# Is Covid-19 an outlier or a harbinger?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-an-outlier-or-a-harbinger/952554>\
**Category:** The Quarantine Zone\
**Tags:** covid-quarantine\
**Created:** [October 15, 2021, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-an-outlier-or-a-harbinger/952554 "2021-10-15T17:02:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2021, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-an-outlier-or-a-harbinger/952554/41 "2021-10-20T21:02:02Z")

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> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> But every area is \> than it used to be. I _NEVER EVER_ saw an American wear a mask during flu season in my entire life until now.
> 
> Anything greater than zero is an infinite increase, technically,

I’ve occasionally seen someone wearing a surgical-type mask (or similar) in a public place, over the years, and not just in the last few years. Never for any obvious reason. So the increase in % mask-wearing is finite.

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2021, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-an-outlier-or-a-harbinger/952554/42 "2021-10-20T21:09:57Z")

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> [@agzem](#):
>
> Since college football season started the stadiums have been packed with maskless fans and that’s when the case numbers started declining rapidly in the south. We should keep that in mind for any future pandemics. Lockdowns don’t accomplish anything.

@agzem, we should understand the limitations of this approach. If we could just round up everybody and herd them, maskless, into densely packed stadiums (essentially, open-air concentration camps) then that would be a wonderful solution to the pandemic, it would seem.

But I’m sure you must see the problem with this. That would be a plainly unconstitutional violation of everybody’s freedom of association (it’s right there in the 1st Amendment), which implies also a freedom of non-association. Such a violation of our inherent God-given freedoms can never be tolerated in America.

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**Author:** ![agzem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a8b319/32.png) [@agzem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/agzem)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2021, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-an-outlier-or-a-harbinger/952554/43 "2021-10-20T23:22:54Z")

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Weird. I never said anything even remotely close to “round up everybody and herd them”. That’s got to be the worst straw man ever. I think just allowing everybody to do what they normally do would be fine.

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**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\
**Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-an-outlier-or-a-harbinger/952554/44 "2021-11-28T10:28:29Z")

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> [@kenobi\_65](#):
>
> > [@codinghorror](#):
> >
> > I _NEVER EVER_ saw an American wear a mask during flu season in my entire life until now.
> 
> I’d see it, on occasion, in downtown Chicago, or at airports, but I’d say that 95+% of the people I saw wearing them were Asian (or Asian Americans).

I used to ride the Campus bus from and back home and in flu season there were always Asians or Asian-Americans headed to/from University Houses/Eagle Heights wearing masks.

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