> How do you tell from the outside it's not for rational reasons?

Look at the data.

However, I agree with you, whoever wants to wear a mask can. Just don’t expect others to wear one too. Your own paranoia does not mean you get to tell others what to do.

> Look at the data.

The way that the death rate in SF is very low comparatively suggests that overshooting with social policy has been very effective.

Those "performative displays of mask wearing in public when it isn't really necessary" actually worked.

Wearing masks when you don't have to produced social pressure towards wearing masks all the time and when it was more necessary and that turns out to have saved lives.

They should start unwinding that now, but it'll take a few months.

For all the people who fixate on the fact that "its not necessary" -- yes, it was, because humans aren't rational like you think they should be. Yep, we're often just "sheep" and "follow the herd", but the "irrational" policies in SF saved lives.

Looking at the graphs of the SF metro area they did about as good as Seattle metro did even though SF is more densely packed. They were way better than Dallas and saved a lot of lives compared to LA.

> They should start unwinding that now, but it'll take a few months.

How do you determine when the right point to start unwinding it is? Just glancing at random new-cases-in-SF graphs on google, we're somewhat better off than 1 year ago, but not like by an order of magnitude. Based on that, I think I'll want to keep wearing a mask and avoid people who aren't wearing masks where not too troublesome, for now.

SF is down to 3.9 new cases per 100,000 per day from a peak of 53.9, it is already going to be silly to be wearing masks while walking around in public away from crowds. You were never going to catch coronavirus from walking past someone who had it (which is one reason why the protests were not significant sources of spread). I seriously doubt that masks outside in SF serve any purpose right now in SF.

And the rate is still declining, at some point it'll be under 1 in 100,000 which would be 3,300 cases per day across the united states. I doubt we can achieve a lot better than that given that there's 883 million outpatient visits per year (CDC stats) with 1% of them for influenza like illness in the summertime which is a 24,000/day minimum rate. Having 10% of that background be coronavirus is probably the lowest it'll go.

There's always going to be some level of coronavirus spread, but if you're vaccinated and the level of spread is where its at now in SF then you need to be more worried about getting T-boned by an Escalade (particularly the way people blow red lights in SF).

So the people in this thread are correct. The time to unwind is pretty much now. At the same time they're unreasonable to expect everyone to just instantly drop everything because they're failing to account for the way people behave (and particularly when the strategy has been successful for the past ~15 months).

And here's a good graph:

https://covidactnow.org/share/36630/?redirectTo=%2Fus%2Fmetr...

(think you may need to scroll up)

That compares SF to Orlando, Miami and LA. And SF includes Oakland in that graph (SF County's numbers are slightly lower).

That is for all the "then how do you explain how Florida did so much better?" people. Florida-vs-California looks better because SF is actually a bit of an island in this case.

That graph makes it look like Miami, Orlando and San Francisco are all about the same. Which is kind of the point, that masks maybe didn't really help.

The alleged paranoia is not one unless herd immunity is verified, and effective against upcoming variants from abroad.

Precautionary principle gives it a few months of wait time after that research, to ensure it's valid and repeated.

That would make sense if masks protected me, but that’s not how they work. Masks are not protective of the wearer, they protect the wearer from spreading to others.

The research is months old on this. It seems pretty valid to me, and to public health agencies issuing guidance.

Also from basic logical principles, if vaccinated then masks don’t do much of anything.

I don’t think you owe anyone your rationale for why you wear a mask, but it’s irrational to expect others to wear masks when they are past the point of usefulness. Or to hold negative opinions of people who don’t wear masks.

If anything, wearing masks using faulty logic is something that should be avoided. As trying to avoid all illogical things.

Trying to avoid illogical things isn't in itself logical. Not accounting for people acting irrationally isn't rational.

Your argument from logical principle presupposes that vaccinated people wearing masks is 100% useless. I don't think that's right, eg. wearing a mask isn't 100% useless for protecting yourself, vaccination doesn't provide 100% certainty that you aren't carrying/spreading the virus, and even wearing masks purely performatively may induce unvaccinated people to wear masks. You may be correct in discounting that because of statistical arguments and low probabilities, but at that point you are making some sort of risk/benefit judgement call and not a purely logic-driven conclusion.

Good point, I’m not arguing that something is 100% useless. Just that there is not high enough marginal utility to be worthwhile.

Vaccines aren’t 100% effective, so obviously a mask worn by someone who is vaccinated but infected will reduce their ability to infect others.

I think you’re right that I’m arguing about a risk/benefit calculus and that the specific result is that the benefits of masks+vaccines are not high enough to outweigh the costs.

But I think this is driven from the logical basis of how masks work, how vaccines work, public health interventions work, etc.

Many people misunderstand masks and they they are protective for the wearer. Or they think masks give greater protection, etc.

Covid is not the only thing masks help to prevent /contain.

Most people wear a mask in SF because they want to, not because they have to. You are free to not were them if you like, no one is going to stop you .

I wear it and then forget about it, it is lot more hassle to remember to remove in some contexts sometimes that means wearing while driving alone. It doesn't bother me, not sure why people get winded about it.

Tip: All the people engaging in ad hominem based arguments against people wearings masks are under the thrall of normalcy bias. What annoys them about people wearing masks is it's hard in their face that other people don't believe things are normal.

I think they're also a bit under the thrall of being a bit on the spectrum and expecting everyone in the world to be terminally online and to behave like Spock all the time.

(And I pretty much am all those things, but I don't expect everyone else in the world to be)