Violet Affleck and mask mandates

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AIBU think that this shouldn’t be encouraged? Violet Affleck advocating for mask mandates. Daughter of Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck. Speaking about the importance of masks. Says we should still be wearing them to curb the spread of Covid 19.
Shouldn’t a young privileged woman be enjoying her youth? Is there a reason for fit healthy people like her to still walk around in masks?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-15127909/violet-affleck-mask-mandates-long-covid-ben-jennifer-garner.html

No one is saying that people who work in, say, a burn unit, or a serious infectious disease unit, shouldn't use appropriate measures to prevent infection.

Public mask mandates mean people making all the time, and there is no evidence that is effective, no matter what kind of method you mean.

You might as well talk about perfect use stats for contraception, totally useless for creating policies.

Proper masking is not easy or simple and not something people can fudge. It means a fitted mask, used for only a few hours, not touching it, not reusing it, not putting it in a pocket, not pulling it down even for a moment and then replacing it, not allowing it to touch a surface.

And what most people use, surgical or cloth masks, are just useless from the get go.

There are a lot more people being misled about how effective the mask use they are actually doing is than there are questioning proper use of masks in limited settings.

Hmm - who has asked for the public to mask all the time? This feels like an argument rehashed from 2021. Do you believe everyone who wants any masks at all secretly wants constant masking?

I don't buy "don't bother masking unless it's perfect and perfect is really too difficult for the plebs" as an argument, either. Sure, a non-fit-tested FFP mask might not filter out the full 97% of particles that it would if it was perfectly fitted - I wouldn't rely on it to protect me in a room with someone with active TB. But it filters out an awful lot and I'd rather have that protection than none in a busy hospital waiting room.

In fact "most people" I know who mask now use FFP2 or FFP3 masks, and I don't think we should be saying to those that don't: "don't try to wear a mask, it's too difficult for the likes of you". It would be better to say "great, but that fabric mask isn't doing as much as you perhaps think it is so why not try one of these instead". At least that's constructive.

Right from the start the government could have trusted people and been honest about real masks, and told people that they do protect wearers but we didn't have enough, that the fabric ones might help the tiniest bit but not much, and that (crucially) rather than accepting unlimited covid in order to give up masks we've always had another option: improve ventilation in order to make masks less necessary.

I think the problem is that people's context for this is the mission creep during the restrictions period. Rolling consent for lockdowns and things like school closures rather than explanations at the start that we were liable to be looking at longer periods. This has had an impact- I appreciate Violet is in the US, but most posters here talking about compulsory masks in healthcare are in the UK afaik.

Which yes, further reinforces the point that we'd be better approaching this by improving air quality. But of course in the UK it was always easier to shunt the downsides of dealing with the problem onto the public instead of making more efficient but expensive changes. See also, adequate sick pay. All the money we spunked on shit from 2020-22, but it was fine for some people to have to choose between isolation and keeping the roof over their heads whilst simultaneously risking criminalisation!

Utter claptrap based on pretend science 🙄

Masking is very bad for the environment, so actually she is.

You are not only being unreasonable, you are also demonstrating a total lack of understanding and awareness. Did you listen to what she SAID?
Or are you just focusing on her wearing a mask?
She is a highly educated woman, working in a lab at Yale with experts in the field of long Covid.
Do you think, MAYBE, she knows more about this than you do?!
Try listening instead of judging.

Personally I think we should stop washing our hands and drinking clean water. Infections are good for us; it’s important for our immune systems.

The argument doesn’t really hold up, does it? I agree that asking everyone to mask in public spaces is not viable (although masking when you’re unwell I think would be reasonable, but people are too unwilling).

Personally I think far UVc is the answer. It destroys pathogens in the air - it should at least be installed in hospital wards. I think the money would be made back by reduced hospital length of stays - the number of times granny gets admitted for a broken hip and leaves 4 weeks later having had two hospital acquired pneumonias is immense.

Interestingly, doctors were very against hand washing when it was first suggested to stop spreading infections. They thought the idea was stupid and ridiculous. We now think it’s obviously good. I suspect air will go the same way, I’d just rather it happened sooner!

Better tell Cambridge University researchers that they’re practicing pretend science, and that you know better

www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/upgrading-ppe-for-staff-working-on-covid-19-wards-cut-hospital-acquired-infections-dramatically

I think we can conclude that if you’re sick then avoid others - and if you can’t, then just wear a mask and stop being a dirty beggar