Hi all,
Well, I've always been the kind of person to look at all the evidence on a subject. When I say all, as applies to worldwide issues, I mean evidence all over the globe. When we look at the places where mask wearing is generally accepted by the people, we find some pretty stark numbers that would indicate that masks really do work. And honestly, anyone who thinks that somehow the U.S. put together some health conspiracy concerning this matter that the entire world has chosen to help us support, is just ignorant in my opinion. This is a worldwide health matter and people are dying in very, very large numbers all across the globe. How one would expect some cabal of a nefarious plot in the U.S. to draw in other nations all over the globe to participate in is just ludicrous. However, I digress.
China, where the health issue is claimed to have started with a population four times the size of ours, think that through please. 1,400 million people against 330 million people and they have had less than 5,000 deaths. Pretty much everyone wears a mask, especially in the urban and suburban areas. They have become used to wearing masks and many of them even wear masks when there isn't any health crisis at a particular time.
Japan, population 126 million people, about a third of ours, has a total death count of 1,600. Again, Japan is a country where the people have become fairly accustomed to wearing masks.
Australia, population 25 million people, has a total death count of 890. Australians are not as good about wearing masks, but it is claimed that 78% of the people do wear masks when out and about.
India, population about the same as China, has less than 100,000 deaths. While India does have mandatory mask laws, most of the poverty areas find it hard to afford them and the overcrowding in these places is just impossible to control. Yet, they still have half of the deaths that we have, with again, 4 times the population.
So, I'm all willing to listen to all sides of an argument, but the evidence does seem pretty overwhelming that places where mask wearing has been adopted...the death count is far less. Now, maybe that's because those people are healthier than we are. Maybe there's some invisible bubble that keeps the SARS-Cov-2 virus out of their countries. Or, maybe it's because they're not as proud and ignorant in their pride as we are, and listen to their medical experts.
Now, I know that someone's going to respond with, "Well, there was a time that our medical experts didn't push for masks. In fact told us that they were completely unnecessary." For that person I'll just say, that claim was a long, long time ago and it has been revised now for about 5 months and those same medical experts have been telling us that they were wrong and that mask wearing is an integral part of protecting ourselves and others from the transmission of the disease. So, you're free to look back to the days when we didn't know much about this outbreak and hadn't studied it as much as we now have and proclaim that those were the days that our medical experts told us the truth. Me, I believe that medical science is a progressive study. In the beginning of any new disease we don't know much about it, but as we continue to test and study we find out a lot of 'better' information. I'd direct that person to look over the history of cancer treatment. How about mental health? We used to do lobotomies on some people with serious mental health issues. Today, despite it being something that was strongly encouraged in its time, we know that's not really a particularly valid tool for dealing with mental health issues. But, you're welcome to have your own brain taken out if you believe that the older practices of medical health are better than the new.
God bless,
Ted