By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Thanks to Federalism, what I intended to be a single post became a bit sprawling, because mask ban legislation is being passed in multiple local and state jurisdictions[1]. So I will split what was supposed to be one post into two, and print part two over the coming weekend. Today, I will present eight theses to sort the various claims swirling around the debates for each legislative effort. In part two, I will look at the individual jurisdictions where mask bans have passed (North Carolina, Nassau County, NY), and where they have been proposed or mentioned (New York State, Chicago IL, Los Angeles, CA). I’ll conclude — unsurprisingly to NC readers — that mask bans are stupid, lethal, and wrong.
(1) Masks Exist on a Spectrum that Includes “Health Masks”
Masks exist on a spectrum from (a) cloth masks, to (b) surgical masks (“Baggy Blues”), (c) respirators (KN94s, N95s), (d) elastomerics, (e) full-on Darth Vader masks, and (f) various head-dresses like gaiters, keffiyeh, hijabs, ski masks, Venetian carnival masks (and even KKK hoods). It would surely be possible for regulators to distinguish the range (b) – (e), which are both clearly recognizable and manufactured for health purposes, from the others, which are not; but this seems never to be done. Indeed, I would go so far as to regard failure to make this distinction, whether in regulation or polemic, as a sign of bad faith. From the American Council on Science and Health:
Banning total face coverings such as KKK hoods or burqas is understandable, and laws around the world prohibit this, even as the obligation to cover one’s mouth and nose in public spaces aroused immense and loud controversy. However, there is a distinction between all and nothing, confirming that this controversy has nothing to do with public safety or public health.
As we shall consider in thesis (8), “Mask Bans Are Motivated by Animus Against Protesters and Protest.”
I will call the range (b) – (e) “health masks,” as distinct from masks generally. If we make this distinction, we could regulate health masks differently from other masks (neatly solving the “KKK hood” ski masked robber problems). We might, for example, give nobody the right to demand that health masks be removed or even lifted. (When I say “masks,” I mean the range (a) – (e). Now, it may be that some activists disagree with the distinctions implied by this range, but I think it’s there in the engineering and should be recognized. My purpose here is to protect people who wish to protect themselves against hazardous air, and none other.)
(2) Health Masks Work to Protect Against Respiratory Particles like Viruses. See the literature: “Effectiveness of face masks for reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2: a rapid systematic review” (2023), and Greenhalgh et alia’s magisterial “Masks and respirators for prevention of respiratory infections: a state of the science review.” (Masks also protect against the fine particles in smoke, and in occupational settings.)
(3) Health Masks Do Not Work to Conceal Identity
First, health masks are less effective than sunglasses, which are not banned (see Nature, “Face masks are less effective than sunglasses in masking face identity“; the study used surgical masks).
Second, health masks do not conceal the eyes[2], hence do not conceal one person’s identity from another person (“The human eye contains an extremely large number of individual characteristics that make it particularly suitable for the process of identifying a person. Today, the eye is considered to be one of the most reliable body parts for human identification”). Note the “person” to “person” qualifier; I’m not talking about machine recognition via blood vessels in the retina or whatever, although the claim has been made that machine recognition works for health masks too.
Third, gait recognition may work, whether the target is masked or not (See Nature, “Biometric recognition through gait analysis” (2022). One proof of concept showed an accuracy of 88%.)
Fourth, there are cameras everywhere anyhow. From NBC:
Dawn Blagrove, executive director of the criminal justice organization Emancipate North Carolina… expressed doubts that the North Carolina law is truly about safety, especially considering the advances in facial recognition software and how often people can be tracked via street cameras and on social media.
“It’s asinine,” she said, adding: “We live in a society where we are all being tracked all the time.”
Fifth and finally, China has an enormous system of mass surveillance: “As of 2019, it is estimated that 200 million monitoring CCTV cameras of the ‘Skynet’system have been put to use in mainland China.” Does anybody really believe that Xi Jinping blinded that system by imposing a mask mandate, as he did?
(4) Transmission Can Take Place In Seconds When a Health Mask Is Removed
Let’s assume that a mask ban has a clause that allows a cop or a property owner to demand that you lift or remove your health mask. Via OK Doomer:
Peak viral exposure happens within five seconds of a personal encounter. In other words, there’s no point during a conversation when you’re safe. You’re in danger the instant someone opens their mouth and starts talking. That’s why anyone who cares about their health wants to keep their mask on. It has nothing to do with hiding their identity. Making someone remove their mask, even for a few seconds, is sentencing them to chronic illness or death.
In consequence–
(5) Health Mask Bans Mandate Infection
From the Pandemic Accountability Index:
[T]hose who have done their best to refuse infection with N95 respirators and other mitigations are now essentially being told… that no, you’re not allowed to protect yourself from COVID-19, a disease that has already killed & disabled millions of Americans.
(6) Police Discretion for Enforcing Mask Bans Is Discriminatory
From the Washington Post, “Masks are going from mandated to criminalized in some states“:
“I don’t understand when there’s a political protest exactly how the authorities plan to sort out those who are wearing masks for health purposes versus those who are wearing masks to protect their identity,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union who has written about the issue. “It really sets up a situation where we are likely to see selective enforcement against protesters that the authorities don’t like.”
I don’t understand how the authorities will do this under any circumstance, not just political protests. Though I can guess:
How police will enforce a mask ban with a "health exception" pic.twitter.com/nMIUHum14T
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) July 12, 2024
Just like pretextual traffic stops (“broken tail light”) for example.
(7) Mask Bans Do Not Consider Health Masking for Occupational Purposes
From Teen Vogue:
Mask bans are a labor issue, as well. A resident of New York City, who asked to remain anonymous to protect their privacy, says, “I wear a mask and encourage others to do so because, prior to COVID, masks were a common form of PPE for indoor and outdoor airborne hazards at work.… The criminalization of masks is a criminalization of workers protecting ourselves….”
(8) Mask Bans Are Motivated by Animus Against Protesters and Protest
From Reckon, “How mask bans became the new front in the war on protest“:
Mask bans have long been a segment of these anti-protest laws, even before the pandemic. This current wave begins with protests against the North Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock. The protests began in the spring of 2016 and continued until February 2017. As a direct result of these protests, the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, and a flood of alarmist press reports about ‘black-clad antifa members,’ what the ACLU called a ‘flood’ of anti-protest bills made their way into legislatures across the country, and into Congress.
Among these bills was one in Missouri that created the crime of ‘concealing a person’s identity…by means of a robe, mask, or other disguise’ if they’re protesting. Congress dropped the mask, metaphorically speaking, on their version of a mask ban by calling it the ‘Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018.’
These masking bills are, minus some pandemic-era language about health exceptions, more or less identical to the ones being put forward now. Except instead of black-clad antifa members or people locking themselves to drilling equipment, there’s a new boogeyman: pro-Palestine protestors. This year’s North Carolina bill, the Associated Press said straightforwardly, ‘was brought forth in part as a response to campus protests on the war in Gaza.’
Despite the governor’s comments, efforts to ban masks in New York have absolutely nothing to do with the June subway incident. They had started a month before in early May, when two different anti-mask bills were introduced in the state legislature — at the exact same time the Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018 was reintroduced in Congress.
What was happening then? Campus protests and encampments. Masking was common in those spaces, for health reasons and because many protestors were scared of getting doxxed — a well-founded fear, as so-called ‘doxxing trucks’ were frequent visitors to protest sites.
If health masks were a social norm, none of this would be an issue, but here we are. Personally, I think that if I want to go to the store, or the bank, or the Post Office wearing my rubber Nixon mask, I should be free to do so. And if the organs of state security want me to unmask, then they can do so do when I’m shoplifting in the store, or robbing the bank, or stealing pens off the chains at the Post Office. In other words, “criming while masked” should be “criming while masked,” tans there’s no reason for it to be more.
However, as I have indicated above, I also think that health masks can potentially be regulated differently (default: no unmasking) from masks generally, so to me thesis (8) is severable from the others. To which some might instantly respond: “But the hateful protesters will all wear health masks and not [other identity markers]!!” To which I would answer: “Good. Fewer deaths from infection. And if they commit crimes, arrest them for that!”[3]
Conclusion
In the meantime, until we manage to stop this stupidity, there are a few measures we can take.
I don’t know if a screen printer could do this, but the American Council on Science and Health suggests:
And there are solutions: how about a medical (half-face) mask that contains a photo of the wearer’s lower face? That would prevent the spread and protect the wearer from undue harassment by over-zealous law enforcement. For those arguing that requiring a photo mask is too much of a burden, we impose unmasking for passports and driver’s licenses. Living in society requires tradeoffs: public safety (crime prevention) v. public health v. individual rights.
I don’t know if I’d call this a solution — more a hack or a kludge — but if it works, do it!
Here is a letter (I would laminate it) to wave at the cops or the property owners:
We just hit 1 million daily COVID infections in the U.S., per wastewater surveillance data.
If you are in a region that recently enacted a #MaskBan, consider using this letter to #MaskUp under any of the exemption options. Get a local letter too.https://t.co/rXjMGN2kQt pic.twitter.com/ATRTiOMY0p
— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) August 6, 2024
And finally, there is organizing. Here is a letter writing campaign, and a toolkit. The World Health Network also runs phone banks on the individual legislative efforts.
Here ends part one. Stay tuned for part two!
NOTES
[1] S.2738, the “Freedom to Breathe Act,” sponsored by Senator Vance, would prohibit Federal funds from being used to mandate masks on air carriers.
[2] This is why I so vehemently resist the term “face coverings,” much beloved by our organs of state security. Health masks do not cover the eyes, hence do not cover the face. The odd focus on a requirement to show the mouth (“Let me see your smile!”), and to equate its visibility with identity, is an odd aspect of American culture I don’t understand.
[3] Much of thesis (3) applies to the organs of state security, hence to various technical means of identification. Normal citizens won’t have that. The thought occurs, then, that many normal citizens want mask bans not to assist law enforcement, but for acts of vigilantism and private retribution.
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Mask
I was the only one with a mask on last Sat. at the grocery store. This is early in the morning and only goal is in then out as fast as can. I’m in the central valley of Calli.
It seems to me that these laws might not fare well under judicial review; hopefully there will be challenges.
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A COVID-cautious friend today mentioned that she has received generally favorable responses to her offers of N95s to people she encounters who are masked with paper procedure masks. They’re already concerned enough to mask with something, but may not be aware that N95 are superior, or may not know where to get them.
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I wonder how good the ventilation is in the meeting halls of State legislatures.
Perhaps a significant number of these people are already cognitively impaired from sequelae of prior bouts of COVID (the typical American has had several infections by now), and that helps to account for stupid legislation of this kind.
While the general intelligence of our beloved leadership has certainly decreased due to repeated Covid infections, I think that the mask bans would have happened regardless because of the desire to track, control, and punish.
I do wonder what will happen will the reality of Covid becomes more understood by the general population, or if even more unavoidable and deadly diseases such as monkey pox become epidemic. We could always have another 1918 Influenza Epidemic, which was partly fought using masks. What will the police do then? (I have been dressed like a mummy on particularly cold days in the Sierra Nevada with hood, cap, scarf, glasses, jacket, sweater, shirt, undershirt, gloves, pants, long johns, multiple pairs of socks, boots, plus anything else useful, what about where and when it really does gets cold? Like Minnesota or the Dakotas in February? Police discretion, my foot.)
Actually, I already know what the police will do as there has been a number of instances of false arrests and even convictions using photographs and bad AI, which the police and the prosecutors ignored even when they had good evidence contradicting the bad identification. The same has happened with fingerprints, DNA, and names. Even the knowledge that information, which includes the physical transfer and traveling of physical DNA and finger prints, has been known to travel across cities, if not states, is ignored if it hinders prosecution of an innocent person.
I think that while surveillance technology is able to get around masking, if it is used both competently and with good will, I see this not happening in the United States. And the darker the skin color, the more likely the AI will error.
RE: (8) Mask Bans Are Motivated by Animus Against Protesters and Protest, (3) Health Masks Do Not Work to Conceal Identity
I live in Chicago and I’m confident that the mask ban has only been raised because of the campus encampments and the upcoming DNC.
While the article linked in 8 is right to focus on doxxing, it’s worth noting that facial recognition has also been used to find and arrest protestors. I heard from friend back home in Cleveland that even the students at the Case Western Reserve University encampment were targeted with facial recognition. Both students and protestors who were not affiliated with the university who did not wear a mask were issued suspensions, campus bans, or legal threats. Those who masked at CWRU, allegedly, did not recieve any. Historically, masks were able to interrupt facial recognition systems and there may be instances where that’s still true.
Conversely, in late 2020 my workplace set up a temperature kiosk that used facial recognition to identify who was on site and presumably symptom free. I could wear a hat, different pairs of eyeglasses, several variants of N95s and the system picked me up immediately, every time, without fail based on an old ID photo someone took with a point-and-shoot. Granted, I let it scan my face up close, but that was also four years ago. I’m guessing there have been plenty of advances in technologies used by police ‘in the field’.
Chicago PD uses a facial recognition system provided by a company called DataWorks and has for over a decade. That vendor, in addition to facial recognition, advertises iris and tattoo recognition. I have no doubt that CPD’s system is more robust than whatever CWRU had. For the DNC, there will be a host of additional, sophisticated surveillance technologies that could provide even higher quality vision systems and software for identification, effectively expanding and surpassing the city’s current surveillance capabilities.
I’d expect facial recognition to be a key part of the upcoming police response to the DNC protests. If I were trying to shut that down, even if masks don’t pose as big a threat to the efficacy of these systems as they did before, why risk losing out on those arrests and potential prosecutions?
I was the only one wearing a mask in the building at my physio appointment yesterday. Tomorrow I am going to a doctor’s appointment at Hamilton’s McMaster Hospital — I will certainly be wearing a mask there, though I expect to be among a small minority at best.
It’s like I used to tell my kids who chafed at our helmet rule for them while on bicycles, scooters, skateboards and the like (since many neighborhood children were “too cool” to wear one) — you only need one if you have a brain to protect …
These laws are one reason why I am not hoping to branch out into wearing fashionable and attractive multi colored N95s. People protesting do not typically wear white 3M Aura N95s; they wear something more dramatic looking. Years ago my aunt told me she’d be wearing a leather jacket to visit me in Chicago, and I told her that people were at that time being robbed of their leather jackets. She told me that no-one was going to steal the leather jacket of a middle aged lady, and I suddenly had a mental image of the sort of jacket she was going to be wearing and realized she was right. 3M Auras are like that kind of jacket; so dismal looking that no-one who wanted attention would dream of wearing one, and so I bet they set off a different reaction in cops than fashionable masks would.
Of course the fun and games begin if the next Pandemic is an influenza-based one like happened in 1919-20. If again people are dying in a Flu pandemic, will government bodies try to arrest people wearing masks to protect their lives using the police? Even as the number of police drops as some get sick and perhaps die in this new flu pandemic? Will you have the same idiots going out protesting masks because ‘mah rights?
I’d guess there has to be a tipping point of infectiousness and (imminent) lethality/damage at which the “no muzzles”/mask ban thing would be abandoned? Imminent being key as, unlike with long COVID, the reality would be hard to dissociate from.
E.G. if it’s highly contagious and 10% of people die within a week, I think the paradigm would shift fast.
Then again, stupidest timeline etc – I still underestimate the potential for idiocy in our societies and especially elites.
> If again people are dying in a Flu pandemic, will government bodies try to arrest people wearing masks to protect their lives using the police?
Probably. The powers that be seem committed to the bit.
There does seem to a very slow, organic recognition that “it’s not normal to be sick all the time,” that “Covid is part of being sick, and it’s bad if you catch it,” and “masks can help” (and I can’t imagine why that doesn’t make masks popular among the anti-vaxxers. but this is a weird timeline).
If Bird Flu really takes off, I’d expect all the lethal mechanisms to tighten; denial, fake studies, “Let Me See Your Smile” officiousness, the vax-only/never vax dichotormy (and never layered protection), airborne denial + handwashing, etc. If by a miracle we don’t get Disease X, .and Covid persists at current levels — why would it not? — maybe these organic forces of reason can prevail.
I’m not hopeful. I’m only aware of one mask-postive elected; can’t dig them up right now, but at the state level, in California.
Lambert: “I can’t imagine why that doesn’t make masks popular among the anti-vaxxers”
I think for many the motivation is from a radical individualism and refusal to be told what to do by experts, rather than a rational position against masks.
I also think most humans are very adept at not seeing reality if it is inconvenient or uncomfortable. Far easier to just keep on doing what you’re doing and pretend COVID isn’t real.
And for others, everything is so family-blogged they don’t care anymore.
Lambert did you edit your message? I’m sure it was different when I replied. Hence the quote. Feel free to delete my replies.
I believe NC recently posted a Tweet featuring Kim Ye Ji, the South Korean Olympic shooter? Anyway, she’s certainly become world famous after Elon Musk mentioned her in one of his Tweets. She was admitted to the hospital earlier today, but notice the difference in coverage from the two following media outlets:
https://www.barrons.com/news/south-korea-olympic-shooter-treated-in-hospital-after-fainting-374a1941 and
https://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/south-korean-olympic-shooter-viral-040807443.html
Barrons tries to lighten the matter by stating that she “fainted”, while Malay Mail has the following : “Chosun Daily reported that Kim, 31, who placed second in the 10m air pistol shooting Olympics event, suddenly collapsed while having convulsions ……”
“Her coach, Kwak Min-su, told local reporters that Kim had no underlying health issues and had been dealing with “accumulated fatigue” along with a very hectic schedule since mid-July.”
Nothing to see here people, except she just returned from an Olympics where Covid precautions are barely present.
There was one prominently masked competitor in the Olympics
Yes, the Olympics. For the elite sponsors, a wonderful opportunity to piggyback on the disciplines of athletes + the spectacle to push the message “Power through!”
“Athelete X won a gold medal with Covid and you don’t want to come into the office?”
True, but also plenty of cases of it prematurely ending athletes’ olympics too, or at least ending one of their events.
Less explicitly connected are those athletes performing below expectations with no talk of infection, which I’ve heard the odd report of.
Anecdata, but I listen to a lot of sports podcasts (mostly football/soccer but some general). I’ve never heard so much talk of the fatigue of players and athletes (some of the fittest people on the planet) as I have in the last 2-3 years. Fatigue ranging from short term and slight to persistent and debilitating is of course a well established symptom of covid.
Of course, at the Olympics, three people will medal whatever happens. A games-ending infection for a favourite is only a tragedy for that person; it’s a potential lifeline for an underdog, which everyone likes to see. Bookies probably like that too.
Thanks for this! Sending to friends and fam who are wondering what the fuss is about. Both those wondering why people still want to mask and why places are bothering with banning them.
Here in the Hudson Valley a group is organizing a “Mask Week” as a response to the bans and attempt to educate around and normalize the practice. Already have a couple local businesses signed up to participate and distribute N95s.
You’re welcome. I hope others feel free do the same. Feel free to email me with followup about the event (see Water Cooler, at the bottom by the plant for contact info).