YouBet said:If actual efficacy of the mask is not necessary to your point, then all we have done here is create a self-fulfilling prophecy that they are part of the cost of doing business just so people won't sh^t themselves in unnecessary fear. No value add; no actual preventative feature....just an actual adult pacifier like Maroon said earlier. All just so people can go through life under a false sense of security.austagg99 said:YouBet said:The same CDC that said masks don't work? Which CDC on which day should we consider their guidance valid? We already know that masks do not stop this virus. We have reams of real world data from all over the country and world showing mask usage with zero correlation that they do anything. We have scientists who are on record saying the masks can't stop SARS type viruses...didn't stop the last SARS outbreak....but it will stop this one for...reasons?austagg99 said:Cassius said:austagg99 said:
the governments decision to end the mandate to wear mask doesn't change the responsibility that comes with my freedom. Wearing a well fitting well designed mask in confined areas is a small burden and has been shown to lower transmission rates (even if only a little). Because of those two things I still wear one. The fact that someone would see my decision to do that in any type of negative way shows how ridiculously politicized such a simple decision has become. Such a response seriously brings into question whether that persons judgement is being clouded by politics.
There is no evidence of aggregate, reduced transmission of a virus related to donning masks. If you want to wear one, do it. But drop the nonsense about doing it based on evidence of reduced rates of transmission.
It's a beautiful day, and I'm sitting on my back porch enjoying a beer so I'm not going to track down citations (besides reading the cdc guidelines recommended to me by one of the ill informed posters above) but focused studies I've read showed that good masks worn properly reduce the transmission of particles that we know transmit the disease. Given that fact and the absence of conclusive studies either way on population transmission the CONSERVATIVE approach to this problem given the low cost of wearing a mask would be to wear one properly fitted.
But, you've already moved my direction anyway by staying there are no conclusive studies so we should just wear a mask...just in case. Again, feel free to wear one. No one is going to yell at you for it. FTR, I wear one into businesses that require it, so I'm not joyfully double birding people with no mask on as I waltz into a business. I won't be wearing one in businesses that don't require it though because they do nothing except restrict my breathing and they are dehumanizing.
Excuse me if I was not clear my intention was not to concede there is no evidence that shows aggregate transmission is not affected by masks only that it's not necessary for my point. Btw you originally cited the cdc not me.
To frame the problem in a different way. If you were running a business that depended on meeting tight deadlines with crucial people working in confined spaces with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake would you pay the people a little extra money to compensate for hassle of wearing a mask given the potential risk aversion masks would give you?
What a damn ridiculous premise to live under. You are essentially proposing a solution that is looking for a problem. If your employees are working in close quarters with an endemic virus that bypasses pretty much everything but an N95 mask, they are going to catch it regardless of a mask or not. I guess if it makes them feel better and allows you to maintain peak employee productivity until one of them catches the virus (regardless of a mask or not) then feel free to provide them masks or pay them more.
You are wasting your money though because they are going to get it anyway.
Actually in life you have to make all kinds of decisions without conclusive aggregate studies so no it's not a damn ridiculous premise to live under. We do it everyday. Generally you use your intuition to make those decisions. As I stated earlier our intuition tends to fail us in low probability high risk situations. In the business example I used of course you would follow all reasonable protocols social distancing, extra cleaning, installing proper filtration systems, and if you had 100s of millions of dollars at stake the smart thing to do would be to have your employees wear proper masks (because the cost is low) based on none aggregate transmission studies. It's just simple risk mitigation when the cost is high. The worst thing that can happen to you as a company in that situation is to loose the contract because of an outbreak you could have prevented. It's the smart thing to do in the face of so many unknowns.