I’m not a pandemic denier, neither am I into conspiracies with this caveat: Accusations of conspiracy mongering are the first defense for those pretending that facts in plain sight don’t exist; institutionalized mass gaslighting of the public. Now that that much is clear, I believe in masks for controlling Covid 19, sort of.
If my gig here was full time and paid – it’s neither, I’d studiously bullet point the fiasco of mask mandates across the timeline of the pandemic and the geography of the United States. Many of the mandates have little to do with limiting transmission of disease for which I’d include over-caution, based on what exceeds well documented circumstances of actual disease transmission. Our Lord and Savior Fauci himself is responsible for some glaring contradictions. I’m more inclined to follow his example than his words, particularly when he’s not strutting in front of national cameras.
Out of this miasma of regulations and reprisals are certain patterns of mass hysteria. For this, you likely won’t find a central handbook of directives to evil governors and policy makers but that doesn’t mean they don’t share responsibility for the overbearing dictates issued forth from a thousand new micro-potentates in their jurisdiction (stores and such) demanding conformity within their little realms, nor should they be excused for the license felt by countless fearful ‘Karens’ that would exert their rein of fear on their compatriots. Mass hysteria, including the variety guiding Trump derangement syndrome, has a life of its own and needs no central master. Practitioners of social sciences became well versed in those dynamics, particularly after studying the mind-numbing conformity of the Third Reich.
As for the efficacy of masks, to include all the ones that currently hold the blessed favor of the majority, a consensus, all masks will hinder the spread of gross droplets of spittle and other facial fluids that might bear Covid 19. Any place you’re safe from gross droplets unmasked, you’re as safe as you are ever going to be. It begins and ends there. All talk of microns and air hang time are irrelevant because most of the socially approved masks don’t function on that level, so why even discuss it? To suggest that a Kate Spade mask holds any substance over a hillbilly bandana is just nothing short of bigotry, and we know whom that is directed against.
When will this end? It won’t, not for a long time. As long as there is a political premium to be gained from your mayors, governors or possibly President, it will stay in place. As long as a social benefit is had by Karen et al, they too will clamor for facemasks long after there is no longer any medical necessity.