[GavinMcG]

There is zero doubt at this point that mask-wearing and reducing the number of people one comes in contact with do have a positive effect.

And your slippery slope fallacy is also unconvincing. I have a reasonable choice about whether to meet someone in person, but not whether to use electricity. And while both may be harmful, only one of them can be the proximate cause of the continued spread of disease and even death.

The strawman you're building is that we put health "before anything else". Being absolutist and making any one thing a priority to an extreme degree can of course be problematic. But asking people to properly wear masks in public, closing spaces where people do convene and not wear masks, and expecting people to relate to others virtually or from a distance are not "putting health before anything else" - they're making health one priority. You're making up the idea that it's exclusive of everything else.

[BillGoates]

You not agreeing with my statement, is only because you decided for yourself what you see as a minor or a major inconvenience. But you cannot project your belief system onto others. People should always have the choice to decide what works for them or not. Political or social pressure in any way is unhealthy. Period.

At this point saying that there is zero doubt at this is 100% untrue. To put it mildly, the scientific community is divided on this topic.

Till now hacker news has been my safe haven from politics and propaganda. I am sorry to see that going away also.

[GavinMcG]

Now who's taking the extreme position? But your accusation applies just as well to you: putting individual choice before anything else will make the life we live impossible.

Should I get to choose whether taxes work for me or not? Sure be nice to take advantage of all the public resources without having to pay for them, at least until everyone else catches up.

Should I get to choose whether criminal law works for me or not? Sure be nice to take what I want and shoot anyone who tries to come after me, at least until we're all at each others throats.

People who are taking unnecessary risks aren't just projecting their belief systems onto others, they're threatening their health and their lives. Social pressure has its place against people who threaten us, because it's better than not having a society at all.

[AndrewUnmuted]

> Now who's taking the extreme position?

No. There is nothing extreme about:

>> you cannot project your belief system onto others

>> People should always have the choice to decide

>> Political or social pressure in any way is unhealthy.

You know what _is_ extreme? This is extreme.

> Should I get to choose whether taxes work for me or not?

Thinking that no people or entities make the very deliberate choice to not pay any taxes is not only extreme, it's blindingly and overwhelmingly untrue. We see people complaining all the time on HN about how Amazon, Walmart, etc., get away with not paying any taxes through their expert utilization of accounting, legal loopholes and insider access.

> Should I get to choose whether criminal law works for me or not? Sure be nice to take what I want and shoot anyone who tries to come after me, at least until we're all at each others throats.

It is indefensibly extreme to suggest this is not happening every day. I just wrote in my prior post how NYC's rapid increase in senseless violent crime is the actual pandemic here.

This summer during lockdown I was walking back from the grocery store and got randomly assaulted - punched in the face numerous times - by a complete stranger, who took nothing from me before running away. This is happening all the time now - in all regions of the world.

> People who are taking unnecessary risks aren't just projecting their belief systems onto others, they're threatening their health and their lives.

You are in no way certified to claim who is taking a risk and what constitutes that being a risk.

> it's better than not having a society at all

What we have now is the absence of society. And it's the most wretched, inexcusably grotesque thing I have ever seen governments do to their own citizens.

If this is the way life continues on Earth, who will truly want to live on it?

[BillGoates]

Now we are getting somewhere. Yes, neither option works.

The points you mention should be open to debate, based on open and truthful information.

And if the points of view are so incompatible that no reasonable solution is possible maybe we should go our different ways. Why not have state without police. There are states or countries with little to none taxes, or villages where you can walk around nude.

But if we keep going into the direction we are going now, things will become very grim. One way or another a side will try to force their opinion upon others. And the price the other side has to pay could be unrealistically high. You cannot ask someone to starve to death for your sense of safety.

[JKCalhoun]

> People should always have the choice to decide what works for them or not.

Not really. Not when they participate in a society.

If you're alone on an island, I grant you that your personal choices have no effect on others. For the rest of the world though....

[zaroth]

I'd say there's plenty of doubt on the mask front. Lots of evidence that masks encourage risky behavior, lots of evidence that COVID spreads as an aerosol that face cloths can't contain or could even increase, and clearly masks and lockdowns have not been at all effective throughout the world.

The argument isn't "slippery slope" - it's that we are spending trillions of dollars on unproven and ineffective interventions, or even counter-productive policy that directly cost thousands of lives.

[maaaaattttt]

I cannot be sure about the rest of the world, but the lockdowns during the first wave (march/april/may) here in Europe have proven to be very effective.

[zaroth]

Did the goalposts just move to lockdowns? I was talking about masks and "social distancing".

Spain, France and Italy, before the most recent massive surge, had the best mask compliance in Europe. The surge happened anyway. Italy's death rate is right back to where it was in March/April.

Obviously welding people into their homes is an effective way to stop transmission outside of the home. While the real-world effect of masks seems to have been overwhelming in the case of flu (cases basically down 99%) it has been entirely underwhelming in the case of COVID (more cases than ever). This is most likely because flu predominantly spreads through large droplets and surface contact which homemade masks and handwashing/sanitizing can block, and COVID predominantly spreads as an aerosol which mostly isn't stopped by masks or handwashing.

These interventions are not a binary "work" or "don't work". In theory for every percentage point of people who follow some effective guidance, that should be an incremental reduction in the R-factor. Worldwide cases are over 500k per day, and despite much improved treatments worldwide death rate has never been higher.

But we will never know if, for example, a message of "masks will NOT protect you, the only safe choice is to stay home" would have been better or worse in the final months leading up to widespread vaccination, or if ultimately pushing masks increased the R-factor.

So much of the guidance around COVID has turned out to be wrong. Closing schools for example is now widely recognized to have been the totally wrong decision and cost a lost of lives and severely impacted a lot of people both economically and mentally.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1114375/wearing-a-face-m...

[rob74]

Sure, same as there's "plenty of doubt" on climate change, on the correctness of the 2020 US elections etc. - as long as you are willing to listen to the people who sow those doubts and believe them...

[AndrewUnmuted]

> There is zero doubt at this point that mask-wearing and reducing the number of people one comes in contact with do have a positive effect.

Then why are we locking down a second or third time, with reportedly complete futility?

> wear masks in public, closing spaces where people do convene and not wear masks, and expecting people to relate to others virtually or from a distance

I live in NYC. This is not what is happening. We are being told to not travel. We are being told to not leave our homes without an essential reason. We are being told that we must completely alter our lives, leading to hardship and lost employment all throughout the city.

[GavinMcG]

> Then why are we locking down a second or third time

Most places didn't lock down a first time. You live in NYC, so you got the brunt of the first wave and did actually lock down. I lived in Arizona when it was the next hotspot, and it effectively didn't. The lock down order there basically applied to indoor dining, gyms, salons, and strip clubs. Everything else was open, and 25-50% still weren't wearing masks.

We're still taking measures because we (as a country) didn't do them right the first time. The fact that your community did do things right the first time still left it exposed to the rest of the country. It's not fair, and you've got every right to be angry, and yet it doesn't change anything about how the virus spreads or what it does to people.

There are a number of countries that proved it doesn't have to be futile - it's just futile if people don't do right by each other.

[AndrewUnmuted]

> We're doing things still because we (as a country) didn't do them right the first time.

We in the USA are at 84% compliance with mask mandates. [0] Reconcile.

> There are a number of countries that proved it doesn't have to be futile - it's just futile if people don't do right by each other.

No, there aren't.

There is not a single place on planet Earth where any of the COVID statistics showed any improvement after enacting a mask mandate or a lockdown.

That's because neither masks nor lockdowns work.

Everyone wore masks during the BLM/Antifa direct action that took place all throughout NYC in April and May. It led to a notable increase in infections. We can't have it both ways - we can't say the masks work AND that protesting during the pandemic was safe. If protesting during the pandemic WAS safe, then we don't need lockdowns or mask mandates. Sorry to burst your bubble. Just like the GOP partisans in 2002/2003 who yelled "support the troops" because they had their Republican identity tied to supporting a terrible war, you have fallen into the "follow the science" camp and appear to be doing everything you can to defend your chosen political identity in the face of overwhelming contrary facts.

Just remember: you've got to be a pretty intelligent person. People will be coming to you for greater understanding about these complex times, and you could be a source of immense truth-telling and could help restore a lot of happiness in peoples' lives. Right now, you're filling them with dread - and it's totally unnecessary. I impore you to consider re-examining your understanding of these issues. Watch & read all the banned materials that tear these notions apart.

[0] https://www.mediaite.com/news/whopping-84-percent-of-america...

[GavinMcG]

You live in a place where the COVID statistics improved after a lockdown and mask mandate. New York went from having eight to ten thousand new cases per day to having seven or eight hundred per day throughout the summer. And what bubble? I've never said that protesting during the pandemic was safe, and it's absurd that people think so. They might think it's important enough, but it's not safe.

Speaking of a greater understanding: 84% of respondents to that poll said they "have worn a face mask in public." That's not the same thing as compliance with mandates, and it's not even a statement that they frequently or always wear a mask in public.

Even if it were, how many of those people answer yes but also dine out at a restaurant, or otherwise remove their mask in higher-risk situations?

The good news is that with more up to date knowledge we can likely get a significant reduction in a more targeted way, rather than an across-the-board lockdown [0].

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2923-3

[AndrewUnmuted]

> You live in a place where the COVID statistics improved after a lockdown and mask mandate.

That place is now locking down again. Reconcile that for us.

There is no evidence that implementing & enforcing these two actions led to any change in COVID statistics. You will have a terribly difficult time even proving correlative relationships between the COVID data and enforcement of these ridiculous policies.

> That's not the same thing as compliance with mandates

Yes, it is. This shows me that you have not even read the mask mandates. Compliance with the NYC mandate [0] for instance is as simple as wearing one, and only when you cannot "socially distance" from others.

Surely, you are aware that our constitutionally-limited federated republic provides no legal route for these mandates to be anything more than toothless.

> Even if it were, how many of those people answer yes but also dine out at a restaurant, or otherwise remove their mask in higher-risk situations?

See how easy it is for the lockdown policies to enter the mask mandate discussion without any rhyme or reason whatsoever?

The mask mandates were employed so that we could stop being locked down. If the only way for the masks to work is if we also are locked down, you are already admitting that this policy is not only worthless but also misleading in its intent and goals.

Citation needed on the claim that going out to dinner is a "higher-risk situation."

[0] https://regs.health.ny.gov/volume-1a-title-10/content/sectio...