The metastudy that this (old) article is based on drew widespread criticism from experts and researchers back when it was first published, and its conclusions were widely misinterpreted by antivaxxers and antimaskers such as yourself.
If you’re interested in reading more about its flawed methodology and also some good evidence that masks do indeed help to reduce the spread of airborne pathogens, here’s some homework for you:
The simple logic goes: CDC says to treat covid like the flu, we didn’t mask for the flu previously, therefore we shouldn’t have to mask for covid…
(Someone mentioned though this suggests people should get “vaccinated” like for flu… although such “vaccines” are experimental and therefore present unknown danger so that wouldn’t seem like the best idea)
Hence assume that this was always true. Then, by not masking, people were following the CDC’s future guidelines correctly, it’s just the “experts” had the incorrect guidelines issued in the past. Many people were treating “covid” just like the flu since they observed that’s all about what it seemed to be like (majority of people recovered from it without problems, without “vaccines” or masking).
Congratulations, your simple logic would have overloaded the healthcare system even more than it did and millions more people would have died. Masterful gambit, sir.
Those are mostly speculations, however I think it’s important to note that the healthcare system is overloaded due to over-regulation. Hence they want things like mask mandates to try to cope with healthcare mandates that already overloaded the system unnecessarily. The solution is to get rid of these mandates, not add more on to them, so that people can open more hospitals and create competitive healthcare offerings that increase the amount of hospitals and lower the amount of disease. So again, let’s assume masks do work: they could simply convince people to wear them, instead of mandating them. The lockdown mandates themselves impoverished the working classes and enriched the elites which would seem to lead to worse health outcomes for hard-working Americans: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/17/world-10-richest-men-see-their-wealth-double-during-covid-pandemic
These are observable facts, not speculation. If you had spent the countless hours following the pandemic over the past three years like I did, you would know this.
Also, trying to convince the American public to do anything mildly inconvenient that goes beyond their immediate self-interest for the sake of the wider community is the most laughably ineffective way of going about a public health crisis.
well this might be good to think about. Since 99%+ of people recovered from covid and were ok, people thought it not in their self-interest to mask or “vaccinate”. Hence I do think people were acting with simple self-interest in avoiding these things. People might be more motivated to mask if they thought it in their self-interest, and then this in your view would help the wider community. That’s the ideal of some of “capitalism”, that self-interests can align with interests of the wider community. But a political system isn’t going to be sufficient for helping the wider community. However I do care about people who want to mask, which is why I suggested in a few places we could just go to separate places: people who want to mask can be at spots with other people masked, unmasked can go with unmasked. This would allow for diversity of opinion being accommodated over issues that are not in consensus.
The metastudy that this (old) article is based on drew widespread criticism from experts and researchers back when it was first published, and its conclusions were widely misinterpreted by antivaxxers and antimaskers such as yourself.
If you’re interested in reading more about its flawed methodology and also some good evidence that masks do indeed help to reduce the spread of airborne pathogens, here’s some homework for you:
https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/yes-masks-reduce-risk-spreading-covid-despite-review-saying-they-dont
https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/no-that-new-study-doesnt-show-that-masks-are-useless
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/do-masks-work
Ok, consider a different line of thinking: Did you see that story where the CDC said to treat covid like the flu?
https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/covid-guidelines-2024-cdc-symptoms-contagious-cdefb6b8
The simple logic goes: CDC says to treat covid like the flu, we didn’t mask for the flu previously, therefore we shouldn’t have to mask for covid…
(Someone mentioned though this suggests people should get “vaccinated” like for flu… although such “vaccines” are experimental and therefore present unknown danger so that wouldn’t seem like the best idea)
Hence assume that this was always true. Then, by not masking, people were following the CDC’s future guidelines correctly, it’s just the “experts” had the incorrect guidelines issued in the past. Many people were treating “covid” just like the flu since they observed that’s all about what it seemed to be like (majority of people recovered from it without problems, without “vaccines” or masking).
So basically completely ignore the facts that
the form of coronavirus at the beginning of the pandemic was significantly more dangerous than it is now,
that the population back then didn’t have the degree of immunity it does now thanks to widespread vaccination and previous infection
we know significantly more about the virus and the ways that it can be treated and prevented now than we did at the beginning of the pandemic
Many doctors and healthcare workers have criticized the CDC’s recent changes to the guidelines, saying that COVID is still more dangerous than the flu and that this puts many people at risk
Congratulations, your simple logic would have overloaded the healthcare system even more than it did and millions more people would have died. Masterful gambit, sir.
Those are mostly speculations, however I think it’s important to note that the healthcare system is overloaded due to over-regulation. Hence they want things like mask mandates to try to cope with healthcare mandates that already overloaded the system unnecessarily. The solution is to get rid of these mandates, not add more on to them, so that people can open more hospitals and create competitive healthcare offerings that increase the amount of hospitals and lower the amount of disease. So again, let’s assume masks do work: they could simply convince people to wear them, instead of mandating them. The lockdown mandates themselves impoverished the working classes and enriched the elites which would seem to lead to worse health outcomes for hard-working Americans: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/17/world-10-richest-men-see-their-wealth-double-during-covid-pandemic
These are observable facts, not speculation. If you had spent the countless hours following the pandemic over the past three years like I did, you would know this.
Also, trying to convince the American public to do anything mildly inconvenient that goes beyond their immediate self-interest for the sake of the wider community is the most laughably ineffective way of going about a public health crisis.
well this might be good to think about. Since 99%+ of people recovered from covid and were ok, people thought it not in their self-interest to mask or “vaccinate”. Hence I do think people were acting with simple self-interest in avoiding these things. People might be more motivated to mask if they thought it in their self-interest, and then this in your view would help the wider community. That’s the ideal of some of “capitalism”, that self-interests can align with interests of the wider community. But a political system isn’t going to be sufficient for helping the wider community. However I do care about people who want to mask, which is why I suggested in a few places we could just go to separate places: people who want to mask can be at spots with other people masked, unmasked can go with unmasked. This would allow for diversity of opinion being accommodated over issues that are not in consensus.