, while also allowing them to reverse course on masks without losing credibility. It is a tacit admission that they do not consider masks to be an effective part of our COVID strategy. Otherwise, they would continue to recommend them.

Harambe wrote:

Only someone who failed 6th grade math would see 500k excess deaths and still be calling COVID a 'scam.'

Make that 600k Americans dead from Covid-19.

Common Cents wrote:

It’s very obvious that those of us who are vaccinated will continue to mask up while the selfish and unvaccinated will go maskless and spread Covid allowing it to mutate and scales will spike again. Huge mistake by the CDC!!

How will it spike with the vaccine so effective?

Can you name one person we all have heard of who died solely from Covid and did not have other life threatening conditions?

Well, ok then! wrote:

Das Unkle wrote:

You ought to be asking Fauci, or WHO, or CDC. You know, the experts who have been telling us that asymptomatic people can transmit the virus outdoors and so we have to mask up and social distance. Don't you think the onus of proof is on them?

I think I've been clear that I'm not asking for proof, I'm asking how in principle this would be proved in a manner that you would find acceptable.

Simple. Test the hypothesis.

The Chinese did.

A mass screening programme of more than 10 million residents of Wuhan, China, performed after SARS-CoV-2 was brought under control, has identified 300 asymptomatic cases of covid-19, none of which was infectious.

The researchers conducted a screening programme using PCR testing for viral RNA among the 10 million participants who were aged between 10 and 89. Trained staff interviewed participants on their history of covid-19. Asymptomatic positive cases were those who had a positive result on screening with neither a history of covid-19 diagnosis nor any clinical symptoms at the time of the nucleic acid testing. The researchers found no “viable virus” in cultures from asymptomatic samples.

The asymptomatic positive rate was lowest in participants aged under 17 and highest in those over 60. Further swab testing of 1174 close contacts of the 300 asymptomatic positive cases were all negative. The study population included 34 424 people with a history of covid-19, 107 of whom (0.310%) had been re-infected.

This thread demonstrates once again that people only "follow the science" so long as it fits their personal worldview. As soon as "the science" fails to do so, they cry, "UNH UH!!!!"

Common Cents wrote:

It’s very obvious that those of us who are vaccinated will continue to mask up while the selfish and unvaccinated will go maskless and spread Covid allowing it to mutate and scales will spike again. Huge mistake by the CDC!!

Personal responsibility is a thing. If masks are as effective as we've been told so long as the vulnerable wear them it shouldn't matter what the rest of us do. If you're vaccinated it doesn't matter what anyone does. Grow up. When a real pandemic hits we are absolutely SCREWED because government and the media handled COVID so badly.

Harambe wrote:

Lead Foil Hat V wrote:

Um, show a link that proves masks do anything significant to mitigate viral spread in a community. There are plenty of papers that say otherwise.

The funny thing about Texas is that since Abbott re-opened everything with no masks there has been:

basically no change in COVID case trajectory

no change in employment

no change in mobility

no change in retail foot traffic

The takeaway from the "Texas experiment" is that nothing actually changed so I don't think we can learn what we want to learn:

https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1394294260787261447

My take is that individual behavior choices are the dominant force in the USA. Government rules, especially after the first month or two -- where we learned they are basically unenforced -- are only part of the complex information system each person synthesizes to decide if they are going to risk killing grandma or not.

People were not risking killing grandma any more than they do each year as the flu or other seasonal viruses go around. All of your points here are a pointless effort to deflect from the reality that anything you espoused did almost nothing to affect trajectory of this virus and in many places that listened to the idiocy (not Texas) only worked to destroy the education of our youth, local businesses, and the financial state of millions of poor people. Yes, you are still just FOS, S that ended up ruining a lot of lives and killing a lot of people in 2020. Keep up the good work buddy.

Lead Foil Hat V wrote:

Harambe wrote:

drivel and fearmongering

People were not risking killing grandma any more than they do each year as the flu or other seasonal viruses go around. All of your points here are a pointless effort to deflect from the reality that anything you espoused did almost nothing to affect trajectory of this virus and in many places that listened to the idiocy (not Texas) only worked to destroy the education of our youth, local businesses, and the financial state of millions of poor people. Yes, you are still just FOS, S that ended up ruining a lot of lives and killing a lot of people in 2020. Keep up the good work buddy.

Highlighting this for you, ape brain:

"you are still just FOS, S that ended up ruining a lot of lives and killing a lot of people in 2020. Keep up the good work buddy."

You are worse than some convicted criminals.

^ That was for Harambro2600, the Fearmonger.

Your conjecture is correct. Is also a way to ostracize a reticent part of the population. It’s also a diversion away from the border mess (worse than it’s ever been, which, frankly, is incredibly inhumane), the new Israel/Palestine Civil war, and the pile of debt that is sending the dollar into a downward spiral as the last remnants of the American (Roman) empire are undermined in favor of Trojan horse neo-Marxism. But, mostly, it’s a smokescreen for the fact that masks are next to useless.

This is a rational flagpole take. Note to those freaking out about people not wearing masks who aren't vaccinated. Living in society you have to accept everyone won't behave exactly as you want them to all the time. Seriously let this one go and stop whining about needing a Covid passport and it's far more likely those people will get vaccinated. Continuing to be hysterical and drawing these lines are not helping. A lot of the people not getting vaccinated are doing so purely out of spite right now. I'm not saying this is the right attitude by those not getting vaxxed but it is definitely true. If everyone would calm down and act like rational people you could probably get 25% of those holding out to get the vaccine.

Common Cents wrote:

It’s very obvious that those of us who are vaccinated will continue to mask up while the selfish and unvaccinated will go maskless and spread Covid allowing it to mutate and scales will spike again. Huge mistake by the CDC!!

lol

I ignored the fascist "mask mandates" this entire pandemic.

It's hilarious. Liberals are now rejecting the governmental recommendations and taking personal responsibility for their own health and bodily autonomy. Isn't this what "right-wingers" suggested from the get-go? *thinking emoji*

What I will do:

1. No vaccine.

2. No mask outdoors.

3. Mask indoors when required by the building owner and traveling when required by the transportation provider.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration is politicizing the CDC. The mask guidance was clearly a political move intended to try to coopt Republican governors who have been dropping restrictions. Biden admin did not have the stones to stand up for best practices and stand behind career CDC scientists. Instead, it was a typical Dem centrist move to try to win by conceding your opponents' point. Just like Clinton with welfare reform and Obama with the financial crisis. Lives would be saved by keeping masks and social distancing in place until benchmarks are met. Same for using measures like vaccine passports. Biden admin should be standing up against GOP anti-science positions but is playing the usual centrist Dem tactic.

https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1394672269847318528

Precious Roy wrote:

Lives would be saved by keeping masks and social distancing in place until benchmarks are met. Same for using measures like vaccine passports. Biden admin should be standing up against GOP anti-science positions but is playing the usual centrist Dem tactic.

Insane.

There's no evidence regarding your first point. Look at how "enlightened" blue states with high restrictions got hammered whilst areas of the country full of "noncompliant right-wingers" are comparatively fine. Compare Sweden COVID deaths to Michigan (10 mil population in each region). Then compare "containment" measures. And so on.

Benchmarks??? The government must never be allowed to set such things, as they are always readjusted and moved. If states were allowed to say "we need 70% vaccinated" they'd simply be calling for 80% once that number was met. Hell no.

Vaccine passports are criminally fascist trash. No sane person who values freedom entertains such an idea.

Your body, your choice. If YOU are convinced of the effectiveness of masks, vaccines, distances, etc. than YOU can embrace such measures. No one else is obligated to embrace state fundamentalism, convert to secular sharia, or participate in your apocalypse role-play.