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Hello COVID, Goodbye Common Sense (Mask Edition)
The mask has become a political statement. President Trump is being criticized for his refusal to wear one. And in response, Democratic candidate Joe Biden made his first public appearance in one today at a Memorial Day ceremony:
Joe Biden has left his house for the first time in two months for a Memorial Day visit to the Delaware Memorial Bridge Veterans Memorial Park and lay a wreath. pic.twitter.com/34D4Gd0YcC
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) May 25, 2020
Biden’s choice of a mask highlights why he’s wearing it: to virtue-signal and draw a distinction between him and Trump.
This is what a REAL President and First Lady look like. 🇺🇸 #MemorialDay2020 pic.twitter.com/5ujhWsqIG3
— Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 (@joncoopertweets) May 25, 2020
Biden is wearing a black cloth mask, black presumably in honor of the day. But why wear it at all? The cloth mask doesn’t protect the wearer, it protects those who may encounter them. The cloth mask does not filter out the virus, it protects those outside from spit and vapor particles (and not especially well, they’re mostly just for show).
Why would Biden wear a cloth mask? He’s been isolated for two months; there’s no way he has the virus. Biden, however, is in the age group where he should be wearing a mask, but to protect himself, not protect anyone from him. If Biden were making a logical choice with his mask selection, he would be in an N95, not a cloth mask slipping off of his nose.
The fixation on the mask as a symbol is sometimes bordering on satire, like here with actress Alyssa Milano, in a mask full of holes:
Show me your masks! Masks keep people safe and healthy. Show me yours! Ready? Go! #WearAMask pic.twitter.com/MV9xANK9ll
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) May 23, 2020
And it’s making people crazy, like here in Staten Island at a supermarket, where shoppers harassed a woman not wearing one:
Staten Islanders with masks drive out non-mask wearing person in grocery store. #Coronavirus pic.twitter.com/iPQwk7lD9y
— McAuley (@McauleyHolmes) May 25, 2020
Here’s a crazy idea: If you’re high-risk, if you see a shopper not in a mask, keep a “social distance.” If you’re high-risk and choose to go out, invest in N95 masks. But it’s not about the mask as a public health measure anymore, it’s about the mask acting as some sort of social signal, even when they don’t make any sense.
Published in General
This is easy:
Mask good. You care about people, and believe saving every life is worth the sacrifice of your freedoms and those of others.
No mask bad. You hate people. You’re an uncaring individual who risks his own life and others for your own selfish pursuits.
Who knew something so simple as a mask one wears when mowing or cleaning the cats’ litterboxes could turn into a politicial statement concerning life and death . . .
The only people around him are his wife and his protective detail – all people he’s around 24/7. If one of them has COVID, he’s hosed anyway.
Not wearing a mask makes you an unwitting agent of the Biden campaign. Because his best hope is a big 2nd wave of the pandemic. Every act we take to reopen the economy w/o a significant spike in deaths means Trump wins hugely. For Biden, it’s the Obama plan again-a crisis was his path to the presidency and of course the Democrats won’t let a crisis go to waste. Pity for Joe, he looks like he won’t finish his term- so his VP gets to run, or is that ruin, the country. So, while wearing my mask I am humming “a mask a day keeps Biden away”. A very small sacrifice for my beloved country. Remember it isn’t about you-it is about protecting our country from Ol’ Joe and his grifting  brother and son.
The mask covers the gag.
But he can’t smell any women’s hair so his handlers want it on him 24/7.
Is dementia contagious?
Didn’t Alyssa tweet out a pic wearing a loosely crocheted mask? Virtue signaling at its finest- loose knit-that would stop anything.
The hit to Staten Island is the most devastating consequence.
The crochet mask Milano wears is unintentionally hilarious! Reminds me of this meme:
With you 100%. Masks are idiotic. That said, I don’t begrudge those who cannot leave their houses without a placebo. Provided they don’t force it on me.
Interesting: ihme is now admitting that lifting the lockdowns hasn’t had the effect they predicted. They have shifted to claiming that this is because of masks. When we finally “discover” that masks are pointless, I sure hope there are a lot of people willing to admit how outrageously stupid they’ve been.
(fwiw, I suspect that the earliest states to reopen probably also have the lowest adoption of masks)
You knew this pandemic was over the minute it became primarily an issue of partisan politics. Good news, in a way.
I don’t think this is entirely accurate. If you’re carrying COVID and you wear a somewhat serious, non-crocheted mask when you go to the grocery (or other confined spaces with lots of people — subways), you are less likely to infect someone else by droplet transmission (speaking, coughing, sneezing. . .). However, if you walk through a cloud of aerosolized virus in an indoor space, wearing a mask is like using a chain link fence to keep out mosquitoes. IOW, not at all useful.Â
Thing is, I don’t think we understand the means of transmission very well yet. It seems like, if aerosolized virus was the primary means, the rate of infection would be much, much higher. But, obviously it’s contagious enough that droplet transmission doesn’t seem to explain it all. In any case, I think wearing a (non-crocheted) mask in indoor spaces where lots of people come and go is prudent for now. Wearing one outdoors in UV-exposed sunlit open air where distancing is possible (the Bidens at wreath laying) is just silly, and wearing masks in the car while traveling with people you live with (the Milanos) is ridiculous. Even with all my family’s vulnerabilities, I still walk the dogs maskless and without worries.Â
Fair enough. When I say “masks are idiotic,” what I mean is this idea that everyone should be wearing masks all the time because we don’t know who might be infected. I suppose there are some who will follow that logic and keep wearing the dumb things for the rest of their lives. I suspect, though, that absent mandates, most people will opt out.
Off-topic, but I hate it when presidents and presidential candidates hold hands with their spouses at public appearances. Are they at a middle school dance? It’s not cute or romantic, it’s juvenile and undignified. I think the Clintons started it to convey solidarity (or whatever) during their blizzard of scandals. All presidential couples since have done the same and it drives me nuts.
It sickens me to see healthy young people, and even older healthy people advocate such foolishness. God made us with an immune system that needs to be exposed to some assaults, and he made viruses small enough to go through cloth and crocheting. If not God, then Mother Nature seems to have the same idea.
No one should wear masks all the time- but wearing masks is far from idiotic. Again, the weight of evidence points to mask wearing is an effective, cheap & safe means to reduce the transmission of respiratory viruses. And precisely because we don’t know who is infected there use is to be encouraged when people are in close proximity especially indoors- not at all times (in your car ala Alyssa Milano is about as dumb as wearing a crocheted mask). The left has adopted a maximalist approach to the virus and now many on the right are knee jerk adopting the opposite. The proper approach is to reopen while taking actions  to avoid a spike in cases- masks are an easy step towards that goal. We need to get rid of one size fits all rules-ie use similar density rules for small & large businesses and stop telling people liquor stores are essential but your faith isn’t. Every reasonable step we take to restore the economy and avoid excessive deaths is to applauded-and every step we don’t take to do so increases Joe Biden election prospects. Biden’s best hope is that we see a significant spike in cases as we reopen- and since mask wearing will likely decrease that possibility I am all for it-and so should you.
Maybe Jill is doing it to keep Joe from wandering off.Â
No, their new claim is red states are undercounting the number of deaths to justify the reopenings . . .
Well, if they didn’t, there’d be pictures of Hillary throwing empty gin bottles at Bill.
IHME is claiming that?? Wowsers. As of a few days ago, they said that, for some reason, the expected spikes have not happened, and hypothesized that this was because of masks. If they changed that, I imagine it was the result of some strong pressure from interested parties.Â