To Mask or Not to Mask
It’s a question you can find almost any answer to. And that’s a big problem.
“When I see people walking outside, often alone with no one anywhere near them, wearing a mask, my primary reactions are disappointment and sadness,” wrote Dennis Prager earlier this month. “I am disappointed because I expected better from my fellow Americans. I never thought most Americans would be governed by irrational fears and unquestioning obedience to authority. I have come to realize that I had a somewhat romanticized view of my countrymen.”
More than a year into the ChiCom Virus pandemic, masks are still a rather contentious issue. That’s perhaps even more true now that half of American adults have received at least the first dose of the vaccine.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that you can find research backing up whatever opinion you choose to hold. Did masks work? Yep. In fact, they work so well you should wear two.
But masks also don’t work. A peer-reviewed study completed last November raises significant questions about the effectiveness of masks. The Stanford University research report, “Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis,” published by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Biotechnological Information, concludes: “The existing scientific evidences challenge the safety and efficacy of wearing facemask as preventive intervention for COVID-19. The data suggest that both medical and non-medical facemasks are ineffective to block human-to-human transmission of viral and infectious disease such SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, supporting against the usage of facemasks.”
Are masks enough? Nope (but “wear them anyway”). Is there any reason to keep wearing one (or more) outside or if you’ve been vaccinated? Not really, but you can get banned from YouTube for saying so.
In any case, Michigan is extending the mask mandate to two-year-olds, while Oregon is considering making the mandate indefinite.
On the other side, you have people like Senator Ted Cruz who’ve had enough. “At this point I’ve been vaccinated. Everybody working in the Senate has been vaccinated,” Cruz said. “CDC has said in small groups, particularly with people who were vaccinated, don’t need to wear masks.” So he won’t while he’s in the Capitol complex or on the Senate floor.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the subject of the aforementioned YouTube censoring, advised vaccinated people that they don’t need to be wearing masks, despite Dr. Anthony “It’s Not a Liberty Thing” Fauci. “If you get a vaccine, the vaccines are effective, you’re immune. And so act immune,” DeSantis said. “If you tell people the opposite then, gee, if it’s not effective for them and it’s not gonna change anything, then what’s the point of going through it?”
As always, The Babylon Bee nails it: “Man Can’t Wait To Get Vaccine So He Can Go Back To Isolating While Wearing A Mask But Now Doing So While Vaccinated.”
