Well, the Earth is still flat so…
And i know it sounds like im just another libtard broken record with TDS, but POTUS is in large part to blame for politicizing masks and basic, easy to follow prevention measures. He intentionally didnt wear masks to make a statement, in direct contradiction to common sense and his own adminsitrations medical advice.
Its fucked because if folks wore masks at appropriate times, and took basic spacing precautions we very likely wouldnt be seeing this second wave of virus and shutdowns. But POTUS has made it into a dem vs GOP issue. Again, being divisive at a time and with an issue where we ALL stand to benefit most if we were all on the same page.
Part of the problem is that the WHO initially recommended against wearing masks. Going from that to now in some cases making it illegal to go certain places without one makes it hard to take this seriously.
Some places in Ontario have passed laws that you can’t go inside any public building or store without a mask, first Kingston, then Toronto, now Ottawa is considering the same thing. It seems a bit too late to make any difference, the numbers are way down at this point over here. Ottawa has something like 40 cases out of a million people. It would have made much more sense if they did this back in March or April instead.
I was told that in Poland you can’t go outside at all without a mask, that doesn’t seem very reasonable.
Yeah this is exactly the problem. I said this earlier in one of the threads but the screwed the messaging up at first and they can’t backtrack it, because a lot of people won’t buy it.
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The WHO (and the US) recommended against masks for the general public to save PPE for healthcare professionals as there was a shortage.
Regardless, science is always changing and people with half a brain follow the best available science. Especially if it is suuuuper easy and cheap and convenient to follow that science. How fucking hard is it to slap a mask on for 3 minutes when you go into a store? It sounds like Canada doesnt want to follow the US’s lead in rising cases.
Over here they were actually saying that wearing a mask will increase the risk of spreading the virus, no evidence that masks work, and so on. It wasn’t just about saving masks for healthcare workers, they were talking like masks are bad for your health.
Yeah but jumping from one extreme to the other does not sound like good science at all.
Now they are talking about letting people eat in restaurants (right now only patios are open) and open bars, wearing a mask makes that kind of awkward. I won’t be hanging out in any place that I have to wear a mask.
They really should have done this earlier. Even in nursing homes, they wouldn’t let employees wear masks until it was confirmed that there was a COVD outbreak, even when people had all the symptoms but didn’t get the test results yet. The whole thing is backwards.
IIRC, you have a home gym, but if you didn’t, I bet you would wear one there if it was required? I really don’t go out to many places other than that. It currently isn’t required, but I do wear one while there. If doing a hard set I’ll take it off, do my set, recover for 30 seconds or so, and then put it back on.
Do I like the mask? No. Do I think it is the worst thing to happen? No. It is a small thing I can do to prevent getting myself or others sick. Hell, even if it only reduces chances by 10%, IMO it is worth it.
From what I have been hearing on NPR over the last couple days, It sounds like at least a few experts are saying social distancing and near universal mask wearing would make a huge difference in the defeat of Covid.
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If I have no choice it’s a different story. If I didn’t have my equipment at home then I would have to do what’s necessary to train, and if soon I have to wear a mask to buy groceries I won’t have a choice because I need food. But gyms here are still closed, not sure when they are going to open. That’s one of the last priorities of out government, which is no surprise when you see what our fat ass premier Doug Ford looks like.
I find masks annoying. I have to wear one at work, and before I got the virus in April I wore one when I went to stores because at first I didn’t want to catch the virus and infect the residents at my work and later because I figured I might have it myself. I think they should have an exemption for people who already had the virus, there is no good reason for me to wear a mask right now.
There are these cheap defective Chinese surgical masks that the Canadian government bought a whole bunch of, the straps break off easily. They have them at my work right now. The other day I came back from my break and put one on, minute later a strap broke. I went to get another and before I even put it on it broke. I’m breaking 3-4 of them every day, fucking ridiculous. I wonder what they will do in a store if you put one off those on and it breaks while you are shopping.
I don’t think that masks should be any sort of partisan or ideological issue. They work to some degree, if you are in a place where there are still a large number of infections then it makes sense to wear one in stores and such. But in a place like Ottawa where there are only a few cases and nobody is getting infected anymore I don’t see the point. Might as well tell people to wear helmets, there is more chance of falling and hitting your head.
I can agree to that. I certainly don’t want to wear one indefinitely. My state doesn’t have a ton of cases, but enough that I perceive some risk. So I wear it.
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I don’t wear one here in NYS - not really concerned. There are signs up in gas stations, supermarkets, Wal-Mart, etc. but no one enforces it.
Why do you not wear one? Do you think they offer any benefit?
No, no benefit whatsoever. I personally feel my breathing is restricted which makes me uncomfortable. If it causes me to feel uncomfortable and an increase in anxiety as a result, I’m not following through.
I literally don’t even know one person who has caught COVID-19 since this whole thing began.
How did you come to this conclusion?
That’s not accurate, there are studies showing that surgical masks are around 80% effective in preventing the spread of the flu. This isn’t the flu, but the numbers should be similar. If you are in a place where there are lots of cases and you are going to be in contact with older people (parents/grandparents) then it would be a good idea to avoid catching COVID for their sake. In a city like Ottawa with only a few dozen cases left there isn’t much use.
I just looked it up on the Ottawa Public Health site, there are 44 “active cases” in the city and 27 of them are nursing home residents. So there are only 17 people in the city not confined to a healthcare facility who are known to be infected, and with widespread testing the odds of others being infected is pretty low. I haven’t heard of any new cases recently, and if someone with the virus was walking around and going to stores you can be sure there would be new cases.
Right.
Lots of things to disagree with in my statement. Care to unpack what your disagreement is and why?
If you believe there wouldn’t be more shutdowns, I’ve got some oceanfront property in Arizona for you.
But will you throw the Golden Gate in free too?
I 100% believe that if everyone took masks and basica distancing seriously we would not be staring down largescale reversals of shutdowns. Sure, we would still likely see spikes, but those spikes would be smaller and instead of rolling back to Phase 1, economies would be able to continue along in Phase 2. I dont think masks and distancing would cure the virus or stop it… but they sure would slow the spread and significantly reduce the chance of rolling back economic openings.
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