I wish more pro-maskers were aware of the science around FFP3 masks. If they were, they could simply wear those, and not concern themselves so much with what the rest of us are doing!
Sadly not as their aim is to impose an authoritarianism by mandating that others wear ineffective masks.
The fact that they can choose to wear effective masks if they feel the protection from the vaccine is inadequate, does not satisfy them because that isn't their aim.
By mandating masks, they gain the satisfaction of seeing people complying with their mass virtue signalling campaign.
When arguing with people who are pro-mask, I will make this point but they will always change the subject and deflect from the fact that FFP3 masks offer near 100% protection to the wearer, as that's not what they want to hear.
But
What cost to health?? If you are exempt, you are exempt. Victims of crime? I presume you mean the people for whom they bring back bad memories of being raped or similarly having a hand held over their mouth, again they are/were exempt.
There are many costs. There is the environmental cost, the phycological cost; they symbolise a state of dystopia and that we are not in normal times that for some is dis-concerting, there is the hassle and faff of obtaining them, replacing or washing them; most people do not seem to replace/wash them as often as recommended.
They are off-putting, which could have economic costs as well as pushing some people away from public transport onto more harmful, damaging and less safe modes of transport.
Mass mask wearing has a huge cost for people who are hard of hearing and can be harmful for children's development. We do not just communicate through listening to speech and face masks do inhibit both visual and verbal communication.
All of this has been mentioned before but you seem to refuse to be taking this in.
If a drug had been discovered that reduced the spread of the virus by 10% it would be seen as a very positive move in the right direction.
There is no way standard face masks reduce the spread of the virus by 10%; the article does not claim that. You just made it up.
What the article appears to be saying is that standard masks only reduced aerosol particles by 10%; therefore 90% of the aerosol particles do get through. If someone is highly infectious then such a small reduction is not going to stop anyone around them being infected.
There is no evidence that mask mandates have reduced virus transmission in any country or region where they have been imposed; indeed in most places cases have risen significantly after such mandates were imposed.
Though it may seem that covid matters have completely dominated this forum in the last eighteen months, it's probably only a small percentage of members who even look at this section these days, and a tiny percentage who actually post on the multiplicity of threads (like Topsy, they grow exponentially.) The phenomenon of Groupthink certainly seems prevalent, and grows ever more strident. Individualism is to the fore and Collectivism decried. Individualism brought us Brexit of course, and we can all see the resounding success that has been and is going to be.
What's Brexit got to do with masks?
How do you define "individualism"? If you want our culture to be like China, then you can be assured we are not going to accept that and we will push back and reject this.
Post 455 for instance? I can't be bothered to trawl back any further than that, but there certainly have been others making far worse claims than 'wimpery.'
If you object to something, feel free to state your objection and what it is you object to and we can debate it.
Your inference is that as long as the average age of covid deaths is (or. rather,was) 82 then that's alright, nothing to see here.
I refer you to what I actually said, and not what you think I said.
Can you provide a more up-to-date figure from official sources that we may scrutinise?
I was wrong; it's actually 83.
| Median age in years | Median age in years | Mean age in years | Mean age in years |
---|
| Involving COVID-19 | Due to COVID-19 | Involving COVID-19 | Due to COVID-19 |
---|
Persons | 83 | 83 | 80.3 | 80.4 |
---|
Male | 81 | 81 | 78.6 | 78.7 |
---|
Female | 85 | 85 | 82.3 | 82. |
---|
Meanwhile, there is very little attention paid to ailments that affect younger people as all the attention is on Covid, and the focus is wrongly on wearing masks as a means to reduce Covid cases, which simply serves to undermine confidence in the vaccines and create division and a huge distraction.
Masks should cease to be recommended with immediate effect, with the exception that those who are genuinely at risk are given the clear facts about the effectiveness off FFP2/FFP3 masks so that they can make a personal choice to wear one if they wish.
But for the authoritarians it's all about exercising control over us, which makes me want to push back even more.
The announcement on my LNER train today just entrenched my view even more, and it was great to see most people did not pay any attention to it. The false claim was made that they are to "protect us" and that they indicate "respect" and "consideration" for others; no they do not. This is absolutely demonstrably false and I hope as many people as possible fight back against this nonsense.