Yves here. A companion piece to this account of the Covid-19 mask wars in the US is News media and distrust in scientific experts at VoxEU. However, I wish this article gave more practical advice as to how to talk to mask refusniks. One might be to start with, “How do you keep your family safe from Covid-19?” but that might simply elicit a response like, “The risk is overhyped, the media makes money from scaring people.”
By Anna Almendrala of Kaiser Health News, who previously worked at HuffPost. Originally published at Kaiser Health News
Health care workers on the front lines of the COVID crisis have spent exhausting months working and self-quarantining off-duty to keep from infecting others, including their families. Encountering people who indignantly refuse face coverings can feel like a slap in the face.
When an employee told a group of 20-somethings they needed face masks to enter his fast-food restaurant, one woman fired off a stream of expletives. “Isn’t this Orange County?” snapped a man in the group. “We don’t have to wear masks!”
The curses came as a shock, but not really a surprise, to Nilu Patel, a certified registered nurse anesthetist at nearby University of California-Irvine Medical Center, who observed the conflict while waiting for takeout. Health care workers suffer these angry encounters daily as they move between treacherous hospital settings and their communities, where mixed messaging from politicians has muddied common-sense public health precautions.
“Health care workers are scared, but we show up to work every single day,” Patel said. Wearing masks, she said, “is a very small thing to ask.”
Patel administers anesthesia to patients in the operating room, and her husband is also a health care worker. They’ve suffered sleepless nights worrying about how to keep their two young children safe and schooled at home. The small but vocal chorus of people who view face coverings as a violation of their rights makes it all worse, she said.
That resistance to the public health advice didn’t grow in a vacuum. Health care workers blame political leadership at all levels, from President Donald Trump on down, for issuing confusing and contradictory messages.
“Our leaders have not been pushing that this is something really serious,” said Jewell Harris Jordan, a 47-year-old registered nurse at the Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center in Oakland, California. She’s distraught that some Americans see mandates for face coverings as an infringement upon their rights instead of a show of solidarity with health care workers. (Kaiser Health News produces California Healthline, is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)
“If you come into the hospital and you’re sick, I’m going to take care of you,” Jordan said. “But damn, you would think you would want to try to protect the people that are trying to keep you safe.”
In Orange County, where Patel works, mask orders are particularly controversial. The county’s chief health officer, Dr. Nichole Quick, resigned June 8 after being threatened for requiring residents to wear them in public. Three days later, county officials rescinded the requirement. On June 18, a few days after Patel visited the restaurant, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide mandate.
Meanwhile, cases and hospitalizations continue to rise in Orange County.
The county’s flip-flop illustrates the national conflict over masks. When the coronavirus outbreak emerged in February, officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discouraged the public from buying masks, which were needed by health care workers. It wasn’t until April that federal officials began advising most everyone to wear cloth face coverings in public.
One recent study showed that masks can reduce the risk of coronavirus infection, especially in combination with physical distancing. Another study linked policies in 15 states and Washington, D.C., mandating community use of face coverings with a decline in the daily COVID-19 growth rate and estimated that as many as 450,000 cases had been prevented as of May 22.
But the use of masks has become politicized. Trump’s inconsistency and nonchalance about them sowed doubt in the minds of millions who respect him, said Jordan, the Oakland nurse. That has led to “very disheartening and really disrespectful” rejection of masks.
“They truly should have just made masks mandatory throughout the country, period,” said Jordan, 47. Out of fear of infecting her family with the virus, she hasn’t flown to see her mother or two adult children on the East Coast during the pandemic, Jordan said.
But a mandate doesn’t necessarily mean authorities have the ability or will to enforce it. In California, where the governor left enforcement up to local governments, some sheriff’s departments have said it would be inappropriate to penalize mask violations. This has prompted some health care workers to make personal appeals to the public.
After the Fresno County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office announced it didn’t have the resources to enforce Newsom’s mandate, Amy Arlund, a 45-year-old nurse at the COVID unit at the Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center, took to her Facebook account to plead with friends and family about the need to wear masks.
“If I’m wrong, you wore a silly mask and you didn’t like it,” she posted on June 23. “If I’m right and you don’t wear a mask, you better pray that all the nurses aren’t already out sick or dead because people chose not to wear a mask. Please tell me my life is worth a LITTLE of your discomfort?”
To protect her family, Arlund lives in a “zone” of her house that no other member may enter. When she must interact with her 9-year-old daughter to help her with school assignments, they each wear masks and sit 3 feet apart.
Every negative interaction about masks stings in the light of her family’s sacrifices, said Arlund. She cites a woman who approached her husband at a local hardware store to say he looked “ridiculous” in the N95 mask he was wearing.
“It’s like mask-shaming, and we’re shaming in the wrong direction,” Arlund said. “He does it to protect you, you cranky hag!”
After seeing a Facebook comment alleging that face masks can cause low oxygen levels, Dr. Megan Hall decided to publish a small experiment. Hall, a pediatrician at the Conway Medical Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, wore different kinds of medical masks for five minutes and then took photos of her oxygen saturation levels, as measured by her pulse oximeter. As she predicted, there was no appreciable difference in oxygen levels. She posted the photo collection on June 22, and it quickly went viral.
“Some of our officials and leaders have not taken the best precautions,” said Hall, who hopes for “a change of heart” about masks among local officials and the public. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has urged residents to wear face coverings in public, but he said a statewide mandate was unenforceable.
In Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has resisted calls for a statewide order on masks despite a massive surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, Cynthia Butler, 62, recently asked a young man at the register of a pet store why he wasn’t wearing a mask.
“His tone was more like, this whole mask thing is ridiculous,” said Butler, a registered nurse at Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte. She didn’t tell him that she had just recovered from a COVID-19 infection contracted at work. The exchange saddened her, but she hasn’t the time to lecture everyone she encounters without a mask — about three-quarters of her community, Butler estimated.
“They may think you’re stepping on their rights,” she said. “It’s not anything I want to get shot over.”
Here in Tucson, masks are mandatory where social distancing isn’t possible. Link:
https://www.tucsonaz.gov/covid-19/city-face-covering-requirement-faq
And, guess what. I have yet to see anyone having a mask meltdown. If anything, I’ve noticed that my fellow Tucsonans are a lot more polite than usual.
I second this. We’ve been wearing masks in Pittsburgh since April and i have also yet to see a mask meltdown.
I saw one last Friday at a CVS in NC. Outdoor signs and newspaper boxes turned over, and an interaction that made me not want to go back. Ask workers who enforce the mask rules – they’ll tell you.
If you search for “Arizona Target mask meltdown” you can see one that resulted in arrest in Scottsdale.
I didn’t trust the media before all of this occurred and nothing they’ve done since this occurred has made me stop and say “hmmm maybe i should trust the media again!” Lets not even start with our corporate rulers.
ok cool. so no tv (ABC/CBS/NBC or local stations), cable news outlets (CNN – FOX OAN MSNBC). nor any radio station. these are just a few of the media outlets in the US….there are lots more..like BBC. i guess you only keep up with the weather…if you see it.
cool idea…dont let others tell you what to think or do…
It’s a sad and dangerous fact that the mass media are untrustworthy. I don’t know how to cure that. The media are capitalist projects, and in capitalism the only thing that matters is making money and getting along with other major capitalists. We were just lied to about masks, remember? It was only a few months ago.
Oh, we’ve had meltdowns in Idaho and many protests. But the culture in Idaho is different than that of major cities and whether you wear a mask or not depends more on your culture than it does anything else. If you live in a culture that says that having a decent society requires giving up some of your rights so that you can all live together safely and securely, you are probably more willing to wear a mask. But if your culture tells you that you are supposed to be a rugged individualist and that your ‘rights’ are more important than anything society can give you, you are probably not going to be much interested in doing anything the government tells you you should do, like wear a mask. And in any event, you already know the government can’t enforce it.
A country’s culture is an odd thing – it can make that people believe that slavery is good, that killing innocent people is good, that exposing everyone to a deadly disease is good. So the point isn’t to write more laws, especially those that can’t be enforced, but to start trying to change the culture, as I think this author is trying to do in her own way.
I honestly don’t think Covid-19 will ever be conquered in some major parts of this country until there are some real modification to our ‘American culture’..
Here’s a clip of a protest in Boise. Listen to what the protestors are saying.
https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/face-mask-protests-boise-city-hall-mayor-mclean-public-health-order-idaho-coronavirus/277-8173b157-2f7d-4429-b873-da198cd2ed16
In Central New York, we are doing activities with social distancing. In general people are wearing masks where appropriate. Most of the time, people aren’t wearing masks because we have enough space and low density that you can just stay away from people (generally 10 ft+, often 20+). I can go a week without putting a mask on beause I am simply not interacting with people outside my bubble.
We are only indoors with other people for short periods buying things. Everybody is wearing masks. The Finger Lakes Wine and Beer Trail is doing a very good job with reservations, people staying apart, masks, sanitizers, careful low touch policies. etc. People have settled into that routine very well. We, as customers, understand that lack of close attention from servers is a feature, not a bug, now. Everybody is polite but stand-offish. We are all becoming Scandinavians and Nebraskans.
Older white males in Wal-Marts and Home Depots seem to be the primary group not wearing masks. Everybody just avoids them like the plague (appropriate analogy) and hads for a different aisle.
Alas, Slim. They are out there: https://www.facebook.com/groups/tucsoncoronavirus/permalink/721448451733761/ There is another post that includes a picture of one of our local rocket scientists. Tucson may not have as many of these crazies as Phoenix but that’s not saying much.
Anyhow, here is my modest proposal for dealing with the pandemic. It’s along the lines of “kill them all (the anti-maskers, i.e. people trying to kill me whether they know it or not) and let God sort them out.” – not sure we have time for it anymore.
Time for ‘logical consequences’? Governments at various levels in the United States have been passing laws and ordinances purporting to protect the lives and health of their constituents. But many, if not most, have failed to provide meaningful enforcement. Filling our jails with fools may not be the wisest use of scarce public resources. But in our digital age, it need not come to that.
For a first offense in violating masking and/or other CDC pandemic recommendations, simply obtaining the offender’s identification information together with warning them of the consequences for a second offense should be sufficient. At a minimum, those consequences should include:
• being placed on a register used by health care providers to determine who will receive the lowest priority for medical care in the event the local medical system is overwhelmed by pandemic patients;
• at least brief incarceration, with the warning of possible infection as the result of proximity to other inmates.
Whether or not this consequence should be the result of a second or third offense may be open to debate. But a three-time offender represents a clear threat to the public’s health. As such the public needs to be warned of that threat.
Businesses should have the right if not the obligation to refuse service to third-time offenders. Neither businesses nor their employees should be responsible for enforcing laws. They should be able to call upon duly constituted authorities for that enforcement. If, however, they choose not to insure their patrons observe laws to protect public health and safety by availing themselves of public resources to secure their enforcement, they should be required to clearly warn their customers to that effect.
https://www.instagram.com/plandemic_2020/
After reading a few of those posts, it gives me pause to ever go near a Facebook owned product or service again.
Kaiser Health News is an excellent and I would say must-read source. They’ve been consistently measured and rational throughout COVID-19. I wish more followed their exception example.
Not within Kaiser Health News’s beat, so I don’t blame them at all for not straying into this aspect, but public health policy has one aim: improving public health outcomes. Usually, in nicer times, it can do this at leisure, seeking to make the kinds of cultural changes which are required to make long-term shifts in public behaviour and attitudes (stopping smoking, improving diet, increasing exercise and activity levels, that sort of thing).
But in a pandemic of course, it doesn’t have the luxury of time and public health policy needs to make rapid changes and make prompt and effective communications to the public to improve knowledge and understanding. However. Even if quick action is needed, this still does not mean that public health policy can shift its scope to matters of politics, morality, religious beliefs and criticising or praising national cultural heritage or societal norms. Public health policy, like any policy, requires consent. In a crisis situation, the changes put forward by public health policy have not been subject to any democratic process. The most that can be said of them is that they are requests or perhaps, urgings. The public health policies initiated in a crisis can be put forward as demands on the public, but this still does not give them some automatic right, in the absence of a democratic process underpinning them, to be the subject of draconian enforcement.
Shorter, a public health crises isn’t a waiver for tyranny.
Moreover, while political ideologies can be discussed and proposed for adoption, political ideologies, however worthy, cannot be wrapped up in public health policy and introduced by this stealth (which isn’t actually very stealthy; everyone can see what’s happening and what you’re trying to do). You may not like your country’s national character or cultural traditions. You may even be an internationalist who believes that even to have such a thing as national identity which gives rise to a predominant national milieu is itself an affront because a national identify cements a concept of a nation. If you don’t like the idea of nations and differences between nations, you’re hardly likely to be very fond of a national cultural tradition. Or in a variant of this, you might beseech “why can’t my country be like this other country over here?”
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this ideology and this line of thought, if that’s what floats your boat. But that still does *not* make it anything which belongs in public health policy or should influence the design of public health policy.
It is quite understandable, in the face of countries which do “better” in response to a pandemic to look at those countries and say “oh, I wish we could be like them”. But beware simplistic and partial knowledge of what you think (or like to imagine) underpins a country’s normalised behaviours. Here, as elsewhere, you may have been misled (or misled yourself). Japan, to take once example of this phenomena, is cited — by those with an agenda to push — as being a diligent and rational cultural of logical adherence to a national public health policy. But this is actually based on centuries of Buddhist religious influence. Nothing at all to do with “science” or “trust in your government” or “good governance”. Anyone who knows Japan knows how laughable the latter two notions are for that country and its people.
There are many fascinating and diligently-researched articles in the Japanese-language media exploring this. Stunningly (or maybe not so stunningly), few have made it into translation in English at the moment. Here is once summary https://twitter.com/bryandaniellowe/status/1279754866185904129 but that’s about all I could find. And why would anyone go to the trouble of spending an hour or more translating a Japanese-language article which challenges the western understanding of face-covering adoption? Especially if it is drawing on such unfashionable and all-too-frequently banished from our current mass media subjects as faith/religion and spirituality. We much prefer (or some media outlets much prefer, anyway) a cliché of pliant ever-smiling Japanese geisha-like women and obedient-drone Japanese salaryman men. The truth is much more tantalising, but potentially troublesome to those pushing a “implacably logical” Japanese narrative in relation to COVID-19.
All of which is my usual longwinded way of say, our public discourse of COVID-19 and public health policy still sucks.
I do agree that the cultural part of making this stick is very important, and not very well understood. As you say, it doesn’t have much to do with trust in government, belief in good governance etc. Spirituality’s not an explanation too, as Czechs are the most atheist country in the Europe, possibl world, and took to the masks like fish to watere (and the trust in govt/governance/etc. would be laughable here).
I really have no idea what makes some people adopt the measure and some not. You’d say with Czechs it was obedience to authority, but I doubt it. The evidence in support would be that in area where my family lives, the masks are now mandated only on Prague’s tube. I was in Prague today, and the compliance in the tube was 100%. Well, there was some chap who forgot/didn’t know, so was using handkerchief and looked like he really wanted to be somewhere else from embarassement. Outside the tube, maybe 10%, if that, had masks. Except that in March masks were commonplace even before the govt ordered them, and in one case of mask-rage (i.e. attack on a person with the mask) the public was enraged against the attacker across the spectrum.
So I really have no idea what stokes the compliance. I will still claim though that examples by elites (yes, I know, I get to it always with the masks) help, and converesely I’m damn sure that clear non-compliance by elites stokes non-compliance with masks too.
But outside of that, it’s complicated.
In the US what anti-maskers in the general public express as cultural reluctance (freedom! choice!) is at least in part an artifact propagated by elites who consider their political and economic interests to be served by making the pandemic appear to disappear.
For one thing, I’d always dispute what I see as the myth of the hapless dupe who can’t help but be taken in by whatever messaging is put in front of them and to be so utterly beguiled by it that they must only adhere to it. It, also, as a theory, always and every time denies people agency (or criticises people for how they use their agency).
And for another, even if it were true, there’s nothing to stop those with opposing views coming up with their own propaganda. If they can’t come up with better propaganda than their opposition, they’ve only got themselves to blame for their own failings.
And finally, it’s also entirely possible the elites are just as fragmented as the rest of us. Trump vs. Soros, Koch vs. Gates, Amazon vs. Apple etc. etc. It’s odd that they, apparently, perfectly align on anti-mask views (and actually, they don’t seem to align at all, although obviously I haven’t asked them).
Yes, I should have said a segment of the elites.
Masks are mandatory in public in California. The governor wears one. So does the mayor of Los Angeles. But, in my solidly blue neighborhood, plenty of people are out and about without masks on. I drive several times a week to visit an elderly relative (at an 8 foot distance, outdoors, we both wear masks), and, in other neighborhoods, I see people wearing masks. In mine, I see neighbors chatting, up-close to one another, no masks. My guess is they think that because the case count for the neighborhood / district is fairly low, that it’s safe. Yet, every day the case count increases. People do not seem to grasp the reality of asymptomatic spreading. Mayor Garcetti repeatedly advises: assume every asymptomatic person you meet is infected and exhaling virions. This, imho, is the message that needs to be drilled in.
Asymptomatic carriers seem to be at the center of the mask effort. Yet they’re not understood at all. We don’t seem to have the ability to create good studies taking them into account. For all we know, they’re not that big of a deal at all.
Assuming everyone is asymptomatic is fine in short, retail interactions. But people have to do their jobs and engage in their lives. They cannot possibly assume everyone around them is an asymptomatic carrier.
Interesting link between Japanese Buddhism and facemasks. I don’t recall seeing it in other Buddhist traditions – I can speak to Chinese and some Theravada traditions firsthand, much less so on Korean. I can’t really think of other Buddhist ideas that may apply – perhaps the idea of karma (intentional action, as in intentionally being negligent), or perhaps the idea of making merit (wearing a mask as a act to protect others) and compassion (again, protecting others)?
I personally would also look at the influence of Confucianism, combined with Buddhism. That’s one thing Japan has in common with other places such as Taiwan, Korea, and Vietnam.
Historically, the Jain tradition wears masks to protect small living things being inhaled. No clear evidence of mask wearing in early Buddhism that I’ve found, but the Buddha was appreciative of the Jain praxis. I’ve spent decades studying with a Japanese zen master both in Japan and USA, the guiding principle as I understand it would be; first, cease from evil (wear your mask), do good (wear your mask), help other beings (wear your mask).
Gassho
The Twitter thread by Bryan Lowe states at 6/7: “I should stress that I see no connection between these practices and contemporary mask wearing in Japan, which really seems tied to a complex modern global story that Andrew Gordon has described.” The Andrew Gordon article argues against cultural essentialism and says that mask wearing in Japan was influenced by Western practices, and particularly the United States during the Spanish flu pandemic. It has everything to do with science, and little to do with Buddhism.
Thank you for posting – the Buddhist history and public health history or both very interesting. I just don’t see a Buddhist connection.
The question I have is raised by the Gordon article – not why we can’t be more like Japan, but why can’t we be more like our own country of 100 years ago when it comes to wearing masks during epidemics.
I also question why we can’t maintain effective public health centers like the ones in Japan. This article attributes Japan’s success to cluster busting by public health centers, the first one of which was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1935.
https://moneyweek.com/economy/global-economy/601264/cluster-busting-japan-success-fighting-covid-19
I worry about the neoliberal crapification of Japanese health care, but it seems to be holding on as a public good much better than in the U.S.
The focus was on the airbrushing out of Buddhism in the discussions. If a component is removed from the discussion, such as through self-censorship or because it doesn’t fit what is seen as potential reader disquiet, the discussion is by its nature incomplete. That was the point I was attempting to convey. Obviously (!) The Buddha had nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of face covering in a pandemic.
And I have a big problem with comparisons between our societies now and societies of, say, a century ago. Why stop there? Go back two hundred years, and we’d be arguing for leeches.
There is no airbrushing going on. The older religious practices have no meaningful continuity with the subject being discussed, so they only merit a brief mention (if even that). That some people would maintain ‘ritual purity’ by covering their mouths with leaves is an interesting factoid, nothing more.
You’re basically complaining that they didn’t go out of their way to specify that the practices were Buddhist. Like, who cares? That isn’t relevant to the modern practice of mask wearing.
The religious business may have something to do with the ideology of Individualism, which is itself a sort of religious position. Biologically and physically, humans almost always live in highly social groups, not as lone individuals, so Individualism-as-ideology is contrary to observed nature (science) and seems to be a fundamental intuition like belief in God, etc. As I am sure many here are aware, the exploitation of people as workers and consumers seems to be enhanced by atomizing much of their autonomous social structures, so there is a reason for the promotion of the Individualist ideology.
There are two parts to it.
The first is not whether wearing a masks is or isn’t good, but _why_ in some cultures it’s easier to get the majority of the population to do so and in other not, when presented with a similar case. To understand that, it’s IMO essential to understand the cultures in question.
The second – why something worked 100 years and now not, is again twofold. Firstly, it goes back to the culture. The US culture now is way different from the one 100 years ago, and assumption that just because it’s the same country the culture is the same is just way off.
The second part of the second bit – the Spanish flu epidemic was worse for a society from a mortality perspective (better from economic one, but that is different). The first wave of Spanish flu killed half of what covid did (on face numbers), but the US population then was less than half of what it’s now. And the second wave was worse. If Covid has a second wave comparable to the Spanish Flu, it would mean more than half a million deaths (over and above the current toll), probably closer to three quarters of a million, so say a million deaths for total CV episode. I strongly believe that in such a situation even most of the mask refuseniks would wear one (or be dead, or lynched).
I think the time factor is missing.
The generation that grew up with concentrated mass media (ABC, CBS, NBC), only two national newsweeklies that mattered (Time and Newsweek) plus one or often two good local papers had much more unified messaging, as we would call it now, and higher trust in authority.
If you had tried masking say even as late as 2005, before the anti-vaxxers started to get traction, I think you would see high levels of compliance v. now.
“If you had tried masking say even as late as 2005, before the anti-vaxxers started to get traction, I think you would see high levels of compliance v. now.”
No consideration that trust in most institutions even in 2005 was much higher then in 2020? You don’t think they’ve squandered their trust currency since then?
That is the implication of what I was saying. I don’t think I have to unpack every observation exhaustively. Although I stand by anti-vaxxers in particular as having a corrosive effect on trust in science and the authorities.
> Public health policy, like any policy, requires consent
> a public health crises isn’t a waiver for tyranny.
I’m skeptical of these assertions. An infectious disease crisis has always been a waiver for measures that under normal circumstances would be considered tyrannical.
Western civilization has a thousand year-plus history of isolation, quarantine, and other disease control measures imposed from the top down by force, fines, and imprisonment. As far as I’m aware, infectious disease control has never required public consent historically in most Western societies. The public sometimes objects to these measures, especially in democracies. But the overarching objective of civilization is to preserve life and public health. One person’s “rights” do not include the right to infect others with a harmful disease. This is well recognized by most Western authorities, jurisprudence, philosophers, etc.
Beyond that, wearing a mask to control disease is not tyranny. The fact we’re even using the word tyranny in this discussion of masks is, for me, evidence of how deranged these discussions have become. If you want to talk about tyranny, talk about people who got walled up in their homes during plague years, or how some governments have forced businesses to shut down for months without compensation. Whinging about masks is beyond cringe-worthy.
If you think using force (which in the US can mean lethal such as shooting) on those who don’t comply with mask ordinances (or significant fines and/or incarcerations) is an answer, then you can of course advocate for these provisions.
Such responses are, by any measure, going to bring with them big implications for both the governing and the governed. As I stated, laws and policing require consent of those subject to them and their enforcement. Laws which are passed under emergency state or federal powers have, by their nature, denied the governed both consultation and the legitimisation that a democratic process normally gives them. The penalties you would assign lack a proof of wider public acceptance of their proportionality. Law enforcement, the judiciary, Attorneys General, public defenders and politicians must also be content with their roles in the processes you would bring about. If they aren’t, what do you propose to do about those actors?
Oh, and I never said wearing masks was tyrannical. I said that laws passed without a opportunity to express democratic consent or withdraw through a democratic process support for them (and the enforcement, especially if the enforcement is severe, that is sometimes proposed, similar to what you’re apparently suggesting) is tyrannical. The current debate has shown the need for careful, measured, responsible public debate. Such straw-manning as you have just demonstrated there is sadly typical of the low quality finger-pointy and dishonest discourse which abounds in our societies. I therefore posit that, when one considers the ills of our societies and seeks to blame others for it that:
If you object to other commenters “strawmanning” you, it might be advisable to refrain from toying with them in a very similar manner. Burying verbal gamesmanship in dense sentence structure does not make it good, nor invisible to other readers.
Did someone call the tone police?
(although if I dare risk inflicting more dense sentences on you, it’s not actual pure tone policing you’re doing there, it’s a variant of it because you are criticising me for detail, precision and fully elaborating the arguments I’m advancing; if you’re hoping I’ll descend into a tirade of “I’m not f-ing wearing no f-ing stoopid mask my rightz my freedumbz” so you can do a more traditional form of tone policing on me —- and probably being labelled a Ken as well, to boot —- I’m sorry but I will have to disappoint you)
+100
+++++”As I stated, laws and policing require consent of those subject to them and their enforcement. Laws which are passed under emergency state or federal powers have, by their nature, denied the governed both consultation and the legitimisation that a democratic process normally gives them.”+++++
Things must be very different where you live. I live in the USA.
I thought we were not allowed to make stuff up? (grin)
No laws have been passed, in my state, so far as I know. Executive order by Governor.
Still, for most of our history, courts have upheld such.
What consent have we given for any action by government, except to have voted for the perps, and what recourse have we for their actions, other than to vote to remove said perps?
Public health actions are widely upheld by the courts.
Yes, state governors pass such measures under emergency provisions and courts, if they uphold them, do so in a frame of a “national emergency”. Which of course it is. But this legislative largesse and court indulgence of it is reliant on consent from the public. If some of the same public believes their consent is being abused, they will see little or no reason to deliver their end of this implied bargain and actually follow the laws.
The bargain between the public and governors about what is fair and reasonable to be legislated “because of the emergency” is elastic but it does nevertheless have a breaking point. Mask ordinances are evidently it.
The legislating was done before I was born, I think.
The law proscribed powers given to public agencies in times of epidemics, etc.
One could say that the process was followed.
Does decades of public acceptance of the actual law denote consent?
A considerable segment of the population in the US will not follow the law on carrying weapons into public places. Because they think the “implied bargain” was broken, perhaps? What proportion does it take to withdraw consent?
I have faith in the USA populace to “do the right thing, after all the other options are tried”
The proportion required to withdraw consent to public health policies is that which is sufficient to cause non-adherence to render the policy or policies ineffective. Once that happens, implementing the policy becomes an issue. Once it can be identified as an issue — as non-adherence to mask or face covering laws demonstrably is, that’s why we’re having this dialogue — you can infer or even be certain that consent has been withdrawn.
Lawfare — such as using mask ordinances to drive public health policy — rarely if ever settles contentious matters. This is because laws work by cementing a consensus that has already been achieved in a society. When lawfare is used as a short-cut, in the absence of consensus, it is often found to be ineffective because it puts the lawmaking cart before the consensus-making horse.
U.K. Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption has written extensively on this subject http://judicialpowerproject.org.uk/commentary-on-lord-sumptions-reith-lectures/ so gives s good exploration of the pitfalls. The failure to legislate our way of this problem should come as no surprise to anyone.
Here in New York City, some weeks ago, the police arrested a Black man for not wearing a mask (and, probably not being deferential enough to the police). The man vigorously resisted arrest, and was allegedly beaten by the police before being taken to jail. This incident caused something of an outcry and our mayor Blahz told the police not to arrest anyone for not wearing a mask. In other words, ‘the people’ vetoed compulsory masking very effectively, although about half the people practice masking anyway. A supposedly Left activist group I belong to, sort of, ran up a petition condemning the mayor for the beating which he had forbidden. I declined to sign it but nobody cared anyway.
I regard the wearing of one’s mask below one’s chin, a common practice, as a humorous side note. But as usual I feel as if I’m from some other planet.
No one is using force re the masks. That is a straw man. The force is coming from the cranks who object to being denied entrance to private businesses, when as readers have pointed out, many have long set rules as to who may be served, such as denying entry to people who are barefoot and high end restaurants requiring male diners to wear jackets.
Violators of mandatory mask orders are typically fined when the officialdom bothers enforcing. Cops write a ticket, just they way they issue traffic tickets. I don’t know the details beyond that, since the further details likely vary by jurisdiction.
The original commenter said:
Which I think is an example of one area where the debate goes awry. If in the course of the debate penalties for non-adherence are described which seem disproportionate (which they were here in the original comment) and are inflated then the debate becomes a plaything for cranks. The question then becomes how to respond to that. If you take the point raised where the penalties are overstated and debate it, are you amplifying a straw man argument? But if you just ignore it, then are you letting it go, unchallenged, which will probably encourage the crank element?
As for enforcement, I don’t have any truck with law enforcement being arsey themselves and refusing to enforce laws because they are intentionally seeking to politicise a legitimate law. If though they are having to police adherence to a law in the face of widespread non-adherence, they probably are entitled to explain their operational issues and flag up to lawmakers and the public generally that there seems to be a lack of consent for a particular law and society may need to consider how it wants to respond to this because the police aren’t miracle workers.
Much more problematic though is the expectation that store staff will step into a law enforcement role, based on the precedent of such rules as “no shirt, no shoes, no service”. It’s likely to be a category error to include “no mask” in this list of customer transgressions if there is widespread non-adherence by customers. It’s one thing to expect low paid store (or bar or restaurant etc.) staff to enforce “no shirt, no shoes” because numbers of non-compilers are never going to place particularly onerous demands on the staff. Or else if it’s a group of shirtless or shoeless patrons, that’s an infrequent event. But if it is one in four or one in five customers (or higher) that’s not the placing the same demands on the store staff at all.
Plus store staff aren’t law enforcement, nor should they expected to be so. They lack training for a start. It’s hard enough, as we repeatedly see, to get policing right when done by trained professionals. One sure-fire way to degrade our societies is to end up outsourcing law enforcement type tasks to poorly trained (or completely untrained) people who will inevitably fail to do the job correctly.
This is why usually there are checks-and-balances between what lawmakers propose and what law enforcers advise is practicable. Rule by decree under emergency powers has short-circuited this usual process step.
Clive, that twitter thread specifically disavows any connection between ancient Buddhist practice and modern Japanese mask etiquette.
The article linked from it on the early modern history of masks in public health in Japan was more useful.
https://www.tc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/weblog/1896/
Yes, it was the original discussion and the related material I wanted to draw readers’ attentions to, it is a very nuanced subject and both are pertinent.
There is no vaccine for stupid.
A sixth of UK population would refuse COVID vaccine, and another sixth would seriously consider not taking it according to a recent YouGov poll.
The CZ has public, free-at-delivery healthcare, and all children have a list of vaccines they must have (a short one, then there’s “optional” list). But in some very rare cases, the state may require for the healthcare to be paid. One of those is that parents may be required to pay for treatment of any ilness where the child was required to be vaccinated but parents refused (a child may be extempted on medical grounds, but it’s a decision of the doctor, not the parents). IMO this is unfair to the kids (the treatments are expensive, and bankrupt parents won’t be able to take care of the kid, who most likely ends taken away from them by social services), but would be perfectly fair to adults.
I would refuse a vaccine:
– it is of questionable utility
– it has been developed in a hurry and vaccines are notorious for long-term emergence and duration of side effects when they have them (Guillaine Barre syndrome; dengue fever antibody enhancement etc).
– what really makes the above unacceptable, it is irreversible.
– there are other measures that appear effective, such as distancing and masking
I quite happily took chloroquine for four months. Cost benefit was much clearer. I would wear a mask too – probably have to on Thursday when regional CEO has summoned me to London office – my only hope is the quarantine rules should prevent him coming until next week!
This strain of dunderheaded pseudo-individualism has been with us here in these United States since quite a while before we became the United States. In my opinion, it played a part in our founding. It’s been encouraged and nourished by Republican strategists as part of their grand strategy since 1964. There’s probably no way to “talk” to a group of these people–only to some individuals. Any of them will have some glib slogan ready to counter any intelligent thought, and in a group they’ll quickly reinforce one another with “their” slogans.
Another related thought: a line of graffiti carved into the masonry walls of the notorious Ucciardone prison in Palermo, Sicily read, “Prison, sickness, and necessity, reveal the real heart of a man.”
The article mentions someone attracting negative attention for wearing an N95 mask in public (wonder how and why he got that?). No doubt mask use would go way up if those were readily available in the US as they reportedly are in parts of East Asia. Even with limited additional supply they could be directed to those most at risk which would make non-compliance by others less deadly.
Fortunately where I live almost everyone that I’ve seen (with just a few exceptions) has worn masks in public places. I think that we’ve been under a mandatory mask order since March or April, which has certainly helped. I haven’t seen any mask meltdowns, but I’ve mostly avoided going out in public.
If I do see a meltdown, hopefully the person standing up for his or her rights will be able to point to the part of the Constitution that says that he/she doesn’t have to wear a mask, because I certainly haven’t been able to find it there.
The Constitution is just the opening statement. It is interpreted, supplemented, and implemented by years of federal Constitutional law.
“We the People…” is about the group as a whole. “Me and my non-mask wearing Rights” is nowhere to be found.
Do these people walk slowly through construction sites without hard hats? Do they honk as they accelerate to pass police on the road and point to their decision not to wear a seatbelt while doing 75? Do they harangue insurance agencies about their right to buy a home on the coast and not pay flood insurance?
The stupid, it burns.
We accept the need to do certain things in the name of “safety” all the time.. masks are no different. The risk is now higher – so habits should change accordingly.
Maybe it’s the same group of people, regardless of the safety measure? I realize some people will lie, but this article says 90% of Americans wear a mask while in public, which is about the same statistic for wearing seatbelts.
If that’s the case, then the focus doesn’t need to be on a public health message for the masses, but rather an enforcement or mitigation strategy for the holdouts.
https://thehill.com/homenews/news/504688-nearly-90-percent-of-americans-say-they-are-wearing-masks-in-public-as
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt_use_rates_in_the_United_States#:~:text=Seat%20belt%20use%20rates%20in%20the%20United%20States%20has%20been,had%20use%20rates%20above%2090%25.
Perhaps Illinois will discuss masks in their civics curriculum this semester –
On Friday, August 9, 2019, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed House Bill (HB) 2265 into law. Now officially Public Act 101-0254, the law requires a semester of civics in grades 6, 7, or 8, employing direct instruction, discussion of current and societal issues, service learning, and simulations of democratic processes. It takes effect at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year.
As a graduate of Illinois high school, I was required to pass a test on the state Constitution, and Federal Constitution, in order to graduate. Civics content was included in Government classes, and US History, to fulfill that requirement. ( Details of the class offerings escape me, after nearly 50 years)
Not sure one semester, pushed to a younger cohort, really is a help.
I am sure no matter when it is taught, or how, there will be a objections to how “our children are being brainwashed” by the usual suspects on all sides…
Here in the Kansas City metro area my experience is much the same as Az. Slim’s. Although my excursions outside home in the last few months have been limited to grocery store, liquor store, pharmacy & carry out at a couple of restaurants, I’ve not personally encountered any “mask rage”. All the employees have been wearing masks & a great majority of the customers also. People in the check-out lines have been maintaining reasonable distances.
As for those who think mask mandates are some sort of restriction on their personal freedom, I would ask them: What about traffic laws? 20 mph speed limits in school zones restricts my “right” to drive as fast as I want. Why shouldn’t I be able to target practice with a deer rifle in my back yard?. Etc. etc.
Maybe they’ll “get it”. (Then again, maybe not…)
I was close to “no mask rage” (i.e. raging at people for not wearing a mask) this 4th in KC when a morning party occurred outside a couple doors down from me, and no one among the 50+ attendees was wearing a mask. But I held it in and let them party and parade down the block.
I have seen tons of people with no masks who are not social distancing. At least in the grocery stores as you noted, people have it together, and now we have a mask mandate that no doubt helps.
When the kids are playing soccer and baseball in masks and their parents are wearing them on the sidelines, then I’ll know we’re actually getting serious about this. At least little Johnny can blame his bad play on the mask :) The high school district I live in just reported 20 athletes there have tested positive. Sigh.
It is really hard to imagine that the US has much of a future. If people are this selfish and nasty to their fellow citizens… It’s game over, folks. Civil war, secession, fascism are all on the cards.
Been where you are mentally. The only thing that keeps me positive is that for every idiot that gets air time due to a blatant display of stupidity, there are three others doing the right thing, but they will never get air time.
What you are I think experiencing due to COVID-19, perhaps for the first time, is an all-too-obvious reminder that you exist in a world where people do not necessarily agree with you or want the same things as you want. Perhaps previously, you may have suspected, or even known for sure, that other people didn’t think the same as you did.
But here, with mask adherence (or not), you are forced to confront a visible confirmation that you think one thing and someone else thinks another. They are not only not agreeing with you, they are — almost literally — rubbing your nose in the fact of their disagreement.
You can of course seek to change minds, shift opinions and drive what you hope to be are improvements in our collective existences (and your own). It is, however, a life skill to not only inhabit a world where not everyone thinks the same but also to be able to be happy in it. That is not to say you have to accept everything you disagree with, or even any or it. But It is a mystery to me why so many people now seem unable to cope with an environment where they are unable to prevail in getting what they want and seeing and hearing others not wanting the same. I cannot offer you any guidance as to how to make your peace with the world we live in (and I should reiterate this does not mean meekly and passively sitting there and just accepting it, far from it).
But that is the task we have all been assigned.
Because our health is at risk??
These refusniks are risking all our lives ffs.
I for one, will not ever be able to ‘live with it’. (hey, that seems familiar…)
I did not say one should live with policies you don’t agree with and simply accept them. I did say political nihilism isn’t necessarily helpful when what is required is political change. I’m not convinced it is beneficial to mental health, either. I also said that if you can’t make your peace with the society you live in in the form that it takes, you’re in for a thoroughly miserable existence unless you have some other options, such as emigrating.
If you can’t do something like emigrating (and many if not most of us can’t) then you can to work — in whatever form such work takes as you wish to perform it — to reshape society more to your liking.
If people aren’t prepared to make their peace with the world as it is (but are forced to stay in it because they can’t emigrate) and don’t see any value in or prospect of trying to change things (and so don’t) then they are going to be very unhappy indeed. But because both of these things are entirely our own choices and made under our free will, I have to ask: do such people simply enjoy being miserable and complaining about it?
I am not sure if the approach taken by Arlund would have any impact on people that seem unable to see beyond their noses. She sounds a little bit ‘egoistic’, thinking on her own protection when this is a case where masks are for the protection and the interest of all. Someone might personally feel free of risk but tell them which restaurants are they going to have a dinner, what friends are they going to see, what business are they thinking they are going to make when as a result of loss of epidemic control everything closes again and again. How many lockdowns do they need enforced until they learn that this is in the interest of all, nothing personal. I want to have the liberty of getting out, having dinners outside, visiting my relatives, work etc.. so put on the damn mask!
In the U.S., our school children go to schools through metal detectors and have regular shooting drills and armed guards at the doors – and all the while adults in the U.S. whine like babies over having to wear a piece of cloth over their face.
In the 60s none of us complained at the schools when we went into the basement to civil defense logo marked section for the air raid drills.
You can get phrases imprinted on your masks either through places like imprint.com or a local t-shirt store that uses a transfer process. I suggest messages that challenge the mind set of the mask wearing protester. In Orange Country a message like “open up sooner..wear a mask” or “Don’t drive drunk…wear a mask” challenges the narrative of those hostile to masks.Many want to ignore the pandemic because they are angry about it’s effect on the economy(the first suggestion) or they don’t want the government infringing on their freedom( the second suggestion).We have to challenge their assumptions.We can’t expect them to wear masks out of concern for others.Another message could be “save MY life..wear a mask”.I’m sure your readers could think up other messages.
USAins please wear a mask with a US flag on it. You’ll then see smoke coming out of the ears of some confused unmasked.
Same tactic when marching in antiwar demonstrations (remember those?): always wave a large USA flag.
“Don’t Tread on Me – Wear a Mask”
About 10% as a very rough guess from my excursions to supermarkets are wearing masks here in Northern Ireland under pretty poorly UV lit skies – social distancing, forget about it. The vast majority of them are elderly & I think mainly female. I have read a few times that most people are not very good at risk assessment & I recall that when I was young I acted as though I was immortal & often shudder when I think back to how I then behaved.
Many people drive as though the laws of physics just don’t apply to them, while others are seemingly immune to cancer & various other afflictions caused mainly by wrecking the temple that is their bodies. Perhaps as life has kicked me around a fair bit this last decade or so, I now expect bad things to happen, whereas I once when everything was going to plan believed as others appear to do that very bad things only happened to someone else.
Perhaps machismo also plays a role as in a mask unless doing a robbery, is not considered the best accessory to a firearm.
I just got off the phone to Siskiyou County Health Department…I am fed-up to here of the yahoos I’m surrounded by (State of Jefferson crap) refusing to enforce Gov. Newsom’s mandate on masks.
Not one business in my town/neighborhood are enforcing it…and none of the employees wear masks either.
I only was able to leave a voice mail, and don’t really expect a callback.
I am sick of being treated like a pariah for wearing mine.
Without enforcement really happening this is just a joke.
My experience is similar. I am in Illinois, where masks are mandatory in businesses. No one is attempting to enforce this rule.
Initially, since no masks were available for purchase, no one was wearing them.
After the gov reversal made the Facebook rounds, there was a surge in mask wearing.
When the “Tyranny” shouting made the rounds, and the ‘back to work’ messaging reached a crescendo, it suddenly dropped by perhaps half.
Employees in stores are still wearing them, and lurking behind their plexiglas walls, but the public is divided, no doubt.
I found one instance very strange. The Aldi store was on the vanguard of the response, and had quite strict rules, comparatively. They required everyone to take a cart when entering, stating that they were using the carts to control the numbers in the store at any given time. One employee was stationed outside, disinfecting carts, before reuse. All of the “quarter back” carts were removed. None of the other stores had any of these controls. Aldi was the first to install signage requiring masks, as well.
Suddenly, all of this was stopped, carts are “open season” again, masks are not being worn, and you have do disinfect your own cart (disinfection wipes are available inside, after you have pushed the cart from outside the store).
During all of this, I never saw a mask available for sale at any retail outlet until late May/early June. I did finally see paper disposable masks in the style of surgical masks. They are $14.99 for a package of 10 each. Leaving those of us with very limited resources with old t-shirts. I have never owned a bandanna, and clothing an fabric stores were closed.
Luckily, I am the king of distancing. I have been a hermit for most of the decade, and saw no reason not to continue.
I would ask this rude person which they think is a higher right: the right to life or the right to go maskless? And, given the correct answer, does that not imply a right to stop by whatever means necessary the maskless person from potentially harming others? It’s like someone carrying a gun in their hand, they might not think they are threatening anyone but a rational person might come to a different conclusion.
I beg to differ. Assuming I understand your thesis, in America, public health laws and state wide laws to protect the public are not a matter for citizens approval. They are a matter of law, which have been made law by duly elected representatives. At a higher level of abstraction all of this is absurd. As Spock would say the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few. The old, sick, disabled, children, and those in nursing homes & prisons, do not fit into your idea of the need for consent. Yet they must be protected. As lambert would say the logical outcome of what you advocate is American Roulette. Clive I love to read your comments to me they are the best, understand please it is your idea that I take exception to not you.
Oh, you are so wrong! Whenever a government imposes any law for any reason that is against the majority approval of the citizens of that government – that is tyranny – and is completely opposed to Democracy or Republicanism or whatever we call our current form of government.
What you don’t seem to understand is that probably 80% of Americans agree with the laws requiring masks so those making mask mandates do have citizens’ approval. It’s that other 20% minority that are causing the problems and see the mask mandates as tyranny.
I’m confused about the language.
A refusal to ware a mask appears to me to introduce the intent for assault.
I have the right to be free of fear form your spit and exhaled droplets, just as I have the right to be free of your bullets when I’m about my lawful business.
I can conceive of no situation where a potential mask wearer can insist on having the ability to hurt, of infect, others.
Can some trained in the law comment?
I think much of the issue comes from the mixed (at best) messaging.
People’s brains are still unable to comprehend that the mask is largely to protect others from you, and in turn other people wearing maks protects you. Much of the population is largely just focused on protection of the self and can’t comprehend protection of the many as something they have responsibility for.
The initial “don’t buy masks” was focused on N95 masks that are not particularly effective without good fit testing and also become germ repositories and need to be handled very carefully or the virus will be transferred by the hands to the face. These masks are designed to protect the person wearing them if used properly. They can also protect others if they don’t have one-way valves.
Surgical masks are so that the doctor doesn’t infect the patient. That is poorly understood by the public. So our wearing of the cloth masks is more like the doctor not infecting the patient (we would be very upset if the doctor infcted us, which is too common now).
In the political cacophony going on now, this rational process got lost months ago. The successful parts of the world have had it ingrainedi ntheir populations very clearly.
Before becoming upset or angry or indignant about someone not wearing a mask or not following some — all too often ambiguous and poorly defined protocol [Sorry — I am recalling being chewed-out for coming into a doctor’s office and standing my statutory six feet … and more because I don’t believe six feet is enough … by an aggressive receptionist. The office I entered really wanted one person at a time in the reception area. That would be no problem to me, but I do need some indication of the rule — like a note on the office door.] The very first question any receptionist should ask someone without a mask is “Do you have mask, and if not, would you like one? And THEN follow with the demand/request that the violator please wear the mask provided as a comfort to others.
One other thing I just noticed — workplaces can require or outlaw wearing facemasks — and the face mask freedom-warriors dutifully put on their facemasks or remove them according to the employer dictates. Demanding that people wear face masks outside the workplace encroaches on the very very small space of freedom too many feel they retain. Instead of demanding that someone don a face mask, I believe it would be much more effective to first make sure they have a face mask to don and then ask — ASK — them to put the face mask on, explaining how the face mask helps reduce the spread of Covid-19. If someone is recalcitrant — why not ask them to please wear the mask as a comfort and courtesy to others who may be ignorant of their true effectiveness but believe even so … and emphasize that masks are not all that uncomfortable in the office air conditioning.
I suggest persistent practice of something positive like saying, “Thank you for your mask” to whomever is wearing one. Distancing from anyone not wearing one is not positive except as an example of good self-care.