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Comment by sharken | Hacker News Reader

Not sure why you have been down voted, the only recent large-scale study of face masks worn by regular people, did not reach any consensus.

Common sense would say that wearing something covering your nose and mouth is better than nothing at all, but this fails to take into account how the masks are treated by regular people.

I firmly believe that masks do not change anything significantly, at least until a study can prove the opposite.

What matters now is getting back to the pre-corona situation without restrictions.

Those who wants to be vaccinated on a yearly basis should absolutely do so, but those who choose not to should absolutely be free to enjoy all aspects of life without restrictions.

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According to "smart people who believe in science" groupthink, masks work. Period. It's settled science. Don't ask questions. Only deniers ask questions.

Despite all the pro-mask science being based on in-the-heat-of-the-moment research done in the middle of a highly politicized pandemic.

Prior to all this, the science on masks was completely inconclusive. And there was literally no research done on the effectiveness of shutting down large swaths of human life for more than a year. Though it shouldn't take an expert to deduce that it has profound negative impacts on economic, social and mental health.

We are in the middle of a massive, uncontrolled experiment with billions participating without any consent.

The idea that smart well meaning people are supposed all just fall in line and agree with the prevailing groupthink is almost despotic. I shudder to think of what would happen if "the experts" even so much as hinted at it being okay for people to use violence against non believers. It's terrifying, honestly.

Unfortunately, by the time we could actually do all the experiments to find the best ways to handle the pandemic, it would already be over. Everybody is just doing the best they can with the knowledge they have.

With any luck, we will learn some things that will help us deal better with the next pandemic.

> Everybody is just doing the best they can with the knowledge they have.

Then say that. Saying that masks work is a lie. The truth is nobody really knows.

Public health officials are treating the people they work for like children. Public health officials are not our parents. We are their customers and they serve us. Big difference.

I don’t know exactly what you mean by “masks work”, but my best guess based on the evidence available is that masks provide some protection.

We have learned, over ages, that quarantining the sick and isolating the vulnerable works about as well as you can expect. Yet we decided to do something different this time.

I believe it was the discovery that people were contagious before they showed symptoms, plus the specter of overwhelmed hospitals in other countries, which led to the restrictions that we are seeing.

If someone told us to wear a pink thong to save our lives and we obeyed unquestioningly and it turned out to be wrong, we would look like fools.

Texas open up fully a month ago, with only a 5-10% vaccination rate and nothing has happened that was predicted. Even Fauci was stumped when asked why the infection rate wasn't increasing. They're at record low infection rate. Norway and Sweden NEVER shut down or required a mask mandate, and the dire predictions never came true.

Quarantine was wrong, hospital overflow was wrong, the infection rate models were wrong, surface infection was wrong, cloth mask usage was wrong.

Everything was wrong but everyone who obeyed unquestioningly will look like fools if they admit it.

We have to play along with this stupid un-scientific hand-wavy narrative until the media and government decides it's enough, and gently let's the unquestioning acolytes off the hook.

Even after an outdoor event with 40.000 spectators Texas is still doing fine, they are at more than 30% who has started vaccination.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/texas/

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