(06-29-2020, 05:05 PM)jagibelieve Wrote: [ -> ]I think the choice to wear a mask or not should be a personal choice, not something mandated by government at any level (local, state or federal). Do I wear one? Nope. I choose to not do so because the only public place that I've been to since this whole thing started is a gas station. At work I have my own office and people that enter it can talk to me at a "safe" distance.
I do think that this whole thing has been blown way out of proportion, and I fault the media (both MSM as well as social) for this. Just this morning on one of the local news stations that I read daily I counted 7 articles regarding the Wuhan virus. Something that I noticed is the numbers of cases being breathlessly reported. Just a couple of months ago it was the number of deaths that were blasted on the headlines. Today not so much.
No reports of shortages of hospital beds, ventilators, PPE, etc.
Of course there are several more cases when there is more widespread testing. What isn't reported is the number of deaths or even hospitalizations. There is also no data on the "positive" cases that are asymptomatic or are able to fully recover by managing the symptoms at home.
The "closures", "lock-downs" and "mandates" being put in place is more political than practical in my opinion. There is a certain segment of the population that is fine with the short-term damage to the economy as long as it hurts politically The President and his campaign for a second term.
The saddest part is the folks being used as political "pawns" through all of this are the ones that need to be working the most. People that typically live "paycheck-to-paycheck" (as an example the service industry) are unable to earn their regular salary because of this.
By the way, no political party is immune to this political "game". Both major parties are "playing" it.
I think that a lot of interesting points are being regarding this virus and things like mask wearing. I've been kind of in the middle on various issues regarding Covid-19. But here is some of my perspective on things including mask wearing. A little over two months ago, I got a new job working for the federal government/military. It's mandated that I have to wear a mask during work, so I wear a mask like 42 hours a week for work + whenever I go into public places. I live in NC, and it's mandated here that we wear masks in public places and I was doing that even before the mandate. On average I probably wear a mask at least 45 hours a week in total. I think there are good, bad and even dangerous things about wearing masks.
The good is that I do believe they can help prevent the spread of the virus. But to what effect I'm not sure, especially if people aren't doing other things like social distancing and are not covering their cough/sneezes. I have been sneezed on/coughed on quite a bit, since I've started my job/wearing my masks. Interestingly, enough everyone has to wear masks at work, not just employees. I deal with a lot of Military personel/service members and they all have to wear masks. So does everyone else who comes into my workplace. That is the case with a lot of federal government/military facilities now. This rule went into effect before I started working at my new job. Though, even with the masks on I can still feel things like spittle, fluids, when people do stuff like cough/sneeze, laugh, etc...
Which leads me to some of the bad things about wearing masks, especially for longer durations of time. A lot of people that I work with cough quite a bit, and they say that the masks are making them cough a lot. I think that the masks have also given some people a false sense of security and I have seen several people cough/sneeze right through the masks. They don't even attempt to sneeze into their elbow (which I believe is the right thing to do, regardless of whether people are wearing a mask or not.) I do wonder how effective the masks when all of this type of exposure is going on in a daily basis.
Masks can also cause people to have fatigue, bad breath, acne, etc... There have been times since I started working where I have felt like my respiratory system is more tired due to wearing the masks for longer durations. I do believe they can tire people out and I have read accounts where they have actually made healthy people sick. I am healthy and I have felt tired due to wearing them for a longer period of time. I've gotten more used to them and getting a walk in fresh air after work helps, but I have felt the impact of wearing them long term. And I wonder what negative impact they may have on people especially since many of us aren't used to wearing them for longer periods of time. You have to adjust to breathing differently when you wear these things, especially longer term and that's difficult to do for a lot of people. Which leads me to a dangerous part of wearing masks, at least for some people:
They can cause some people to have extreme difficulty breathing and cause them to overheat/ fall out/collapse. A few weeks ago an elderly man came up to me at work, asking me if I could find him some cold water, and mentioned he was having a hard time breathing in the masks. I had went to find him a cold bottle of water, and once I handed it to him, he fell out. Thankfully, he ended up being okay, once he was able to take off the mask and drink some of the cold water. But him wearing the mask while he was in the building took it's toll on him. I talked with one of my bosses about that, and she said that people with health issues don't have to wear the masks. (And the elderly man did mention he had health issues).
Also, there are people that wear the masks incorrectly and sometimes try to sneak into places (even military service members who could get in trouble for doing that) without them. There will never be 100% participation from people regarding wearing masks/the proper way to wear them, etc... I can understand why people are pushing for people to wear them, but I did want to highlight some of the problems that can come with wearing them. And I do believe that people just have to do what they think is best for them/their loved ones. And not get into hysterics when they see someone not wearing a mask. Let alone confronting them in public places. People are just wasting their time doing stuff like that, and possibly risking more exposure.
It seems to me to that a lot of the people that are going into hysterics like that, are not even people who have to deal with high levels of exposure on a daily basis like many of us who are working outside of the home. Especially those of us who work in jobs that are deemed essential. I actually find some people's hysterical behavior very irritating. Especially those who don't do much of anything except for sit at home all day long posting on places like Twitter, panicking and not really being of much help/use to anyone. Especially to people who deal with high levels of exposure/risk.
I can understand people's concerns about this risk and I have sympathy for anyone who has lost a loved one, or has a loved one dealing with this illness. But I also agree that people are actually overreacting to some aspects of it, like some of the points you mentioned. But I talk more about that in other posts, since this one I just made about mask wearing is already pretty long, lol.