@FuchsiaShock And how many lost their lives to your policy in exchange?
@FuchsiaShock OTOH, mask mandates have no correspondence with deflecting any curve--and in some cases, a negative correlation. Theory: people feel an unwarranted increase of safety, as they fiddle their mask, then touch products, doors, money, card terminals, ....
OTOH, the culture of fear is a part of the destruction of our economy, especially hard on the poor. And _that_ has demonstrably killed many people.
Cold, hard numbers, bud.
@vandys the economy fucking the poor over first in any time of difficulty is not unique to the pandemic or caused by people trying to slow the spread of the pandemic, it's a core function of capitalism.
there's a cold hard fact for you.
@FuchsiaShock Dunno where you live, but here in the Pacific NW what has been done to the poor, marginal, and small business owners is unprecedented in all of my life. And I (as you no doubt can guess) am fairly old.
https://www.meehanmd.com/blog/2020-07-22-if-masks-dont-work-then-why-do-surgeons-wear-them/
Omfg his header image loaded and it's the worst.
What a fuckin bellend
@FuchsiaShock a lot of his replies are horribly transphobic too, always great when this stuff goes hand in hand 🙄
@wolfie because of course. i didn't even see that before i blocked the tosspot.
@FuchsiaShock Is that a 'shop of a more famous image? i don't recognise it.
@marnanel @FuchsiaShock I think it's at least a They Live reference.
In anycase that arsehole can go fuckity-bye. 
Well, I didn't ever use the words "slave mark" or anything like that. I'm skeptical that they're a good idea in the way they're currently enforced. But Scott Adams is pretty smart, and he thinks they *are* a good idea. I'm OK with noting smart people who have different ideas. I'm more afraid of echo chambers than being exposed to opposing ideas.
https://www.meehanmd.com/blog/2020-07-22-if-masks-dont-work-then-why-do-surgeons-wear-them/
I understand your conclusion, and it matches my _current_ conclusion.
But sometimes in my life, I find out I was wrong. And usually when I look back at my mistakes, there were smart people saying things I should have listened to.
So I have a conclusion, and I have a note to keep paying attention to the dissenting voices too.
@vandys @FuchsiaShock Suppose that they work, and from now on, you cannot enter an hospital without a mask (including medical personnel), and you need to change it every 5 minutes until you leave (all of which would be extremely impractical), but for the sake of argument let’s imagine that that happens (won’t happen, but anyway)…
Given that:
there is no substantial difference between countries who never saw the mask mandate, like Sweden and Belarus, and countries who did have it… And
given the fact that in all countries the “virus” did less harm than, say, the flu (and now we know that it “substitutes” somehow the flu, according to official data, so no difference at all from previous years)…
AND given the fact that we already found, not one, but many CURES to it (despite Big Pharma working hard to suppress them into oblivion)…
Shouldn’t we all be pursuing herd immunity (and therefor drop everything that prevents contagion)?
This interview was made early right after the whole madness broke lose. Needless to say, that time proved him absolutely right:
The problem in the USA is we have > 40% obesity, > 30% diabetes, and similarly dismal numbers for emphysema, chemo sequences, acute asthma, lupus, ....
The USA is old and fat and unhealthy. We have a shitty health care system which costs a fortune. We were barely keeping influenza at bay (but look at 2017-2018 deaths).
A healthy "herd" can weather this. That does not describe the USA.
Herd immunity is the best way to protect all the vulnerable people (including myself) at social level.
And even THAT fact becomes irrelevant when we know already that we got cures for it.
and when the vulnerable people VASTLY outnumber the rest?
@FuchsiaShock @vandys
She got you there. :D