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You MUST Wear a Mask! You MUST NOT Wear a Mask!

Remember when you were told you MUST wear a mask or be fired? Well, guess what…

Oh, what a tangled web we weave… Remember when you were told you MUST wear a mask or be fired? Well, guess what…

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39 replies on “You MUST Wear a Mask! You MUST NOT Wear a Mask!”

As a 36 year Registered Nurse with mostly OR and Recovery experience but also 5 years of Infection Prevention, my take on masks is this.
The N95 is moderately effective (95%) in filtering BACTERIA, not viruses. For viruses, you need a PAPR (Power Assisted Personal Respirator, with HEPPA filter).
Surgical masks don’t filter much of anything except large smoke or paint particles so, even though lots of doctors think they are there to prevent infection, I maintain that all they do is to keep the surgeons from drooling into an open wound.
Personal observation = SCIENCE!

Actually, in surgery, it’s a bit of both. (Retired OR nurse here.)

OTOH, studies have been done that suggest that mask wearing doesn’t do much to protect the patient. They do keep splashes out of your mouth & nose, though.

BTW, a thoughtful and informative, and entertaining Right Angle from All 3 “legs” of that right triangle. Even the Hypotenuse came through with a great finish.

Masks make it very difficult to understand what the person behind them is saying.
One reason is that masks block some of the higher harmonics of speech, making consonants difficult to distinguish. You get the vowel sounds, but not the consonants.
Masks also cover the mouth so that lip reading is impossible.
Together, those make understanding speech very difficult.

I have a difficult time understanding what the people behind the counter say most of the time for a variety of reasons. The mask just makes it that much more difficult. Also, no matter what my wife tells you it’s not because I’m hard of hearing!!!

“Reasonable accommodation” includes allowing people to adapt and develop NATURAL immunity. That means don’t force people who feel they are reasonably healthy to inhale their own exhaust to make YOU feel good about your power.
The science now tells us all the years of constant masking did more damage to respiratory systems than helping prevent the spread of covid. We have a lady in my ‘hood who is so afraid of “long covid” she’ll die younger than she should because she’s already developing a rasping cough. Can’t convincer her otherwise.

Think of it as evolution in action…
Sorry, proper etiquette requires attribution:
-‘Oath of Fealty’
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

Being very confused, over-educated relating to infectious disease, and dumbfounded regarding mask mandates, I can tell you from my experience the last 3 years that masks do have some efficacy. I am, as most of you already have heard ad infinitum, a healthcare provider, specifically an ENT. But my feeling regarding the usefulness of the masks is not because they filter the virus. As Ron Swanson Alter Ego knows and is unhappy that I shared, my opinion is that the decreased rate of upper respiratory infections when wearing masks results from the mask blocking our fingers from digging in our noses. That’s it. And youths and men, in particular, pick their noses all the time, transmitting germs.

My dear departed mother would sit at her sewing table in her home and watch cars pass by on the street in front of the house. I recall her doing an informal survey of drivers passing by with fingers shoved up their noses….Men? 9 out of 10. Women? 0 out of 10. According to her, didn’t matter if they were teenagers, middle aged, or old men. Handsome or ugly. Those fingers were buried. And later, those fingers just might be handing you a pen to sign a document, or putting the tomato or lettuce on your in and out burger…..

My experience exactly, word for word. I counted them when I was trying to cross a busy intersection to get to the hospital every day.

Keith, you need a better hobby. Something a little less gross. Collecting slugs, perhaps 😉

I just got back from a 8 day biz trip to Taiwan. Returned home Sunday afternoon. Being a BW member, and being acutely aware of the mask efficacy since the beginning of the pandemic, I was looking at the populace over in Taiwan. High speed rail stations – 50 percent covered with masks. Airport – less, maybe 20% covered. Restaurant patrons – even less covered. Walking down a city street – almost no one. Finally, in cars? None. However, on the flight over and back, all the flight attendants had masks. Not N-95’s, just the pleated surgical masks.

Food servers in Taiwan, however, 100% covered. I was getting the impression that the Taiwanese felt that the customers would rest assured that their food was being prepared by someone who, if by tickle, or allergy, or common cold, couldn’t sneeze snot into your dish before handing it to you.
Prior to covid, in my travels to Taiwan and Hong Kong, I’d note that the few who were wearing masks, as in the crowded Hong Kong Subway, did so because they probably had a cold and politely donned a mask because they HAD to …get to the store, get to the doctor, get to work, and just didn’t want to spread their sickness around.
Finally, I’ll hit In and Out occasionally, as in 1 time a month, usually when I’m travelling on the road to somewhere, and I think they already have dedicated order takers who stand there but don’t work on the line. Those order takers don’t need to be wearing masks, but the person putting my burger together, I’m ok IF he/she wants to wear a mask. They don’t interface with the customer, they interface with my burger!

It’s nice to be ‘legal’ again … Because I never did wear a mask except under duress when compelled to. Which was maybe a half dozen times because I hardly ever go anywhere.

The only thing I did where a mask was required was Symphony Choir. And even with that, some well tailored trimming of the provided mask allowed me to breathe quite nicely.
For the few times I went to a grocery store with anything, I did my best John Wayne impression and wore a bandana. Felt like a bank robber!

Look at that ‘rebel’! Had a mask but wasn’t wearing it! That’s True Grit!

Hi guys, I live in Ireland and still see people wearing fake diapers. I was required to wear one in the grocery store but could tolerate it for 15 minutes then had to run outside to breathe. I was a volunteer EMT for ten years , NEVER wore a mask unless blood particles were flying. virtue signalling and control by the WHO,WEF and UN. Geez. Enough is more than enough

People seem to forget that “Surgical Masks” were for Bloodborne pathogens. A blood droplet is relatively large.
That Scott’s work actually had him wearing a mask while sporting that awesome facial hair is really a farce.

If you think the idea of Scott in a mask is a farce, you should have seen me. I looked like Cthulhu.

Anyone who has ever been fitted for a respirator or even a “gas mask” as many military have, knows that any facial hair breaks the seal and renders the device largely ineffective.
And that is for something intended to keep dangerous vapors out. For something intended to keep “particulate” trapped, it was always just a silly proposition.
But there is a reason propaganda plays on people’s fears: It Works!

I see people still wearing masks, especially in the grocery store. They all look scared to death. The eyes show nothing but fear. I imagine of having to be out in public among the great unwashed.
The ones that really amaze me are the couples I see where one is wearing a mask and one is not. Then they get in the car together and the one unmasks.
As Scott says, so much information on how airborne viruses actually cause infection, and it still doesn’t get through.
It reinforces something of which I remind my daughter and her friends when they are amazed at someone stupidity.
Imagine a person you know that you think is of average intelligence.
Now, understand, that by the definition of average intelligence, half of the people are less intelligent than the person who popped into your mind as average.
You meet them everyday. They are even allowed to vote.

… and some of them actually work at government-funded facilities that are responsible for our nuclear stockpile. Homer Simpson is a parody of reality. Are you ‘fraid yet?

I still think the Simpsons started out as Matt Groening doing a cartoon documentary of the crazy people in the town in which he grew up. They were ( I use past tense as I have not watched it in many, many years) an all too accurate caricature of real people.
Pretty sure I have Bart in Vacation Bible School this week.
Putting Homer in a Nuclear Power Plant was a nice touch. Added some good tension.

“Ron”, you just typed my recurring lament. Yet in public, we seem too “polite” to speak the obvious.
We as a cultured society tend to think ‘everyone is brilliant – or sharp, or smart, or on their game, or whatever you’d call someone of average intelligence’. But that’s the problem with reality. Everything is a built on the bell curve, no? Yes, lots of citizens of average intelligence. Many of higher intelligence. But it seems our bell curve is a bit skewed, as there are a lot of Americans who are well below average. Dumb _S________, A________, F________, you can fill in the words. The curve is the curve and it’s cross racial, cross cultural and cross gender.
Crap Parent (s) + Crap Schools = Crap outcomes.
Crap Parent (s) + Good Schools = Probably Crap outcomes
Good Parent (s) + Crap Schools = Probably Crap outcomes.
Good Parents + Good Schools = Possibly Crap outcomes anyway.
Navigating life is a crapshoot.

Well, that’s one handicap I don’t suffer from. Politeness I mean. I’m a very civil gentleman when gentlemanly civility is appropriate. Suffering fools gladly is not my style. When it comes to masks …

I just point and giggle.

Being as most of the time when I’m out in public, where I might encounter a masked critter, I’m with my sister — The reward for my lack of gentlemanly civility is usually a pretty stout punch in whichever bicep happens to be easiest for her to reach.

We used to fight like wild animals when we were kids. Then I grew up and stopped hitting her, ’cause she’s a girl and all. She has no such foibles when it comes to me. I think she’s paying me back for when we were kids.

As a friend once pointed out to me, 50% of the doctors out there graduated in the bottom half of their class.

Yes, Maryanne. Hopefully most of the med school students skew towards the Right Side of the Bell Curve that Road Rider pointed out. So it’s (hopefully) less noticeable.
My late Aunt had an old joke: What do you call the guy who graduated last in his class from medical school?
[spoiler title=”Answer”] Doctor [/spoiler]

I began to laugh at the wrong joke! I saw the above box with +Answer……and I thought that was the punchline! For I moment I became Rev Jim in Taxi, asking “what do you do when you come to a yellow light?”…….

‘Starman’ answer:
“Green light, Go. Red light, Stop. Yellow light, Go Very Fast.”

If you were an ‘observant Muslim’ who wears a full face covering, would you work at an In-n-Out Burger? Would you work at all? Would you leave your house? Would you be permitted to leave your house? I wonder how many ‘observant Muslims’ are actually using the same psychological crutch as the permamaskers?

It is important to note that those who still insist upon wearing the covid burkas are not the same set who rebelled against the mandates to do so.

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