Exactly. I wonder how many lives could have been saved if we (western/European countries) didn’t have such an aversion to wearing face masks, even in a time of pandemic?
I wonder how many lives could have been saved if we (western/European countries) didn’t have such an aversion to wearing face masks
My wife and I were one of the few people wearing masks at the start of the pandemic, before the closing and work from home orders came. We were harassed by random people shouting at us.
Also, I don't really get the societal penalty for disaster preparation. It's completely illogical. Just a few weeks before the news was really onboard with the pandemic, a woman at my apartment was looking at how many amazon boxes I had on my hand cart. I told her, "In times like this, it pays to be prepared." She looked at me like I was scum. My understanding is that some news outlets were actually denigrating disaster preparation at that point.
> Also, I don't really get the societal penalty for disaster preparation.
It makes a lot of sense: if you're preparing for a disaster, you won't go down with everyone else when disaster strikes. This creates some feeling of resentment which caused people to lash out at you.
you won't go down with everyone else when disaster strikes. This creates some feeling of resentment which caused people to lash out at you.
A well known psychologist was castigated a few years back for his likening people to lobsters. Yet here we have a perfect example of people acting like the proverbial lobsters who drag the escaping lobster back into the pot.
I was in a similar position at work. I was continually pointing out from mid-January onwards, that this was a serious issue that might spread world-wide. That we should at least conduct some tests/drills to insure that our business could function remotely. I was treated like a third head had grown atop my shoulders.
Jump to mid-March, when the pandemic was obvious to anyone with the least amount of curiosity, and the same group was saying "It's just a flu." The only thing that was socially acceptable to discuss was how many guns you might need in an apocalypse.
Technically, not an influenza virus. However, from what we know of virus diseases that cross species, it's not the 1st time a virus with this severe capability to spread rapidly has crossed over into humans. It's also not going to be the last.
The aspect of that statement that's true, which is worse than a lie, is that, "It's just a flu," puts people in mind of a disease that's a normalized part of everyday life. It's often the case, that when a virus crosses over to our species, the situation is far more dire than normal.
IIRC, when syphilis crossed over into humans, it would flat-out kill people in 2 weeks.
My best theory so far is that when it comes to telling people what they themselves need to do (as opposed to inactionable general fear), mainstream media narratives are based around telling audiences the easy answer that they want to hear - eg you don't have to do anything to prepare, and those that do are wrong. Obviously this has always been an ongoing quality (eg no need to oppose the Iraq war since it's just), but with a public health emergency it's front and center.
Well, it was impossible to buy masks for much of the lockdown in France, so…
But banning the sale of masks isn't the most stupid idea we had in France, I'd say it was forbidding jogging from 10h to 19h in Paris was the worst, with all the joggers clustering from 8h to 10h and 19h to 20h
No one has done a controlled study on this, so no one really knows. It ranges from zero to many.
The reason government and medical signaling on the subject has been so mixed is that it isn’t apparent they are very effective, especially the jury rigged cloth masks that people are using.
Even basic mask works quite well in stopping infected person spreading it further. This isn't some recent covid-related revelation, but long known fact. To say it for the 1000th time - this doesn't make you magically virus-proof, but significantly lowers the infection rate of those who have it. On large enough scale, this behavior makes significant difference in infection rates.
I have yet to see a single western leader to recommend those masks for all the interactions (indoor at least). Case point - yesterday I went shopping in fairly large supermarket in Switzerland, and there were maybe 5 other customers (out of at least 100 in the store during that time, probably close to 200 plus all the staff) wearing masks, or gloves. People at least often kept their distance (not always possible in aisles), but that's about it. In a country which has one of most per-capita infections globally.
Why? They rely heavily on politicians doing right stuff. Mostly it works, but in these times politicians prefer keeping economy running (they delayed strong measures when things were getting worse than bad in Italy few kms from their border due to fear of financial impacts... well now they are worse but delayed by few days).
New York and New Jersey have gone past recommending masks, and have mandated them for anyone out in public, along with limiting the number of people allowed to go into a store, and a 6ft distance in any line/queue.
There are many controlled studies on other respiratory disease like the flu, and some on other corona viruses like SARS the show high efficacy of masks. If you doubt the science, fall back on common sense. A respiratory barrier is going to have some value in diminishing the ability of a respiratory virus to spread.
The reason government and medical signaling on the subject has been so mixed is that it isn’t apparent they are very effective
The reason signaling has been mixed is because they were trying to preserve supply for medical professionals. The reason that medical professionals need them is because they work.
>No one has done a controlled study on this, so no one really knows. It ranges from zero to many.
Can't remember seeing any controlled studies on the efficacy of social distancing either.
Many of the healthcare professionals in the countries that dealt with SARS are calling for universal mask wearing.
I'd much rather trust their intuition and judgement than governments and media outlets passing the buck to the WHO.
> Can't remember seeing any controlled studies on the efficacy of social distancing either.
No, but we have mountains of evidence from respiratory diseases throughout history, including the common cold and seasonal flu, that distancing lowers transmission.
It's why people are encouraged to stay home from work when they are sick, and why in normal situations, people in lines of work where they cannot afford to stay home from work get sick more often.
Social distancing is one of the oldest public health protocols we have for disease transmission control.
Sure, many old practices for disease prevention amount to nothing but old wives tales, but social distancing likely isn't one of them.
They don't have to always work well. If Alice's mask stops half the particles and Bob's mask stops half the particles, the chance of Alice infecting Bob is now 4x lower. 50% is not as good as 95%, but surely better than 0%.
All we need to do is bring the reproductive number below 1, not necessarily all the way to 0.
I've also seen a tendency for people to disregard all of the other social distancing measures now that masks are more common. Squeezing up next to someone to grab a bunch of parsley rather than waiting 5 seconds for them to move on. Tons of face touching from adjusting masks too.
Well, first of all, there were no masks to wear. Not even enough to properly equip all medical personal. But yes, if people would wear masks whenever there is the risk that they are sick, be it Covid-19, the flu or just a cold, it would be beneficial.
You can make them yourself on a sewing machine, or even sewing by hand if you're desperate. My partner and I have made ~20 in some of our spare time in the last three weeks, for ourselves and our close family and friends. It's not high tech.
Didn't even have to go out and buy more materials.
Making your own masks is certainly something many people can do, but also many that can't. But many who can, are doing that now. And slowly the supply of commercial masks is improving here in Germany too. As the lockdown is slowly released, people will be wearing masks and that should help a lot with keeping infection numbers down. And hopefully wearing masks becomes standard now when affected by any kind of infectious disease.
Although only maybe half of the people around where I live are wearing masks of any variety, it doesn't hurt to wear a bandana or a buff or whatever when you go into a store. It probably doesn't do much good but it doesn't hurt and isn't any real effort.
we don't have an aversion to it. Neoliberal governments went out of their way to chastise mask wearing because it would paint a bad picture as they wanted people to actually just die "for the economy".
Exactly. I wonder how many lives could have been saved if we (western/European countries) didn’t have such an aversion to wearing face masks, even in a time of pandemic?