[mindslight]

I wholeheartedly agree with your first paragraph. However I am drawing distinctions between the results of the two political machines. While their goals are the same, the specific topics they end up rallying around are different. If we were discussing hostile college campuses, then it would make sense to criticize the blue team for its delusions. But rather we're discussing Covid where the red team has driven the mess.

The dynamic isn't that the evidence is unambiguous, but rather that when the evidence is inconclusive falling back to first principles makes sense. Respiratory filtration should help prevent spread of respiratory pathogens, period.

If there are no conclusive results proving that out for ersatz cloth masks, then the scientific approach is to try better protective equipment until it does become effective. Taking a lack of positive results as a reason to eschew protection is anti-scientific nihilism. If a virus is still spreading somehow with a certain type of PPE, then what does it take to stop it? Full face mask? Bunny suit plus PAPR? Once we know that, then we have a good idea of all the mechanisms of spread, and can debate whether specific precautions are worthwhile. Bunny suits might not be, but half face P100 respirators plus face shields at $50 per person might have actually made economic sense based on what Covid has done to the economy.

[charbonneau]

> The dynamic isn't that the evidence is unambiguous, but rather that when the evidence is inconclusive falling back to first principles makes sense. Respiratory filtration should help prevent spread of respiratory pathogens, period.

> If there are no conclusive results proving that out for ersatz cloth masks, then the scientific approach is to try better protective equipment until it does become effective.

I respect your view and completely agree that personal protective equipment should be examined further. The current evidence is definitely sufficient for a strong mask recommendation. I’m only critical of mandates (or bans) in this situation as they push people away from doing their own research and lead to bizarre scenes, as you encountered it with your respirator.

[mindslight]

I'm against mask mandates in principle, but it's hard to ignore that the strength of people listening to malevolent political figures has been much greater than the strength of people doing enlightened research. Maybe I'm just getting older and more conservative, shrug.

The best way of reconciling this seems to have been states issuing directives that didn't actually have the force of law. For example, the only "lockdowns" I know about the US were a few counties in CA. And yet people believed and acted as if there were such orders, even though they were really just strong suggestions to stay home.

FWIW the mask regime I was dealing with was being promulgated by a private company (the hospital), rather than the government. I'll critique any power structure regardless of its charter, but no political framework really has a good idea how to reel that type of thing in. To me the only real way to get past this is for people to become more intelligent so such top-down structure isn't seen as necessary in the first place.