Specialized medical masks and careful usage can, yes. But even a cloth mask provides some benefit, and much of the benefit is to others: your mask reduces the likelihood of your infecting others, their mask reduces the likelihood of them infecting you. There have been multiple analyses showing that non-specialized masks (e.g. cloth) provide some benefit, even though they're not a complete substitute for medical masks.
For some strange reason, this particular family of misinformation seems to have become both political and conspiracy-adjacent; it shouldn't be. There is little to no value in replaying the same arguments here, nor any value in a prolonged repetitive thread. It really shouldn't be necessary to have mandates to do things that ought to be common sense and basic decency, but such is the current state of the world, even when there's plenty of data to demonstrate the problem.
> This viral class never goes away.
https://ncase.me/covid-19/ - There are many things we can and should do, simultaneously, in a coordinated concerted way, to reduce impact, save lives, and put us on a path to eradicating it.
https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1280283199445311488
There's plenty more where those came from. There's valid reason to speculate how long this will take, and we should certainly plan for many scenarios including the worst. But there's no supporting evidence for such a confident assumption of "never", and even if that were true it still wouldn't justify blithely risking other people's lives.
> why not use a mask desinged for viruses instead of making medical decisions for other people
There aren't enough, they require a professional level of skill to use correctly, and in case you haven't seen pictures and videos of people using them, they're multi-layer armor, not just a simple mask. Also, the operative thing being protected against is droplets that carry the virus, not just the virus itself. See also secondhand smoke, vaccination, and other ways in which people are required to put up with minor inconveniences to protect the lives of others. And you absolutely have an option if you don't wear a mask: stay home. If you can't afford or find a mask, there are numerous people and places generously arranging to ensure everyone has access to some. Work towards a solution, rather than arguing why you should be able to be part of the problem.
"some benefit"
So do helmets. And banning smoking as you mentioned, kinda. And mandatory exercise. Heck fasting would offset the death stats in spades. Should I go on? What's your point? From the examples you listed, I must assume you are not for making these masks not desinged for viruses legally required. I dont think it will even remotely withstandand a Constutional challenge, but lets talk in the theoritical. Are you pro forced-medical procedures? If so, will you advocate using violence to do it?
A _really_ interesting angle is when you consider the set intersection of the authortarians with the socalized medicine proponents.
Why not talk about that CDC pdf? This is prob the last comment before I hit my limit, but I'll reply if given the chance when it resets.
If your response to "wear a mask to protect others" is "how dare you infringe my rights" rather than "how shall we work together to solve the problem", there's even less point in continuing this. Stay home.
Plenty of states have banned smoking in public places; it isn't about not harming yourself, it's about not harming others. I'm absolutely in favor of "you must wear a mask indoors / around people / in public", as well as the absolute right of others to kick you out of places for not wearing one, and to otherwise treat you like a walking biohazard.
Helmets aren't an operative analogy; those only protect yourself and have zero impact on others, so feel free to decide how much you value your skull.
Typical escape. It's the class of crime between n>1 people.
Why not address that CDC pdf?
I respect property rights, without them we have no property.
Walking biohazard? You really think that helps your argument? Can you attach a stat to that? What % of unmasked walkers? ----Why not use the masks forever?---- You avoided the first and primary question.
Helmets; why not say if you are for socalized medicine? I dont need to make the connection for you. States banning smoking with law was a mistake, property rights and voting with our $ were more than sufficent. I wont go somewhere if I dont like the enviroment.
As for your CDC PDF, is your point that there were 131,858 pneumonia deaths in 2014-2015 as a way to make it seem like the COVID-19 death count is in line with that? Because that is just ludicrous
There have been 133K deaths in the US out of 3.05M confirmed cases. Studies on the disease being asymptomatic have found it is asymptomatic around 20% of the time. This was from situations like the aircraft carrier where they tested everyone onboard or sports leagues. Thus, they were testing those entire populations. In both cases, those were some of the healthiest, fittest, youngest people compared to the broader population. Thus, there is no reason to think that they were underestimates of the level of asymptomaticness. But for the sake of demonstration, let's assume that we are undercounting the number of infections by 5X. Thus, there would be 15M people currently infected (as opposed to the 3M confirmed cases).
With that, the disease would have a fatality rate of 133K/15M, which is 0.89%.
While that might seem low, when you combine that with how insanely infectious this disease is (where any reasonable estimate would have this thing going through virtually the entire population without extreme social distancing). Thus, let's assume in a world without masks and social distancing we would have around 200M people infected.
That would be 1.78M deaths. That is more than the entire death count in your CDC pdf (1,769,940). Thus, more people would die from COVID-19 this year than all regular deaths combined. And this is with that 5X case count adjustment.
No offense, but you sound like a libertarian who never actually took the time to study economics in order to truly understand the nature of externalities. You are just mad are people infringing what you perceive to be your rights yet you are unwilling to acknowledge that you are infringing their rights through these negative externalities.
It would be worth reading Ronald Coase's "The Problem of Social Cost"[1] to perhaps refresh your knowledge of externalities. In it, he describes a situation (first described by Pigou) wherein a train catches a field on fire with sparks. He analyzes how if you force the train to not do this and side with the farmer, you are harming the train. While if you allow the train to do this, then you are harming the farmer. That is the nature of a negative externality -- inherently one person's perceived liberty/rights are infringed by another in either direction. But then if both rights are in conflict with one another, then surely they cannot both truly be rights for each cannot be maintained without the violation of the other. Thus, it is the role of the government to settle this by defining who has what rights.
[1] https://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/file/coase-problem.pdf
"pointing a gun at people is an apt parallel" parallel to what? Not wearing a fake face mask? The face masks are giving the people that need a real mask[1] a false sense of safety. It's entirely possible, even likely that the effect is negative. Comparing virus transmission to a direct threat to life shows frankly that you are not making a serious argument. Think I'm wrong about that? Why not attach some numbers to your example?
"there were 131,858 pneumonia deaths in 2014-2015 as a way to make it seem like the COVID-19 death count is in line with that?"
Yes. Ignoring the over-counting, it's roughly 2x a normal flu. Note you dont even try to get a # for non-covid flu/pneumonia for the pandemic part of 2019/2020. It's a glaring omission, I pointed it out in my first comment (and many before that) because, nobody will do it. Why is that?
"With that, the disease would have a fatality rate of 133K/15M, which is 0.89%."
Yep. But it's even lower. The error bars on your estimate are easily >20%[2]. People have pre-exising antibodies. Why ignore that video I posted? Or my comment that "The only real measure is excess deaths"?
Why are we not talking about excess deaths? Are you going to argue that all COVID-19 deaths are because of the virus? It's clearly not true, and that is officially acked. I posed that explanation, it's common knowledge.
"how insanely infectious this disease is (where any reasonable estimate would have this thing going through virtually the entire population without extreme social distancing)."
We flattened the curve. I assume agree. Germany is the only country that comes close to our death stats. Now you are going to claim that the virus isnt going to infect most people?
1.78M deaths! Seriously, someone should make a list of forum COVID-19 death predictions.
These predictions of millions dead are 100% incorrect, but some people keep making them. It's not established that anything we did significantly changed the outcome, certainly not using fake masks. There is even a country where the masks were banned.
"no offense"
None taken, it's pretty common to try and label people. If the socialists get their way, we can label everything a negative externality, cant we?
----Why not use the masks forever?----
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23730633
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/cdc-and-s...