I also saw a couple people out biking (individually) in a rural area yesterday with masks on. Perhaps there’s a stricter mask ordinance there (it was fairly affluent area), but if so it doesn’t make sense. I guess that’s why it’s important for people to understand when and why mask-wearing is important – otherwise it can look almost like a superstitious thing.
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One of my conspiracy friends was coaching track and afraid she had to wear a mask (she said she would refuse to do it in school on principle, anyway, even if she was fired). However, it was at least a help I could tell her that OSHA said no, it’s not even recommended when exercising.
It seems that there is a tendency , in this tense time, to get odd ideas of what we should and shouldn’t do 
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Here in Oaxaca, Mexico, it is part of the government mandated reopening guidelines that businesses require masks, give hand sanitizer to everyone entering the establishment, and have everyone step in a tray of alcohol solution to “disinfect” the bottoms of their shoes. Okay, the first two I get. But have you ever heard of anything dumber than the third? Now there are slipping hazards everywhere as people track alcohol solution everywhere (everything is tiled here), and who is catching COVID-19 from floors of businesses? (Except maybe the people who slipped and fell on the alcohol-water puddles and accidentally licked the floor?) They still also stop every vehicle at check points to check temperatures and spray the door handles inside and out with bleach water. Because if people are getting COVID-19, it’s definitely from surface contact INSIDE THEIR PERSONAL VEHICLE. Making people do obviously worthless things just makes them less enthusiastic about doing the stuff that helps, I don’t get it.
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That is bizarre! And bleach water inside a vehicle?! That could do some damage!
Sounds like somebody is anti-science…
In any case, the science was about healthcare workers in COVID-19 wards bringing coronavirus home with contaminated shoes. Obviously the government got the idea from somewhere, it is just an idea that is being applied in a ridiculously useless way.
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That is weird. I guess context is pretty important. It’s not just “do this” or “don’t do that” – it’s also about where and when. Maybe that even has a few tie-ins to scriptural interpretation…
Anyway, some people might be glad to know that some stores are safer for a toddler to have a meltdown in. 
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Plus, recommendations for businesses have changed over the months. I think most experts are now saying that temperature checks are a waste of time. Yet, my temperature will be checked at every entrance to every store or office and at checkpoints on the highway, most of the time in a completely improper way that does not even give a correct readout. Waving a thermometer at my clothed arm is not taking a temperature, but it counts as following protocol.
It’s hard to be consistent when there is so much confusion. WHO has some good resources, as does CDC.
In my church, in the first service, everyone wears masks on the way in and out, and during singing–but not while listening to the sermon. In the second, where they don’t enforce masks, people break the tape to sit in adjoining pews and the service is crowded because no one wants to wear masks.
Last week, the (visiting) speaker said that the church is under attack from the government–that we no longer live in a free country. I don’t see it–churches are some of the only places where masks and social distancing aren’t enforced.
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The prudent see danger and take cover, but the simple keep going and suffer the consequences.
Maybe more Christians should read the OT.
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When I look this up for myself, the VAST majority of reports from scientist say that masks DO help reduce the spread of the virus. So I am definitely not buying into this claim in the OP.
I am following the mask discussion with concern. I think we can all agree that this is the most divisive issue to come out of the pandemic and to create a few more ripples on the issue I want to raise the situation in Sweden.
I just checked the latest news out of Sweden and without requiring it’s people to wear masks and with a far less stringent shutdown than most of the rest of the world their results are better than several countries (Britain and Italy) and close to on par with most others.
If masks are so important how is this possible?
Another seeming anomaly: charts presented by the New York Times show that while our country suffered a huge upsurge in Corona infection during the months of June and July we also experienced a steady fall of deaths during the same period. It would seem that all the hue and cry over premature opening might have been a bit overdone as most of the upsurge was apparently amongst people who did not contract severe illness from their infections. Note also that the recent demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd don’t seem to have resulted in any upsurge in infections.
Is it possible that things are not quite so bad as some in the media and politics would have us believe?
What facts do you think support this assessment?
It has also been noted that the later infections were in younger populations, (not outbreaks in nursing homes, for example), so the death rate was predicted to be lower. Also treatment has improved as doctors have learned more. But looking only at death rates fails to take into account important data about other health effects of infections, some of which are permanent or long-term.
Photos of demonstrations typically showed people in masks attempting to social distance. Compare that to upsurges in cases from church services where people crammed in together and hugged and sang.
What exactly are you suggesting the media is misrepresenting? 177,000 Americans are dead.
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It’s almost as if there can be other things countries or the people that live in them do that also effect the growth of the virus. Like if people naturally distance themselves from each other culturally as the Swedes apparently do or if they are on a holiday season. For example most people in Sweden take the whole month of July off work. And lo and behold, their cases dropped significantly that month from where they were at the end of June. My points is that there are so many potential confounding factors it is meaningless to try and say face masks don’t work because Sweden isn’t experiencing a massive number of cases.
Yes because deaths lag cases. Here are some graphs to help you see that:
Where are you getting your information from? It starts everywhere with young people, and then gradually spreads to other age groups. Have you missed the thousand people dying everyday in America?
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I wonder, too, if having rather tightly controlled surrounding countries doesn’t mitigate the effect of Covid on Sweden. At one point, Norway’s death rate was significantly lower than Sweden’s (I don’t know what it is now; the difference was mainly in the nursing homes).
My chiropractor anti-vax friend likes to point out how healthy some kids who were not vaccinated are. It’s because they’re not exposed to the bug. (it’s a slightly different scenario, as there are no vaccines).
Thanks.
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Here’s also a useful summary of evidence on masks I saw on Twitter from the previous head of CDC.
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Here’s a nice little case study: Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
Basically, COVID spread to a lot of people at a Starbucks because of one infected customer, but not the employees who were consistently wearing masks. They might not provide perfect protection, but they probably provide some.
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The news article is about a month behind the times. Like many countries, these nations initially suffered a shortage of Personal Protective Equipment, including face masks. They responded to this situation by recommending face masks only for those at very high risk. Had they recommended them at that stage for everybody they would have been faced with a revolt, because people could not secure them. For a news article that reflects the change in recommendation, see the following news item. You will also see an associated article about the shortage of face masks.
Quarantine, isolation and face-masks are not as effective as a vaccine, but in the absence of a vaccine, they are all we have.
The social media posts so effective at stirring far-right groups into a rage, typically originate in enemy States and are lobbed at gullible groups in the free world. It is the nature of cyber warfare today. It is as much part of a war as “boots on the ground”. The aim is to bring a nation to its knees by turning people against one another; and in regard to COVID-19, maximizing the amount of infection.
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So a simple response…
Surgical teams also wear gloves. But I would much rather be served dinner by someone without gloves who has been careful to wash their hands regularly, than by someone who is wearing the same set of gloves they were wearing at the beginning of their shift some 6 hours ago.
Nobody is arguing that wearing gloves is dangerous to your health though.