Ending Mask Requirements: Giving in to Mob Psychology?
What’s done is done. California’s rules for mask wearing are easing this week.
Never mind that waiting a couple of more weeks would have been the prudent thing to do. While new cases of coronaviruses are declining, transmission rates remain higher than in previous lulls in the epidemic.
Notice that I didn’t use the word “mandate” in describing what is occurring. Even though there has been broad public support (I’ll get to this claim further on in this post) for masking requirements over the course of the pandemic, the “M” word has been the focus of a loud minority many of whom rely on social media and opportunist demagogues to shape their worldview.
Saying the M-word in an open-to-the-public forum, whether in-person or virtual, amounts to an invitation from the speaker for directed verbal abuse, threats, and other hostile actions.
The noise and clamor of a few people, along with too many in the media relying on faulty assumptions, have mostly dictated the path we’re going down. I do know lots of folks are fatigued by what seems like an endless cycle of infections and conflicting messages from elected officials.
But here’s the deal: the public hasn’t been nearly as “over it” as we have been told. I’ll grant that people are reacting right now to increasingly optimistic news, but the point-of-view holding that health officials have been full of crap just isn’t true.
In a COVID States project report released last week, 69% of Americans somewhat or strongly approved of indoors mask mandates. California was tied with New York in the top spot, with 80% approval for such mandates. And, no, this isn’t data from three months ago.
Eighty percent! Do you realize how rare it is for 80% of the public to agree on anything?
The project doing this work is a multi-university group of researchers with expertise in computational social science, network science, public opinion polling, epidemiology, public health, communication, and political science.
They have been (among other things) regularly asking people across all 50 states and the District of Columbia about their approval of indoors mask mandates. Their latest report includes survey data collected in January 2022, asking 22,961 individuals about their opinion on the matter.
The survey utilized state-level representative quotas for race/ethnicity, age, and gender, along with further adjustments using demographic characteristics to match the U.S. population with respect to race/ethnicity, age, gender, education, and those living in urban, suburban, or rural areas.
So the message from some political leaders and public health advocates makes a relaxation of expected behavior sound like “the nightmare is over.” Despite anti-masker over-the-top claims of victimization, state-sponsored sanctions for not wearing a mask have been rare.
There have been consequences for people who’ve chosen to be confrontational on the issue. And despite what the crybabies given airtime on KUSI say, nobody’s being forced to do anything. It’s more like “if you chose X, then Y might happen.”
That reality isn’t changing, as masks will still be required in many settings, including schools, hospitals and public transit. As it has been since last summer, the state’s face covering guidance will continue to require those not fully vaccinated — boosters are not required — to wear masks in all “indoor public settings and businesses.”
The anti-mandate people (who are really anti-vaxxers trying to look less ridiculous) will still be asked to make a choice in those settings. I’m betting they’ll opt to defy this direction, smug in the satisfaction that their freedom is more important than whether or not somebody's grandmother dies.
So be it. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Virtually every claim made by these diehards has been debunked, disproven, or discredited. Sadly, we’re to the point where people’s sense of self-worth is bound to the leanings of grifters, mentally ill people, and/or the most sadistic of nihilists. So when the moon is in Mercury and the sun rises in the East, believers will believe whatever “truth” gets spewed.
Take “the masks don’t work” vintage of whine, for instance. Just this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new real-world evidence that masks work.
Results of a new study performed from Feb. 18 to Dec. 1, 2021, show the least protective face covering (an ordinary cloth mask) offered 56% more protection than wearing no mask in indoor settings. Meanwhile, surgical masks offered 66% more protection and N95/KN95 respirators offered the most protection, 83%.
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Stop for a moment. What do you think would have really happened if the Canadian government had resigned due to a bunch of noisy traffic jams? Would the world be a better place if scientists and doctors were hung from the lampposts? Would you really want a follower of Q overseeing law enforcement?
These disruptions were (and are) just another variant of the political virus known as “NO.”
Public health officials –at least those who haven’t felt the need to say less due to the venom aimed at them– will continue to advocate for wearing a mask indoors, especially in crowded locations.
The relaxation of standards under way will serve to make those who have profited ego-wise, politically, or financially by ginning up discontent (realistically) based on discomfort eager to find a way to continue their madness. I would expect some desperate moves. And if the promised convoys take place, they will be even more spectacular than previous incarnations.
Having said all of that, there is something that people in government need to learn from this experience. It’s more difficult to motivate the public when rhetoric designed to convey certainty fails to take into account the psychology of trust.
People are smart enough to not automatically balk when hearing communicated uncertainty. Early proclamations by the former President that proved to be patently false set the stage for public distrust.
Those who felt the need to make hard promises later on as a counter to the tsunami of bullshit unleashed at the start of the epidemic failed the public by seeming so conclusive about science that was evolving rapidly.
I’m wearing my mask indoors and the anti-vaxxers can have my mask when they can pry it out of my cold, dead hands.
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com