Masks

Assetbacked wrote: »

I'm glad the vast majority of people in the general public are not as hysterical as those in this thread.

I'm glad we didn't face something like a new strain of smallpox that kills a third it infects, because the behaviour of the general public not just around masks and the delay in or lack of leadership would have been an absolute disaster in that case.

It's not stupidity in the general public. Of course you get the dribbling morons anywhere, but it's far more complex than that. The herd thinking being a big one, another being the natural need for stability and normalcy and the positive tendency in people not to panic and to ignore things that may affect that normal routine. The ones drowning themselves in dettol panicking and preparing for the end of days are a neurotic minority thankfully.

Though it's a pity in some ways we couldn't turn that on in the general population in the rare cases of contagion like this, because normal life and stability and routine is how they spread. That's how they evolved to spread. And everyone except for the social phobics and the like are desperate to return to normal and return to their lives.

As for masks: This is a respiratory illness. The clue is in the name. You can only become infected through the respiratory system(the eyes possibly but the jury is well out on that route). It isn't a hand virus or arse virus or elbow virus. Social distancing helps reduce risk because it keeps your respiratory gunk from my respiratory gunk. Hand washing helps reduce risk because it keeps your respiratory gunk left on surfaces from transferring to my respiratory bits and bobs by way of me picking my nose after handling that surface. Gloves do nada. Masks help reduce risk at source in both healthy and infected. Believing they don't is akin to believing condoms don't reduce risk of pregnancy. It's pretty basic and understandable stuff. Put it this way; if it were a hand virus only an idiot would suggest gloves were of no value.

But like I reckoned many pages ago, most resist mask wearing almost entirely because they don't want to look foolish or out of place with a sideorder of our government putting out mixed messages and nothing will really shift this idea in Ireland unless the government grows a pair and legislates for it. We won't have a grassroots movement here and haven't. It's not an Irish thing culturally. Until then this debate will go back and forth between "I'm not wearing one cos I'd look thick and ye're all hysterics" and "you're killing people by not wearing one". Rinse and repeat.

polesheep wrote: »

We've brought infections down without mandatory masks. Why shouldn't we be able to keep them down without mandatory masks?

By shutting down the country and most businesses and restricting movements and gatherings of people. That's how infections came down. Now we are reopening the country and many businesses and allowing movement and more gatherings of people. The direct opposite of what reduced the infection rate, but the virus is still out there contained in pockets for the moment. And I hope it stays that way.

OK I reduce the flow of water in my bath by turning the tap down, if I open the tap up again does the water flow magically stay reduced? Of course not. This is really simple stuff. It's not rocket surgery, yet some can't seem to join the obvious dots.