ORIGINAL: Dante Fierro
I'm having to catch myself and take a step back and try to understand why the resistance to masks has been so strong. The only thing I can come up with is there does seem to have been a great deal of misinformation at the beginning of this pandemic, especially here in the states. Even the CDC has walked back some of its original pronouncements on masks. Dr. Fauci, just recently admitted he hadn't told the truth about masks.
This misinformation I suppose, is what was latched on to by Americans who didn't want to take this pandemic seriously, or believed in other theories about COVID-19, and so they marginalized the risks of the virus.
And this volume of change in the information being given, the different 'narratives' people have been exposed to, has made the atmosphere over wearing face masks vituperative and sometimes outright hostile, between those who believe COVID-19 is some kind of hoax, or that masks really have no impact on the virus - and those who are convinced masks do make a difference.
I personally am convinced that masks do make a difference - as are many people across the globe. 120 countries worldwide have mandated mask use by their citizens while in public spaces. However, I suppose, despite a good deal of evidence (IMO) that masks can and do make a difference, there are a number of counter arguments that the anti-maskers will make, some more reasonable than others, but of which they themselves are quite convinced are valid arguments.
So we're left with this unfortunate social environment (due to the misinformation, or the amount of conflicting information) with strong views on the subject of masks, where each side feels fairly certain that their position is correct over the other. And to add to this unfortunate environment, which in my opinion, is not helping us focus on handling this pandemic, is added the political dissension - which also often gets involved regarding the entire mask debate and/or how the pandemic should be managed.
It isn't that Dr. Fauci "didn't tell the truth", it is more accurate to say they initially did not
know the truth. I heard his early press conferences and when someone asked about masks he said something very close to "we don't have any evidence that they do anything to help". Back in March, that was true - they were still struggling to find all the ways the virus can be transmitted.
New York was the big learning experience for the U.S. and those costly lessons should be taken to heart throughout the country. One if these lessons was that masks do help limit the distance that droplets are expelled, and the droplets are the primary means of transmission. The attacks on Fauci are in the same category as the attacks on WHO, which was also struggling to figure out what was true and what was not in the early part of the year, bearing in mind that WHO got a lot of its info from the CDC.
No matter how bad a situation is, you can always make it worse. - Chris Hadfield : An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
; Julia Child
