No, the number of “cases” was very low at the time that masks became mandatory, prior to that there were many deaths and many “cases” as well despite limited testing. If the masks work so well then how come “cases” took off shortly after?
Also, by law you have to wear your mask “correctly”, it has to cover your chin and nose. Part of the problem is cloth masks, some might have some minor effect but many are useless. Surgical masks are the best aside from N95s, but even then it’s questionable how useful they really are.
Which data? There was a study that someone posted months ago saying that surgical masks had some degree of protection against the flu, but this isn’t the flu and spreads much more easily. Various types of cloth masks are going to be somewhere between that and zero.
The funny thing is that in March and April the government was actually advising against wearing a mask because it will increase the risk of infection.
Something like that would have worked, but some of the rules in NZ and Australia were excessive and pointless like restricting how far from home you can travel or how long you can go outside. Just stay away from other people, it’s pretty simple.
Masks prevent the spread they do not eliminate it. You already know this. People die with seat belts on. It’s not a magic no issues button we can push.
I’m sure every time this isn’t the case the person is arrested immediately. The moment it slips down the Mounties come in.
I really feel like people have done this to you a million times and you still fight it which is fine. The overwhelming consensus in the medical community is that social distancing and masks are two ways to limit the spread of coronavirus. You can feel free to continue to fight against them for forever if you want.
It was the same data everyone else in the world had, actually. I’m not sure what your government was thinking at the time so I can’t really comment. The thing is YOU consider mandatory isolation of potential carriers in a 5 star hotel several steps away from Gulags lol. If other Canadians think in a similar way, I’m not sure how your government would have handled this.
It was the same here and people have been giving them shit for months. When the WHO announced that people shouldn’t wear masks unless they were sick, my relatives from CHINA immediately called me and told me not to listen to them.
The thing is it’s not how people behave. If you tell them to stay away from other people, they’ll go near other people. If you tell them they can’t leave their homes, they’ll leave their home but not go near other people. Get what I’m saying?
When we’re dealing with exponential growth, a couple of fuckheads are enough to start a large outbreak. All this shit started from ONE person in Wuhan. ONE.
My point is that whatever measures are taken they need to spare the economy as much as possible, and the fact is that there is no realistic solution to stop the spread of the virus in Canada right now so anything of that sort should just be abandoned. For the last month in much of Ontario many businesses like gyms were closed and eating inside a restaurant was forbidden, but in spite of that the “cases” keep climbing while hardly anyone is dying or hospitalized due to COVID. More people are out of work and more businesses are shutting down, but nothing has been accomplished.
That’s all fine but saying things like if masks work why are cases going up is simply ignoring scientific consensus and I would say spreading disinformation.
It’s that type of false minded thinking that hurts us. You get people to think “well if these steps they say to take work so well how come peoples get this?” I’m not doing any of that inconvenient shit it doesn’t even work.”
Again this would be akin to having the seat belt law and then realizing people still die in car crashes and then saying “I knew it seat belts don’t work.”
I don’t get what you’re saying. You agree the number of cases increase while the number of deaths drop when there’s more testing, right? Given there’s a median incubation period of 5-8 days and there was an increase in tests, why would you come to the conclusion that masks don’t work because of this?
Nope, you’re not wrong. I can’t speak to Europe, but we in the US pretty much love to give the finger to government whenever we can. You’re talking about a collection of states where large swathes of states have people who would deliberately go outside in a weather emergency such as a hurricane or tornado “just to get a glimpse”.
We are indeed cowboys. Unfortunately in the event of a virus this works against many even when the president and administration are united in their support of public health science.
See relevant picture:
Yes this is real. I live this out about every summer.
Well, I guess it’s a trade off. Lots of factors we did discuss such as paying the price in terms of sacrifice of lives vs long term preservation of values like liberty and freedom. I can’t say I disagree with much of this although I’m not sure what decision I would actually have made in hindsight. In my mind’s eye(Hamlet lol) I’d probably be a cowboy and isolate myself from my parents for the time being. But honestly, i don’t really know.
Just FYI, but there are well over 100 mutated versions of Covid circulating.
This is probably true. But it has to be coordinated, with penalties, which is a problem with 50 different states. Or was, I don’t know how Biden is going to work with it yet. And it is very late in the curve now, so realistically I don’t think we have the ability to get it done. Damage already done.
Yes, but NZ is pretty much up and running completely like normal now, concerts and mass gatherings and no masks. Which is possibly the only place on earth that’s happening.
Not really, what I’m saying about the masks is that they offer limited protection at best, and some are basically worthless. Even the Canadian government is giving more specific advice too:
The surgical masks we have at my work have three layers, surprise, surprise.
You have been talking to too many right wing Americans who think that COVID is all a hoax and there is no virus. That’s not even what I’m saying at all. Really, I think that a lot of people shouldn’t worry at all about the virus, while others should probably take many more precautions that what the government recommends. And I think that there is no good reason for people like myself who already had the virus to be wearing masks, but the laws make no exception.
It’s hard to really interpret the data because of the increase in number of tests and also the fact that they no longer test asymptomatic people unless they have been in contact with a confirmed “case” or work in certain settings. That alone will increase the number of “cases” without increasing the number of tests.
But like I said, for the past month or so they have been testing roughly the same number of people per day but the damn cases are still increasing, so it does appear that right now there is some increase in the number of people being infected in spite of masks and additional restrictions that have been in place for the last month in the most populated regions of Ontario. So whatever they have been doing is not nearly enough to stop the spread of the virus, but it’s sufficient to collapse the economy and bury us in debt.
There seems to be little correlation between the number of “cases” and deaths, most likely because only certain groups are at risk of death while the majority of people won’t even have symptoms. When nursing homes have COVID outbreaks you have deaths, but anywhere else the odds of dying are very low.
The increase in tests was over several months, not 5-8 days. The fact that the number of tests was gradually increased at the same time that the number of “cases” decreased in the so-called first wave and only increased after masks became mandatory gives me the impression that masks of various sorts offer less protection than most people think and that other factors aside from increased testing account for the increase in “cases”. Schools reopening is one factor, but as everyone has concluded, the cost of keeping kids home from school greatly outweighs any potential benefit. But basically, if masks worked as well as some people think then “cases” would not have increased as much as they did, and half the reason for that is the sort of masks that many people wear.
But you guys were the first to put a man on the moon, so it does get some things done.
I wasn’t aware that there were so many. However, this one does sound slightly more concerning if the article is accurate.
Yeah but is it because people didn’t spend more than an hour outside and away from other people? If it was three hours then it would be like the US? Some things made sense, others defied logic.
@H_factor - Nobody on here is saying that COVID-19 is a hoax, that is complete nonsense. But being excessively fearful and going overboard with restrictions and shutdowns can potentially be worse, lots of people are dying due to the restrictions and other effects.
I don’t take an issue with that argument. It’s the “doesn’t seem like masks help much” that I took issue with. We need more people taking the steps that the medical community agrees can reduce the spread not less.
We need that whether we are shutdown, restricted, or whatever.
Masks in general don’t help much, certain masks like surgical masks, some multi-ply cloth masks, and of course N95s have a significant effect. But I’m not really trying to debate anything about masks, that shit is tiresome and there is nothing to say that we don’t already know. What I take issue with is that they are basically collapsing the country for a virus that is hardly killing anyone. A different approach is needed, and in parts of Europe it’s worse. On the other hand, some Americans (especially the morbidly obese and sick ones) should take things more seriously.
Ok, need more data then. We mostly encourage surgical masks here. I think it’s a minor inconvenience and if they DO work, you avoid getting to the stage where more drastic measures have to be taken.
I mean, people shouldn’t take freedom for granted. We wanna do our civic duty even if the government doesn’t make certain things mandatory. We also KNOW that if shit gets out of hand, the government is going to take drastic measure to curb it that we’re really not going to like.
Geoffrey Robertson once wrote that about his experiences in a libel case that people in a part of Europe that I can’t remember understood the value of freedom more than Brits because they had been deprived of it for so long.
I would rephrase this to say masks in general are one way to limit the spread of coronavirus. Their effectiveness may vary based on type and other factors.
Downplaying preventative factors is not helpful IMO.
Sure, why not, same idea. The doctors, scientists, and government always seem to be a step or two behind me, I was wearing a mask back when they said not to.
Same here actually lol. The government here was printing posters and showing TV ads telling people NOT to wear masks unless they were sick. That’s why people got so pissed.
