Our track record dealing with covid shows us that our approach was largely unsuccessful. Masking must be enforced, not suggested. This is the only effective solution.
I tend to agree, but realistically who is going to enforce it? You've got to take into consideration the impact the constant stream of conflict has on low level employees who end up responsible for this enforcement. For those who want to protect themselves, N95 masks are highly effective when used properly.
Right, it's not going to be accepted by the public or broadly enforced by anyone. The only thing we can do is wear effective masks to protect ourselves. That's basically been the reality of it the whole time.
You also need to wear eye protection. Even just regular, prescription glasses showed a 30% reduction in infection rates. Masks don't protect if other people wont also wear them.
I'm struggling to understand how glasses work wear a mask wouldn't. I'm not saying glasses won't help prevent people spitting Covid into your eyes. But how can you believe that and think wearing a mask won't help at all?
In an ideal world, the community. In our current world, the government must require businesses to require customers to wear masks and social distance, and threaten them with suspending their business if they do not comply.
the impact the constant stream of conflict has on low level employees who end up responsible for this enforcement
It will not be constant. Places where this was enforced strictly did not have that trouble. It is the wishy-washy enforcement that empowered people to do this. It will be a short lived protest that dies out quickly, and the suffering will be far easier than that of covid deaths.
For those who want to protect themselves, N95 masks are highly effective when used properly
From my understanding, it is not enough. A person sharing a public space with you and not wearing a mask poses a threat, and this threat is massive if they are carrying the virus (even if non-symptomatic).
People must not have the freedom to cause the death or others by spreading respiratory viruses due to childish irresponsibility because their favorite youtuber said so.
People were such dimwits about it though. Even if you had a security guard at the entrance to every shop challenging people to wear properly fitted n95s, I'm certain heaps of people would remove it after they walked past just on principle.
Yeah it was a shitshow, all because of how politicized it became. No one in 2018 would have thought that asking people to wear a face mask would become such an embarrassing ordeal.
But trust me, it's easy to catch a mask less person in a store. It shouldn't take more than a couple incidents before they learn their lesson and make an example for others.
You people need to be stopped, you are insane autoritarians. The crisis is over, we are but fin to wear mask forever. You had your time in the lime light, now it's back to normal. Continue to abuse this position and you will not get the population to mobilise again to alleviate the situation.
Once again we see the abled throwing tantrums over the idea of having to suffer a mild discomfort so as to protect the lives of the disabled, especially the immunocompromised.
I have an aunt whose immune system has to be medicated into nonexistence at all times so it doesn't wreck her body, and she is still fucked up from covid, months after "getting over" it and with multiple vaccine shots beforehand. How many people have you killed or left permanently ill, and never realised, in your selfish ignorance?
If there were any divine justice in this world, idiots like you would be smote with horrible autoimmune diseases or total organ failure, forced to go on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of your lives, and live with the same fear you force on others, the fear that any "harmless" disease could be the death of you.
How authoritative. Personal responsibility is the answer. Not forcing others to your level. If your threat level is that high, ok that is your choice. However everyones threat level to this thing should take into account that not everyone in your community will be on the same page as you.
Unless you want another trucker convoy emerging, I suggest not forcing any mandates. Enforce any mandate on yourself, but only yourself.
No one must have the freedom to cause the death of other people by spreading lethal respiratory viruses, only because they failed to comply with every one of the million warnings about covid-19 and masks. Just because your favorite youtuber told you masks are bad does not give you the right to murder people. This behavior must be stopped at all costs, and I do not care what you think of it.
You are an absolute virus factory, you should never be allowed outside again. You stay home forever, we'll bring your food don't worry. We can't take the chance of your germs getting out again.
By going outside and interacting in the world will always have the risk of danger, injury, illness and death. The modern world is the most safest envoriment that have ever existed.
If restrictions do return, it will only cause more division and more protests. The trucker convoy that started in Canada was a response to the government overreach in Canada and across the west since politicians and the media were treating the population at large like children.
We are adults (And I assume you are also an adult), and therefore we can make our own decisions. You can wear a mask. Your kids if you got any can wear a mask. You can refuse to spend time with others who do not wear masks, you can refuse to work at a job that makes masking optional, you can refuse to shop at places that refuse to enforce a mask policy.
This behavior must be stopped at all costs, and I do not care what you think of it.
Alright, but many people do not care what you think and will disregard your strict stance on the matter. Not because they are "murderers" which is quite a claim to make, but because everyone has their own threat level. My advice is, include the fact many other people do not care about your threat model and not force your threat model onto every one else. The world does not revolve around anybody.
Personal responsibility is the answer if the question is, 'Would you like to contribute to millions of unnecessary deaths and further countless suffering?' It clearly doesn't work as a public health strategy.
There is no need for a public health strategy. This idea that we all must bubble wrap the world is insane. Germs and viruses will always exist. Do what is best for you stop getting mad at others who have different threat models than you.
I wish everyone used Linux, but I know that will never happen. I use Linux and will help anyone that wants to use linux and thats were it ends. I move on and am happy being a Linux user. I do not expect the government to force the population to use Linux to make a more digitial secure and private society, that will be insane and will piss off most of the population. Mandates are no different.
If we took this approach to those other germs and viruses that you mention, quality of life and life expectancy would plummet as fast as infant mortality shot up. There's nothing special about Covid in that regard except that it needs more respect than many other issues.
Edit: I edited my comment because I was a bit rude. I apologise for that.
The world will always have a hint of danger, and germs and viruses are included in this mix. Life expectancy did not increase due to public compliants to health measures, it increased due to things like soap, showering/bathing every day or two instead of every few months and the standard for hygeine in factories like meat plants. And medicine has come a long way to cure old nasty diseases.
Edit: I edited my comment because I was a bit rude. I apologise for that.
Don't know what you said but I do appreciate the apology.
I know what you're saying. But basic hygeine, etc, work against some illnesses while other health scares require different strategies (as well as good hygeine). I think we may be talking at cross purposes, working with very different models of the world and of what's possible.
If COVID was as bad as it was advertised. We would of seen the results in the world, and therefore people would voluntarily take the appropate percautions. No need for state intervention. If the pandemic was bad and the state did nothing about it, except maybe advise some caution which is how Japan mostly handled the pandemic, people will do what is nesissary.
Why does politics have to get involved? Because the government got so involved in the pandemic, that why it became politicial. Sometimes ignoring a problem like a virus you cannot really control is the best course of action and it will take care of itself in a grassroots sort of a way.
One of the smartest ways to win in the game Plague Inc is to make your virus have mild acute symptoms that are easy to dismiss or confuse as other things, and then really fucked up chronic symptoms later on. Symptom severity is not the same as underlying disease severity. The immune system doesn't always enter the panic mode entailed by a fever, in some cases because the virus has outsmarted it. HIV is a virus that starts as a cold, and then does all its damage silently. Judging a virus by its acute symptoms is one way to fuck around and find out
That's a good read, thanks. It's scary (a) how scary Covid is and (b) how bad public science/mathematics/health education is to lead so many people to confidently misunderstand the very basics of infection, disease, and statistics.
For one Plaugue Inc is a game. And most of the models that were made to project the outcome of COVID were way off.
Again, why does the state had to get involved? The government did not ban sex, needles or go on a hardcore ban on drugs back when HIV was the scare. HIV does still exist but has not wiped out the human race. COVID or any virus is no different. If we have like HIV 2.0, do what you want for any precautions as a personal threat model. There is no need to enforce it on others.
I know you're being combative so it's unlikely, but did you actually read both sources? One is a review of around 70 studies, before and during the pandemic, sonme unpublished. The other is a review of 5000 articles which found statistically significant results..
A total of 6 studies were included, involving 4 countries, after a total of 5,178 eligible articles were searched in databases and references.
They literally typed some shit into the journal search database that had that many articles. They didn’t study all of those articles. Their study is founded exclusively from 6 studies. The Cochrane review’s approach is far more comprehensive and goes into considerably more depth in many more studies.
So, maybe you didn’t read the articles? Or maybe you don’t understand population level, public health study methods.
Fair point, I did misread that. But it seems you're acting in bad faith with just one source again. Any search amongst published articles provide evidence for the efficacy and cost effectiveness of masks as a adjunct preventative measure. It seems rather like cherry picking to trust the one place that goes against the grain, no?