Re:Why don’t we just open the windows? Covid-19 prevention l...
by dredmorbius on Monday November 29, 2021 @01:57AM
(#29377161)
And the fact that that was 1) motivated by other concerns (principally: ensuring availability of then VERY scarce masks for medical personnel and first responders), 2) bad advice, and 3) backfired very badly has been public record since ... March of 2020. See Zynep Tufekci's "Why Telling People They Don’t Need Masks Backfired"
Given that there is indeed a mask shortage and that medical workers absolutely do need these masks more, what should the authorities have said? The full painful truth. Despite warnings from experts for decades, especially after the near miss of SARS, we still weren’t prepared for this pandemic, and we did not ramp up domestic production when we could, and now there’s a mask shortage — and that’s disastrous because our front line health care workers deserve the best protection. Besides, if they fall ill, we will all be doomed.
If anything, a call for people who hoarded masks to donate some of them to their local medical workers would probably work better than telling people that they don’t need them or that they won’t manage to make them work. “Look, more masks would be great. We are doing our best to ramp up production. Till then, if our medical workers fall ill, we will all be worse off. Please donate any excess — maybe more than two weeks’ worth per person — to your hospital” sounds corny, but it’s the truth.
Oddly, it seems to be those who still most strongly resist wearing (or bully others for wearing) masks who seem to recall those first few weeks of ill-advised messaging.
Given that there is indeed a mask shortage and that medical workers absolutely do need these masks more, what should the authorities have said? The full painful truth. Despite warnings from experts for decades, especially after the near miss of SARS, we still weren’t prepared for this pandemic, and we did not ramp up domestic production when we could, and now there’s a mask shortage — and that’s disastrous because our front line health care workers deserve the best protection. Besides, if they fall ill, we will all be doomed.
If anything, a call for people who hoarded masks to donate some of them to their local medical workers would probably work better than telling people that they don’t need them or that they won’t manage to make them work. “Look, more masks would be great. We are doing our best to ramp up production. Till then, if our medical workers fall ill, we will all be worse off. Please donate any excess — maybe more than two weeks’ worth per person — to your hospital” sounds corny, but it’s the truth.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-...
Oddly, it seems to be those who still most strongly resist wearing (or bully others for wearing) masks who seem to recall those first few weeks of ill-advised messaging.