The bulk of seniors who are at risk from COVID have either died of the disease, survived the disease or been vaccinated against the disease. New cases are dropping quickly.
Over ten percent of the overall American population has been vaccinated – over 40 million of them – and that figure is increasing at the rate of about 11 million a week. It looks like nearly everyone who wants to be vaccinated will be vaccinated by late spring. Meanwhile, drug treatments have proved increasingly effective. Most recently, the FDA approved a drug cocktail from Eli Lilly.
There will come a time when COVID masks are no longer necessary.
The implicit assumption in that statement is that masks were necessary before. The science is not clear in that regard, but it seems logical that they helped to some degree. The virus seems to be transmitted by airborne particles like microdroplets of sputum. The virus is far too small to be intercepted by a mask, but many of those microdroplets are not.
I comply with the mask rules and will continue to, even though I’ve received both vaccination shots, if for no other reason than they make people around me feel more comfortable. It’s the same reason I try not to fart in the elevator.
But we can’t hold our farts for years. We surely won’t be wearing masks in the year 2023. What about three months from now when COVID will almost certainly be on the wane?
It’s clear that masks will be discontinued, but it’s difficult to see how we get there.
Politicians in this politicized pandemic lack the courage to say, “I’m discontinuing my executive order requiring masks.” Political courage is not exactly in abundant supply these days. CEO’s lack the strength to say, “Enough of this work-from-home crap, I want you in the office where I can see the lights of your eyes, the sweat on your brow and the glints of your teeth. No masks.”
And what about the potential liability? There will still be some small number of COVID deaths for years. Every employer, store and restaurant without a mask mandate, that the deceased visited during the weeks before contracting the disease, will be a potential target for a wrongful death lawsuit.
And, so, we’ll mask-muddle through life long after the masks serve any real purpose, if they ever did. Mask scolds will scold us as they did before and for the same reasons they did before – because they enjoy doing so. In blue states, they’ll require people to wear masks whenever two or more are gathered in His name because they don’t like two or more gathering in His name, or even one. Praying without a mask will be a cancelation offense, as will praying with one.
Here’s the biggest problem. Masks hide people. People in masks are becoming like people in automobiles or on Facebook. In the cloak of anonymity, they feel free to be real jerks. Anger seems on the upswing. It’s not just because of political polarization, but also because people think they can express their anger without been held accountable for it.
Masks also hide facial expressions. Think how often masks have prevented you from effectively communicating with people around you by masking your smile or other visual clues. It’s hard to connect while wearing a mask.
In this brave new world of masked humans, will we be all anger and no love?
the Aspen beat 
I am good with masks until more people are vaccinated. A mask is a relatively minor inconvenience to potentially protect me and my elderly parents from getting Covid, I am fine with it. I am encouraged by some of the studies which show that a surgical mask covered by a cloth mask are effective in preventing spread and contraction.
I don’t want to get sick and don’t want to infect others.
I would like to see how many people have been vaccinated by the end 2021.
Nancy, if it would potentially save 60,000 deaths in the US do you think we should stay in masks? What would be a good cut off number?
There is no potential, any number such as yours is made up…sad cult you are in.
Not a single clinical study has shown any real-world decrease in COVID-19 transmission from wearing masks — and the number of reputable studies is in the double digits. Zip. Zero. Nada. The studies cited to justify the practice do show a reduction in aerosols that might contain COVID-19, but they don’t show a corresponding reduction in infection rates.
Once we set a precedent for this superstitious practice, how do we limit when masks are required? Influenza is aerosolized as well. Are we going to mandate masks every flu season? How many masks? Now they’re telling us that two are better than one. Not only that, but even people who’ve been vaccinated are required to continue wearing masks; Is there something they’re not telling us?
Lots of diseases are spread by contact with surfaces (likely this is the pricipal mechanism for COVID 19). Maybe we should require people to wear surgical gloves in public — and while we’re at it, we should double glove!!
This insanity won’t stop until everybody wears full hazmat suits in public. If that’s what people with a contamination phobia want, fine, but why can’t those of us who want to lead normal lives opt out? After all, if PPE works so well to protect the wearer, what difference does it make if somebody else lives dangerously?
Masks do not work and to say otherwise with all the best intentions in the world is either misinformed or part of the scam….you’re choice.
I have started wearing clear face shields while shopping. People not only smile back at me, they SPEAK. I have given several shields away. Seeing kids in masks is heart breaking.
The horrible masks seem to have served more than the purpose the were imposed for. Flu cases are down and that’s a very good thing. As you point out, the other purposes have not been so good and will continue to be a bone of contention for the unforeseeable future. I miss seeing people smile.
Who knows if they’re down or not? Personally, I seriously doubt it. Hospitals seemed to feel they could look at a patient and tell if the respiratory distress they died of was caused by Covid and not flu or flu-induced pneumonia. No tests available or, better yet, no tests necessary. The added inducement? Three times the payment for a Covid death than for anything else. I’ve seen various studies that indicate Covid deaths are wildly inflated, 40% or even double the actual cases.
I remember the poor fellow on his motorcycle who had a fatal encounter with a tree who was deemed to have died of Covid. Also, some actress whose sister was in a care facility with late stage Alzheimer’s was informed her sister had died of Covid, but she didn’t believe it. The facility refused to test her recently departed loved one until their cousin who was Secretary of State intervened on her behalf. They tested the woman. She didn’t die of Covid. In fact, she had drowned in her own saliva because they didn’t adequately suction her. There are innumerable cases like these.
I have an immune system, which is well cared for.
The stupid mask is just something I endure for now, a convention I wear to keep my church open and to buy groceries, nothing more.
There is absolutely no scientific evidence that public mask mandates do anything to slow the spread of covid. Says the CDC (in a moment of lucidity and honesty). https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article?fbclid=IwAR2q04DJO4gYPqZ1GPONCBlSSKzPnfUETSVzjTGLbUWELse_osYRjSmjMwE
Notably, the article to which you’ve linked is 9 months old.
As my article above mentions, “the science is not clear.” But there’s some, limited evidence that masks help, and it stands to reason that they would. Here’s a more recent article on the subject in one of the leading medical journals. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8
Whether masks help or not, we’re still left with the topic of the article: What’s the path out of them?
Well, vaccination for one, except people who’ve been vaccinated are still required to wear masks!!
Therapeutics are another. The real death rate from COVID-19 is not substantially different from the flu, except for this past flu seasons, when NOBODY CAUGHT THE FLU! (apparently COVID-19 cures the flu) People live and work normally, catch the flu, take Tamiflu and soldier on. We KNOW that HCQ+Zinc+Azithromycin substantially reduces the severity of COVID-19. So does Ivermectin, and more antivirals are being tested. So except for people at high risk, why should COVID-19 be any different.
Finally, we should acknowledge that the cost -benefit trade for masks simply doesn’t justify their use. Sweden didn’t follow any of the COVID-19 restrictions, their death rate was no different from countries that did, and now they’re out of the epidemic.
The path is simple: Stop.
You’re dead wrong about Sweden. The death rate there is now 1,200 per million in population. That compares to 109 in adjacent Norway and 127 in adjacent Finland.
Nor is Sweden “out of the epidemic” as you contend. Their deaths were 38 yesterday compared to 9 in Norway and zero in Finland.
Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
As stated in the column above, I’m not a huge believer in Masks. But let’s stay factual.
1200 per million is only 0.12% that is less than the flu death rate. I think someone is manipulating numbers. Also, Sweden acknowledged that they should have isolated their vulnerable and elderly better. Maybe Norway did…I dunno. Either way, Sweden didn’t lose many people and they didn’t destroy their businesses either. Viruses will do what viruses do…spread and replicate. There is really nothing people can do to stop them or minimize their damage other than create vaccinations and other medicines, especially in a free society.
We’ve had 25 million confirmed cases of covid, meaning we have 25 million people who already have the antibodies. But the CDC has reported that testing shows six times as many people have the antibodies as reported cases, because so many cases are asymptomatic and/or undiagnosed. So that’s 150 million Americans who had the antibodies before the first vaccination. Too bad some “scientist” didn’t think about doing broad-based testing for antibodies, so when the vaccine became available it could be targeted to people who don’t already have the antibodies. Apparently, it’s possible to follow the science without doing the math. https://reason.com/2020/06/28/cdc-antibody-studies-confirm-huge-gap-between-covid-19-infections-and-known-cases/?fbclid=IwAR0XXFo09c9WWjS1LQZk4qWRi55aXUi8Kt6d9QqExOST-3OF7bZCmkZh6Nw
That’s a good point. While it’s apparently true that surviving the disease doesn’t get you the quantity of antibodies that the vaccine does, it would have made sense to give the vaccine to others first who are more vulnerable to at least some degree.
Man, it is said think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles MacKay
We have all been played for fools. Wake up.
Why should we wear a mask if it’s not absolutely necessary? Where I live, when I walk I don’t wear one. I simply walk out and around others, and they do the same. I wear one when I am required to do so. I believe that we have been lied to for political reasons and not for health reasons. I believe that only a small percentage of people need to diligently wear masks due to their own health problems. I also believe that we have been lied to about the dangers of Covid and about the massive numbers of deaths they are falsely attributing to it. Evidence pretty much backs that up now. 1600 percent over stated on deaths??? There can be no excuse for mistakes like that – proving it wasn’t a mistake. It was purposely done in order to control us!
Masks do NOT stop viruses–that are microorganisms. And cheap medication is being condemned so Big Pharma can make bucks. Hydroxychloroquine, for example, was approved for use in the US in 1955, SIXTY SIX years ago, people! Yet Lil’ Fauci and his minions condemn it.
I grew up with women who were Burning the Bra, and now women – yes, it’s mostly women — quickly hoist the mask from neck to face the moment they see me coming, on some sun-drenched, breezy ski trail out in the middle of nowhere. I’m sure it’s more a gesture of courtesy than fear, but I still feel like a leper.
Yes masks are destroying our health, in so many ways. The race war we had all summer long is due to masking and social isolation. The way we solve racial divide is to sit down together, break bread, have a beer or a cup of joe and just enjoy each other’s company. We have not been doing that. With isolation breeds fear, anger and contempt…which is just what the Democrats want. They want Black people afraid and angry.
Germaphobes are controlling the narrative. Mask use by medical personnel were only ever meant to prevent liquid sprays during operations from being inhaled. Long term use , as currently demanded, simply traps bacteria, leading to reinhalation of what your lungs normally reject as bad when you sneeze or cough, increasing the concentration .
I’ve had people actually tell me they will continue to wear a mask, indefinitely, as they claim they’ve had fewer colds the past year.
No doubt they will continue to scream at their representatives to enforce it, and ostracize any who seek exception from mandates.
I’m not deaf but I hadn’t realised before how much I counted on the connection between hearing and watching the mouth shaping the words.
Humans are not meant to be hermits but wearing those masks and limiting gatherings is changing us. Who are we going to be at the end of it all?
Then again with the climate change end being nigh, why worry😉
Want to slow climate change? Put your used face masks over your car’s exhaust pipe. Capture that carbon!
Well I would, but I don’t drive. Do you?
Did you fly pre Covid?
Do you wear leather shoes made from methane farting cows?
How do you go about charging your electronic devices?
Which landfills do solar panels go to, to die? How long before they decompose? Do they decompose?
The masks have revealed that many citizens are eager collaborators, willing to turn in Anne Frank and her family to the Nazis, and ready to pat themselves on the back for doing so.
When I see someone in a mask, if I don’t know them personally, I consider them dangerous. Even if they are being forced into it by work circumstances, for example, there’s no guarantee they’re not ready to send their fellow citizens to the camps given the slightest excuse.
This is good, actually. Before the Great Panic, I thought of “my fellow Americans.” That was a dangerous delusion, which I have now set aside. I’m sadder, but wiser.
Betray Anne to the Nazis because one is willing to take a perhaps useless precaution? Quite a jump.
The noxious behavior of American “elites” (the contemptible Fauci with his serially-contradicting pronouncements, maskless Gavin Newsom and his medical-company buddies at the swank restaurant, maskless Pelosi at the hair salon) has been enough to convince me that mask mandates are about **control**, pure and simple.
So I was impressed with the last line of a February 4 piece, “CDC Requires Masks on People on All Modes of Transportation, Including Rideshares,” at the Legal Insurrection blog. Here’s how she concluded it: “It is never going to end. Never.”
Yes, it is being used.for political purposes. Honestly, nobody can stop a virus with a flimsy mask. Supposedly it helps slow it a bit by keeping the weaver’s saliva away from others, but it really does very little to protect the other people. The virus can still escape the mask in very fine moisture, unless it’s an N95 and that gives only 95% protection. Then, you have the problem with hands, surfaces and everything else. People don’t usually disinfect their hands at every turn. Oh! Don’t rub your eye! Don’t eat that donut! The bag may have COVID. The donut could have been breathed on. …where does this end?
What a great way to start my diet. Here, please breathe on these donuts, that way I won’t want to eat them. But let’s wait until after Fastnacht Day on Tuesday.
I’m an anti-masker. Too bad whoever doesn’t like it.
I am nearly 71 years of age. Accordingly, I have lived through any number of public health “crises.” Remember when AIDS was going to massively infect the heterosexual population? Well, that didn’t happen and most particularly didn’t happen through sexual contact (unless frequenting
prostitutes was factored in). I survived two influenza pandemics; 1957, and 1968, informally identified by their presumed sites of origin as Asian and Hong Kong influenza, respectively. No similarly draconian measures were imposed. In fact, the obverse of current measures was recommended, viz., “sick people stay home until you are healthy again.” I acquired and survived episodes of measles, whooping cough, chicken pox and mumps in my childhood, as did most of my contemporaries. Illness was an accepted risk of living among others. People were reasonably cautious and vaccinated against the kinds of diseases that carried significant risk of death or permanent impairment (smallpox, diphtheria, etc.) and lived normal lives. Today, we have been cowed, browbeaten and stampeded into complying with “government mandates” regarding masks, “social distancing,” abandoning schooling for our children, etc. All this is part of a larger program designed to acclimate people to accepting increasing governmental curtailments on their freedoms. There will never be a time when we will be rid of onerous mandates imposed on us by our masters, whether in government or the private sector that controls our economy and channels of communication. To the contrary, I fully expect this trend to escalate. The surprising thing is how many people are perfectly comfortable with this regimen and with what eagerness conformity is accepted and, in turn, attempted to be imposed on non-conformists in the population. I do not object to individuals voluntarily deciding to mask, etc., but am opposed to use of the coercive power of government to require such, as well as the vindictive behavior of the aforesaid institutions in the economy that punish non-conformity in the name of “safety,” “unity” or other false flags. I shall continue to resist all such measures to the degree it is reasonably possible and urge others to do the same.
Funny when
I realized I could stroll into the Circle K masked with a hoodie and not get reused entry.. or even get a second look!
C.S. Lewis – ′′ Old Devil’s Letters To Young ′′ 1942.
′One young devil asked the old man: “How did you manage to bring so many souls to hell?” The old devil answered: “I instilled fear in them!” Answers the youngster: “Great job! And what were they afraid of? Wars? Hunger?” Answers the man: “No, they were afraid of the disease!” For this youngster: “Does this mean they didn’t get sick? Are they not dead? There was no rescue for them?”
The old man answered: “but no . . . they got sick, died, and the rescue was there.” The young devil, surprised, answered: “Then I don’t understand???” The old man answered: “You know they believed the only thing they have to keep at any cost is their lives.
They stopped hugging, greeting each other. They’ve moved away from each other. They gave up all social contacts and everything that was human! Later they ran out of money, lost their jobs, but that was their choice because they were afraid for their lives, that’s why they quit their jobs without even having bread.
They believed blindly everything they heard and read in the papers.
They gave up their freedoms, they didn’t leave their own homes literally anywhere. They stopped visiting family and friends. The world turned into such a concentration camp, without forcing them into captivity.
They accepted everything!!! Just to live at least one more miserable day . . . And so living, they died every day!!! And that’s how it was very easy for me to take their miserable souls to hell….. ′′
C.S. Lewis – ′′ Old Devil’s Letters To Young ′′ 1942.
Virological ignorance is killing us. We already know that Covid, like thousands of RNA stranded viruses, uses the RdRp enzyme as part of its replication process, and that intracellular zinc ions inhibit that enzyme. To get zinc ions into cells, I use Quercetin, an OTC zinc ionophore that is now readily available.
I liken the use of masks to the use of posies during the Black Death (Ring around my Rosie, pocket full of posies, …) – masks are just the 21st Century equivalent of the posy.