What's up with the shift in facemask use?

It goes both ways, if someone sneezes on me I want to be wearing a mask. Lucky for me I am too old to worry about 'looking cool' lol.

The last day we had a church service I was sitting with members of the worship team, sipping coffee, and one of them said that a doctor friend had told him that masks were no good. He said they just accumulated the disease around the face, and that would be bad. My reply was that it seemed better to accumulate it around the face than to inhale it directly. Makes sense to me.

It's funny how I've always argued in favor of the masks, yet I have no intention of ever wearing one.

nonaeroterraqueous said:

It's funny how I've always argued in favor of the masks, yet I have no intention of ever wearing one.

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Of course there are those in our number who looks may indeed be greatly improved by a mask!?

Well Our governor is recommending that we all wear masks in public places
so me,my mom and my brother all have homemade printed ones.

I refuse to wear a mask. If I am going to catch corona, I will catch it like a man.
Stay safe bros!

hedrick said:

What they've said in public seems to make some sense.

They don't think masks are useful in preventing people from getting the virus. They are, however, of potential use to prevent people from spreading it. Previously they didn't think this was needed, because everyone assumed that you'd know if you had it, and stay home.

But they've been finding increasing evidence that non-symptomatic people are spreading it. So it now looks useful for everyone to wear a mask so that if they have it without knowing it, they won't spread it.

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Winner winner chicken dinner!

ap_Earwood said:

I refuse to wear a mask. If I am going to catch corona, I will catch it like a man.
Stay safe bros!

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And I hope anyone who catches it from you gets to kick you in the man parts.

Hoarding by the general populace was the rationale for lying--and they did lie--but it's not a credible rationale.

Medical personnel don't just wear any kind of respirator, and they don't run out to Wal-mart or Home Depot for their respirators. They wear sized respirators and they test annually to make sure each person knows what size to wear. They also keep those masks specially packaged to remain cleaner. That supply chain was already under their control.

There were never very many masks, relatively speaking available on the shelves for the general population--what hoarding could have been done of masks they didn't wear anyway was only a small ding in a general multi-car pile-up. If they had sucked up everything on the shelves, they wouldn't have been substantially better off--lying about it didn't secure sufficient supplies.

Lying about it did, however, damage their credibility and almost certainly made the problem worse. Yes, they could have had people begin making and wearing ad hoc masks weeks ago, and by now there could be a cottage industry and even mainline industries grinding out quite decent masks, particularly using MER 13 furnace filters, which are in pretty ample supply.

The just-in-time methodology of keeping just enough stocks for normal operation is what sunk them. That was followed by the manufacturer's just-in-time method of production. Nobody in the chain kept any substantial stocks of personal protective equipment.

Why was this stupid? Because the US had supposedly been put on the alert for the serious possibility of a biological attack 20 years ago (with a couple of actual attempts having been made). If this had been a planned biological attack with several coordinated infection points designed for greatest effectiveness, the nation would be sunk.

hedrick said:

What they've said in public seems to make some sense.

They don't think masks are useful in preventing people from getting the virus. They are, however, of potential use to prevent people from spreading it. Previously they didn't think this was needed, because everyone assumed that you'd know if you had it, and stay home.

But they've been finding increasing evidence that non-symptomatic people are spreading it. So it now looks useful for everyone to wear a mask so that if they have it without knowing it, they won't spread it.

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No.

They knew by early February that the disease had a long incubation period of no symptoms while still being infectious, and that some people were completely asymptomatic.

That fact alone meant that they should have been encouraging everyone to wear masks. What rationale was there to tell people to wait until they actually felt sick or were actually diagnosed? That was absolutely the most stupid advice they could have given.

DamianWarS said:

Mask are good for the sick not spreading what they have. Since the US seems to not be able to self isolate well everyone needs to be treated as if they are sick. This will help stop the spread of those who have a cough but refuse to stay at home, help stop the spread of someone who is a carrier but does not know and it will also have a psychological effect by constantly reminding people some is wrong.

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Few people can absolutely stay home for weeks or months.

GodsGrace101 said:

Remember that it's not the first virus we've been through...Sars, Mers, nothing ever like this.

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But our grandparents have seen something much worse than this.

1918 Influenza Worldwide death toll 50-100 million
2020 CV-19 (so far) worldwide toll 74,807.
Hardly a comparison and perhaps our prevention methods have helped.

ap_Earwood said:

I refuse to wear a mask. If I am going to catch corona, I will catch it like a man.
Stay safe bros!

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It's not just about you though, you probably can man it out sure, but what if you give it to someone else who can't? I was told that 2 babies in the US have died from it. Think about their parents. We all have to do what we can to help others as well as ourselves. To think about the weaker members of society, and also the hospital staff who are overworked, tired and stressed. At the very least everyone should practice social distances and good hygiene and for goodness sakes stay home if you even suspect that you are sick.

crossnote said:

But our grandparents have seen something much worse than this.

1918 Influenza Worldwide death toll 50-100 million
2020 CV-19 (so far) worldwide toll 74,807.
Hardly a comparison and perhaps our prevention methods have helped.

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Corvid has not even reached its peak yet. Compare figures come September.

.

public hermit said:

We were told not only that facemasks do not help, but that they increase the possibility of infection.

No, You Do Not Need Face Masks To Prevent Coronavirus—They Might Increase Your Infection Risk

Now, we're told that everyone should wear facemasks in public, to prevent infecting others if we are asymptomatic.

The CDC released a guide on how to make a face mask without sewing skills. Materials include a bandana, a coffee filter, and hair ties.

I think the official account is that the thinking on this, by the experts, has changed. That may be. But, why is it that folks from Asian countries, who have some experience with pandemics, were all wearing masks from the very beginning? Personally, I thought the guidance of not wearing masks was counter-intuitive. But, what do I know? I'm no expert. So, I defer. Perhaps, our experts were just asking the wrong questions.

Face masks: have we been asking the wrong question all along?

We should have been wearing masks all along, but there was a known shortage, and we were misled. Purposely or not? I don't know. We knew we had a shortage and wanted to ensure our courageous health care workers had enough of the needed protections. As it should be. But, were they afraid if they suggested wearing facemasks there would be none available for our health care workers? We could have been making homemade facemasks from the beginning. I don't want to say we have been purposely misled, but that is what it feels like.

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Also public mask wearing early on helps a 2nd way, as a signal flag, telling everyone around: 'watch out, there is a bad bug' -- getting more people that never watch the news alerted, so that more people take more caution generally.

But that's not the main thing I think (early on).

It's really the intense monitoring and contact tracing South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, etc. successful countries used that mattered I think. One could watch some of the excellent little segments on South Korea, Taiwan, that the PBS Newshour did.

They easily controlled the spread, because they were just on the ball.

Competent government.

Unlike our elected leadership, which simply ignored too much of the information it had, including its own predictions from its own health services.

Before Virus Outbreak, a Cascade of Warnings Went Unheeded
Government exercises, including one last year, made clear that the U.S. was not ready for a pandemic like the coronavirus. But little was done.
Before Virus Outbreak, a Cascade of Warnings Went Unheeded

Lots of warning, even from the outgoing Obama administration.

Now we are paying the price, and it's fairly high, once all of the various types of costs are included.

Ricky M said:

And I hope anyone who catches it from you gets to kick you in the man parts.

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I'm sure he only hangs out with other real men, and not the sissies that would do that sort of thing.

RDKirk said:

Few people can absolutely stay home for weeks or months.

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of course, I don't think there is any expectation to never leave your home, what I refer to is a greater value of self isolation and being strategic when you go out minimizing it to a little as necessary. Also if you are sick or if you are among the vulnerable try and make arrangements for someone else to do your out of the house tasks.

crossnote said:

But our grandparents have seen something much worse than this.

1918 Influenza Worldwide death toll 50-100 million
2020 CV-19 (so far) worldwide toll 74,807.
Hardly a comparison and perhaps our prevention methods have helped.

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There are a lot of things that have helped us today. A hundred years ago, they didn't even know what a virus was, and it would be twenty years later before they could detect one. They had barely gotten a handle on the concepts of microbiological sanitation, and the soap companies were just beginning to get people accustomed to keeping clean homes.

crossnote said:

But our grandparents have seen something much worse than this.

1918 Influenza Worldwide death toll 50-100 million
2020 CV-19 (so far) worldwide toll 74,807.
Hardly a comparison and perhaps our prevention methods have helped.

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there was 1.8 billion people on earth in 1918 today there is 7.7 billion. So if we say 100 million died of Influenza in 1918 it's like 5.5% of the world's population.

100 million today is 1.2% of the world's population, currently the 74,807 deaths is 0.001% of the world's population.

stuff like ventilators weren't invented yet in 1918 so I suspect technology has played a significant role in saving lives that were out of reach in 1918.

RDKirk said:

There are a lot of things that have helped us today. A hundred years ago, they didn't even know what a virus was, and it would be twenty years later before they could detect one. They had barely gotten a handle on the concepts of microbiological sanitation, and the soap companies were just beginning to get people accustomed to keeping clean homes.

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That's what I thought -- they wouldn't really understand much. Of course, it's right compared to today, but....

I was surprised to see that indeed they not only understood spread to a significant degree, but wore face masks widely.

1918 Flu Pandemic
U.S.





Overseas:



Photos of the 1918 Flu Pandemic

crossnote said:

But our grandparents have seen something much worse than this.

1918 Influenza Worldwide death toll 50-100 million
2020 CV-19 (so far) worldwide toll 74,807.
Hardly a comparison and perhaps our prevention methods have helped.

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I agree.
If we had not isolated ourselves the death toll would have been extremely high.

Prevention certainly did save the earth's population.
I think it's miraculous that it was discovered so quickly (due to modern technology).