Makes Sense To Me

I get the sense that Jonathan Pie is a tad vexed about government irresolution and people's stupidity when it comes to the wearing of masks:

The Benighted Among Us

If you read this blog with any regularity, you may know that I hold in absolute, unmitigated contempt those who refuse to wear a mask. When hearing and reading about such people and their myriad of contrived (i.e., absurd) reasons for non-complance, I am almost tempted to believe that the world is experiencing two pandemics: Covid-19 and abject stupidity.

Apparently, I have the wrong attitude.

Charlie Warsel writes that e have to meet such people where they live:

As the Ebola epidemic raged in 2014, some West Africans resisted public health guidance. Some hid their symptoms or continued practicing burial rituals — like washing the bodies of their dead loved ones — despite the risk of infection. Others spread conspiracies claiming the virus was sent by Westerners or suggested it was all a hoax. In Conakry, Guinea’s capital city, an imam was arrested for violating his quarantine, and residents protested by not letting health officials check for fevers.

So the World Health Organization sent Cheikh Niang, a Senegalese medical anthropologist, and his team to figure out what was going on.

For six hours, Dr. Niang visited people in Conakry inside their homes. He wasn’t there to lecture. Residents asked him to write down their stories. When they finished, Dr. Niang finally spoke.

“I said, ‘I hear you,’” he told me recently over the phone from Senegal. “‘I want to and will help. But we still have an epidemic spreading and we need your help, too. We need to take your temperatures and we need to trace this virus.’ And they agreed. They trusted us.”

Trust, at a time when mistrust in science is rampant, becomes central to convincing people to follow health guidelines.

As does empathy. Julia Marcus, an epidemiologist and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, wrote an article in The Atlantic about men who don't wear masks in which

she acknowledged that masks don’t feel cool, can be obtrusive and block important body language signals, while still arguing emphatically for their importance. Dozens of non-mask wearers contacted her to thank her for the piece.

“These men were universally grateful to read something about anti-maskers that didn’t shame or demonize them,” she wrote. “It made them want to hear what else I had to say about why it might be worth wearing a mask.”

None of which I find especially compelling. Perhaps it is just my nature, but I prefer the facts over having to jolly people along. The kind of facts, for example, that are to be found in this very informative post on Northern Currents.

And the facts that are readily apparent in this report by Jeff Semple:



Jesus said, "The poor you will always have with you." Regrettably, the same must be said about the benighted who, some days, appear to be legion.

The Lincoln Project Strikes Again

I have to say I am quite enjoying the output of The Lincoln Project. As noted by Wikipedia, it

is an American political action committee formed in late 2019 by several prominent Republicans and former Republicans. The goal of the committee is to prevent the reelection of Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election and defeat his supporters in the U.S. Senate. In April 2020, the committee announced their endorsement of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

The Hill reports on their latest salvo, an ad that justifiably ridicules the Infant-in-Chief:

The ad begins with an image of the White House and the caption "Trumpfeld," which is modeled after the logo for "Seinfeld," along with music similar to the hit '90s sitcom's signature theme song.

The video plays a laugh track over several of Trump’s comments, including his repeated denial of several Fox News polls.

Enjoy:

No re-election for you pic.twitter.com/cKkevBNYln

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 21, 2020

Pretty Basic Stuff

But how much better off everyone would be if they just followed these basics:

Thought For The Day

Amen.

Another Disease Is Spreading

The affliction, manifesting in a steadfast refusal to wear a mask, appears to arise from a combination of idiocy, sociopathic indifference to public health, and just profound ignorance. And the fact that it is spreading in Canada (the Americans being a lost cause) pains me deeply. With our culture and history of concern for the collective, I expect better.

As discussed in an earlier post, there is almost no medical condition preventing a person from wearing a mask. That fact, however, has not stopped the proliferation of fake exemption cards that are being promoted on social media, all, of course, at the expense of public health during our current pandemic.

The cards in Canada are allegedly created by an “anti-lockdown group” that opposes mandatory mask bylaws.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission is listed on the back of a card, claiming to give the holder an exemption from wearing a face mask.

“These are fake. The Commission has not and would not produce posters or cards claiming that the cardholder has an exemption from wearing a face mask in closed public places.

The card is also stamped with the Canadian Red Cross emblem, which did not approve its use.

The use of such cards brought a sharp rebuke from Ontario Premier Doug Ford:

“This isn’t the time to use fraudulent cards and to get away and be able to go into a store, don’t be a scammer. To say you can’t wear a mask and make up some fraudulent cards, it’s unacceptable. Everyone else is wearing a mask, wear a mask,” Ford said.

As well, medical opinion on the use of masks is unequivocal.

Are there any valid reasons not to wear a mask? One of the most abusive shoppers recently caught on camera was yelling about how masks make people sick. “It’s science,” he said, referring, we presume, to the “science” offered up on social media about Co2 building up in masks.

“This is nonsense,” says Dr. Ken Chapman, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto. “There is no evidence whatsoever that wearing a mask will cause your carbon dioxide level to build up and certainly there’s no relationship between wearing a mask and damaging your immune system and other nonsense you read online.”

The Canadian Thoracic Society recently issued a statement similarly claiming there’s no evidence that wearing a mask will exacerbate an underlying lung condition.

Then there is Dr. Maitiu O Tuathail, a general practitioner in Dublin, Ireland, who made a video that even the most obtuse should be able to understand:



None of this, of course, will deter the true (dis)believers, those who maniacally worship at the altar of toxic egoism, junk science and bizarre conspiracy theories.

A pity, though, that Canadians aren't more resistant to such virulent, destructive ways.

The Benighted Speak

There is a new report showing the continuing spread of Covid-19 in California. It seems that three counties, San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange, have now surpassed Los Angeles county in per-capita case rates.

The idiocy on display in the following video helps explain why.