Keep 'em coming - keep the dialogue open

9h ago

"is it that much of an imposition to wear a mask as indicated?  Do we really know?  Masks have been used effectively for decades. Maybe centuries? Love you and our debate." Masks have not been used for centuries and those that have been used for decades were used to decrease contamination of the open, surgical wound. Why not wear garlic? Why not stomp on the ground for 30 seconds and then spin around? If an intervention is unstudied, it's unstudied. "Why not?" is the wrong question. "Why?" is the question. Just because you "think" masks work is a reason to do a study; it is not a reason to implement a widespread policy. 

If masks work, that's fantastic.

But please, just prove it; don't simply suspect it. And show us which masks work and how you need to wear them and where you need to wear them and when you need to change them and ...

The devil is the details. Y'all want the details of every HCQ study, but y'all don't want any details or facts about the currently absurd use of surgical masks to prevent the spread of a respiratory virus in the community.

I am not anti-mask (ok, maybe a little, because everyone wears different masks differently and their re-use could increase risk of transmission of Covid). I am much more against the implementation of a policy based only on theory and opinion. Y'all have become experts on virology, infectious disease and infection control, even though yet 7 months ago, few of you had heard of PPE. Few knew that coronaviruses existed. Professionalism and expertise has been supplanted by a left-winged agenda. Apparently, if you listen to enough CNN and MSNBC, if that one is still a channel, you are then qualified to opine on everything Covid.

In February 2020, I was the word on Infectious Disease in my area. People asked questions and trusted my opinions. They respected my years of working in this field. They didn't think to question my opinion, for they knew nothing about Infectious Diseases.

By April 2020, friends, neighbors and their children, none of whom had taken biology since high school freshman year, would ask me a Covid question, and I would reflexively and honestly answer. The difference was, 90% of the time, they would then try to argue with me. I cut them off and said "I will answer your questions, but will not engage in an argument. Seriously, do you know how much time I have spent seeing pts and educating myself over the last 35 years? BTW, when is the last time you took biology? Do you really want to debate me?" Now, that we have a country of ID experts, I realize I have to debate any and everyone, so let's keep it going.

Just historically saying -

If you implement policy based solely upon what you think will happen, you'll end up paying a lot of money for rat tails or their equivalent. SMS www.atlasobscura.com The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902 Did Not Go as PlannedInstead of disappearing, the pesky rodents proliferated. The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902 Did Not Go as Planned "The French were especially pleased with this arrangement because they’d been encouraging entrepreneurialism in Vietnam. And at first, it seemed to be working. Tails poured in. French ingenuity triumphed again. But then there started to be curious sightings, all around town: Rats, alive and healthy, running around without their tails. It turned out the hunters would rather amputate a live animal’s tail than take a healthy rat, capable of breeding and creating so many more rats—with those valuable tails—out of commission. There were also reports that some Vietnamese were smuggling foreign rats into the city. And then the final straw: Health inspectors discovered, in the countryside on the outskirts of Hanoi, pop-up farming operations dedicated to breeding rats."