President Super Spreader found a way to make it about how he’s the best at something, but he has come out in favor of masks now. This could actually make a difference and is a good thing. Too bad he didn’t do it earlier though.
You guys are hilarious. You think this is a one-issue thing, and you also think that calling people who disagree with you stupid idiots is going to influence them to change their minds.
IRL the only two Trumpists I know–and I am not sure about one of them–are absolutely pro-mask. The non-Trumpists, including me, are anti-mask.
I am anti-mask because, where I live, over the whole four-month course of this disease 1 out of 100 residents has tested positive. So the chances are that anyone I encounter, or who encounters me, is not spreading the virus. So the whole mask thing is overkill.
I am all for people assuming how much risk they want to take. I am against mandatory helmets, although I think motorcyclists should wear them, I am not in favor of making them. I am against the kind of seat-belt law that will get you a ticket for not wearing one even if you’re doing nothing else wrong. The masks fall into that same category. Wear them for your protection, wear them for the protection of others. If you don’t like being somewhere where nobody is wearing masks, don’t go there. When you start talking about enforcing it by sending in the goons then I am out.
Would you remain anti-mask if you lived in NY or NJ in March where the infection rate was high? I mean, it’s fine to not wear a mask in, for example, New Zealand, but not, say, in Florida. So, are you anti-mask, or are you not wearing a mask because the number of cases near you is very low?
Second, your example of a helmet laws is idiotic. If you don’t wear a helmet and you get into an accident, I’m not going to catch “motorcycle accident” from you. Not wearing a mask is not about how much risk you’re willing to take, it’s about how much risk you’re willing to put on others.
For example, if you’re a checkout person at Walmart, you’ll have hundreds of people breathing on you throughout the day – if they’re all masked, the chance that you’ll get the virus is much lower.
That is a review on the effectiveness of surgical masks in preventing surgical site infections. And they did not conclude that masks don’t prevent infections, only that there were no good studies to make a decision on whether to use them. Nevertheless, this has no bearing on whether masks can be used as source control for respiratory infections. If you took to the time to find this paper, why did you not look at the tons of papers out there describing their efficacy for the topic of this thread?
If you haven’t fully examined the science behind mask-wearing and therefore don’t see the sense in wearing them in your community, no wonder you see this as a matter of choice and personal risk. If this were only a matter of your personal risk, I’d say, go ahead and go maskless. Breathe deeply. Knock yourself out.
But it’s not. This is not like the helmet law because this is about protecting other people, not yourself. Your ignorance doesn’t give you the right to expose others, even if your ignorance means you don’t understand the potential for exposing others.
Masks with right wing messages are being made:
Doesn’t seem to be helping around here. Been going out to look at the comet, maybe 25% of people I see are masked.
@Joey_P & @k9bfriender upthread really hit the nail about the motivation of these anti-s. They also made clear that logic is not the coin of the realm when it comes to persuasion.
Recognizing that there’s “I don’t see the point of mostly ineffectual masks in my situation.” and there’s “I refuse to follow Libtard orders!”. Those are two different crowds of people with 2 different responses required. And yes, those two responses should complement one another. Of course there’s shades between those two groups, but I see the intermediaries as mostly simple blends of the two “primary colors” I cited.
First we need an actual product people can buy (or be given) that is provably beneficial to them and not too hard to use. Hint, a vaccine is an example of such a thing. Even the data on N95s properly worn is pretty equivocal today. And they’re hard to use to high effectiveness.
Then I propose that the CDC do the same things as the Truth.org people are trying to do about smoking. Show the ugly reality of real people and let the audience form their own conclusions.
We’ve all seen various TwitFace posts where some COVID denier was all about denial until their kid got sick or they got sick or … Some of those folks are minor TwitFace celebrities and soon enough statistics say we’ll have a few major national-scale celebrities / politicians / athletes / whatever.
Some aggressive no-hold-barred PSAs that show these people in both their pre-COVID hubris and their post-COVID chastened, crippled, or deceased state will start sending a message that’s real enough to move the doubters. I honestly believe that if Tom Hanks and his wife had died or been crippled back in March, about 50K more Americans would be alive today, and probably 100K by more 3 months from now. That is the power of celebrity in the modern US. We must harness it or we’ll suffer greatly.
Will that do everything? Heck no. But it’ll do something. Especially if TwitFace and the mainstream media really flood the social media & airwaves. We already see lots and lots of ads on TV where the actors are masked. This is corporations trying to align with the times and hoping to persuade their customers that they’re safe enough to still buy from. The Corps need to be asked / told to amp it up. Don’t just wear masks on camera while the anodyne voiceovers talk about “in this together” and “staying safe”. Call the spade a spade: “Our employees all wear masks so they don’t unknowingly infect your pizza”.
Next step is that if some media outlets refuse the PSAs (e.g. Fox) then major corps need to withdraw all advertising from those outlets. If Fox is still pushing the “masks = tyranny” line then from an advertiser’s POV they’re really pushing the “Permanent epidemic and economic depression is our goal”. That’s not a message advertisers naturally want to support. This is all about economics at this level, not about politics. Fox needs advertising to survive; advertisers are Fox’es actual customers; the audience is fox’es product. That’s true for any media outlet. They will play the tune they’re paid to play.
If a scientist, doctor or nurse saying “wear a mask” and a person driven by politics saying “don’t wear one” isn’t convincing enough for a nimrod, then what you have there is a nimrod. You ever try to get through to a nimrod? You can’t do it.
Wow. If anyone at all wondered why folks don’t like it when self-righteous bedwetters self-righteously tell them what to do…well, here you go.
I’m sorry, did you have a point or a rebuttal to make?
Or are you just making a useless passive aggressive drive by?
Twitter thread on this (with a link to a more detailed article in the Atlantic) by an epidemiologist. Short version: communication on this should be compassionate rather than shame-based, and should acknowledge the non-mask-wearers’ skepticism and concerns rather than dismissing them. (It should be noted that about half of the comments on the thread immediately jump to the shaming and dismissal, so I suspect this is easier said than done.)
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Let me know when you figure it out. We’ve never been able to get great condom compliance for HIV, herpes, and pregnancy protection.
Good point. “I don’t like how it feels” is not a good excuse for not protecting yourself and others in either sex or Wal-Mart (or both).
Difference is, we don’t ask people to wear condoms in public.
Report from Tennessee–today, in the Post Office, around 80% of the folks were masked.
On other occasions, I was the only masked guy there.
I feel like we’re past worrying about their feelings. The original appeals were compassionate, help your fellow man, help yourself. At some point, you just have to shame them.
Maybe we could convince people to wear masks by telling them to turn them inside out, for their pleasure.
But per the linked article, shaming doesn’t work. It doesn’t persuade people, it only makes them dig in and resist harder.
If you want them to be ashamed, shame them. If you want more people to wear masks, that is not the way. Peer pressure can still work – being the only unmasked person in a group might get some response.
I am on the same side as you, and I disagree with this strongly. People generally do what makes them feel good or safe, and they marshal reasons to support that. As has been posted, the psychology of not wearing masks is that this is a scary time, people are in denial, and/or trying to control the things they can control. It isn’t motivated by wanting to harm the world. It’s motivated by not wanting to face something very scary. Which is a very human trait that we all suffer from sometimes.