Mask mandates make more sense to me than vaccine passports.
I would make the case for a mask mandate in a pandemic with no vaccine available. Suppose you and I enter the same store. As I understand it, my mask offers little protection to me. But your mask offers significant protection to me.
With a vaccine, the relative values are reversed. If you and I visit the same store, my vaccination shot gives me lots of protection, while your vaccination shot is much less meaningful to me.
In terms of immediate contact with other people, there is a public-goods argument for a mask mandate in a pandemic without a vaccine. But in terms of immediate contact with other people, vaccines are much more of a private good.
The public-goods argument for vaccines has to do with “crushing the virus” in general, not with making individuals safer to be around. You can argue that if not everyone is vaccinated, the virus will have more hosts and more opportunities to mutate.
I am willing to buy this public-goods argument for giving people an incentive to get vaccinated. But the penalty for not getting a vaccine should not be house arrest. Metaphorically, I would say we should give people a “vaccine discount” at the movies rather than banning unvaccinated people from going to the movies altogether.
Maybe the subsidy for getting a vaccine should be quite high. Maybe the “no-vaccine” tax should be quite high. But depriving someone of their freedom of movement because they refuse to get a COVID vaccine is wrong. I strongly oppose vaccine passports.
Leaving aside the issue of whether masks even work at all, it’s not clear we need mandates. Most people use common sense. So if the mandated activity makes sense most people will follow it without the mandate. If it doesn’t then its imposing a cost on people for little to no benefit.
The other day we wanted to bring our kids to an egg hunt. It look place outdoors in a field. The organizers, a government program, demanded that everyone where masks. Why? Outdoors? In a field? We were literally right next to a playground where tons of kids and adults were running around on top of each other without masks. What is the point of this? It’s difficult for me to see how the mask mandate protected anyone, meanwhile it was an uncomfortable inconvenience for everyone involved.
I very much got the impression that the humiliation ritual was the entire point. There was no public health benefit. It was all about asserting dominance on those involved to let them know they had no rights or agency. They might as well have made us grovel in the dirt, it’s the same basic principle.
We left rather than submit to such nonsense, but my tax dollars supported the thing against my will nonetheless.
P.S. My kids school shutdown for the week because two anti-vax teachers got COVID and the county ordered them closed. The teachers wear masks but predictably that didn’t do shit to stop the virus from spreading when you share a room all day with the same people because it goes out the side of the useless masks.
I can’t understand anti-vaxx. When I see people defying mask mandates I feel a kindred spirit and the spark of freedom and individual thought and agency. When I see people refusing the vaccine I see ignorance and selfishness unbounded.
Every word of this. If masks worked at all we wouldn’t still need them. 95% of people in places like the northeast and the west coast wear them literally everywhere. My understanding is it’s the same in most of Europe. If they protected others from spreading the virus, the virus wouldn’t have had a huge resurgence in the fall. States with low mask usage and states with high mask usage ended up at the same spot. Countries in Europe with no masks (like the Nordics) actually ended up better than other European countries with high mask usage. There is no medicine we would ever give people where whether they use it or not they end up exactly the same, and we would still say it works. Results like that have always in the past been classified as confirming the null hypothesis.
And you know it has to mostly be about control because you’re not allowed to take the mask off after you’ve been infected or vaccinated. A rule like that makes no sense from the standpoint of masks being used to slow the spread of the virus. In fact it’s completely unscientific to claim masks are about contagion and also that the immune need to wear them. But it makes perfect sense from the standpoint of control.
That said Arnold’s point that vaccines have near zero public good effect is spot on. If vaccines work it doesn’t matter whether other people are vaccinated. (And if they don’t well then none of it matters). Again, the only reason to care about other people’s vaccination status is control.
States with low mask usage and states with high mask usage ended up at the same spot. Countries in Europe with no masks (like the Nordics) actually ended up better than other European countries with high mask usage.
That first sentence hints at why the second sentence is ridiculous. What matters is how much (and in what circumstances) masks are used, not whether they are legally required. Else we would have to conclude that thirty years ago, nobody in the United States used marijuana 🙂
I would love to see good research investigating actual mask usage and actual COVID spread.
I support some official “proof of vaccination” for a perhaps cynical reason. As long as there is not 100% vaccination, and as long as there is no way to prove, “I’m safe; you can’t get COVID from me”, there will be pressure for mask mandates. Which means potentially forever.
However, I fear that they would evolve into “passports”, such that people are legally shut out of certain places without one. (But should private companies be allowed to do so? Certainly, our son can say,”You and Mom can come visit the grandkids two weeks after your second shots–but not before.”)
It’s been pretty obvious from early on based on common sense and now early studies, that people who are vaccinated are dramatically less likely to spread the virus. Maybe not 0%, but much less likely. The risk probably approaches zero for the kind of brief asymptomatic public interactions mask mandates supposedly protect us from.
And yet, the fact that I’m vaccinated hasn’t meant I’m immune from mask mandates, nor has a single facet of the Phase X lockdown from last fall been reversed. The risk of transmission will never be 0.00000%, and therefore there will always be justification for authoritarianism forever.
Very much agree, but a key feature here is the high vaccine effectiveness. If the vaccines were not so effective, we would need to rely on herd immunity— that is to say, other people being vaccinated.
Agreed, and vaccine availability is also an issue. Countries with plenty of vaccine (Israel, soon the US) are significantly different from countries with little vaccine.
I reviewed the pre-ncov studies on masks last February or March. They said even a bandana is around 50% effective at reducing virion spray, in either direction, and a surgical mask is around 85% effective. Masks should have helped. I personally think a good situation would be surgical mask, plus a bandana to cut down on the reverse plumes caused by the surgical mask.
Empirically, masked did not help. If you go on worldometers (and reject the countries obviously faking their numbers) you can see the curve was generally not so much as flattened. I would like to know why.
Is ncov infection not primarily airborne? Are voters so incompetent they can’t even wear a mask? Were the masks not, in fact, meeting surgical standards? Do we need 99.9% compliance rates for masks to matter due to mask-free areas such as private homes?
Anyway, masks should work but didn’t.
Vitamin D should work and did.
You want a dose significantly higher than the “safe upper limit,” which is pegged at 1/5 to 1/3 of what you would produce naturally by going outside at noon for half an hour. Fun fact: there was a statistical error in the original vitamin D deficiency study, and if you fix that it recommends a dose of 2 1/4 the “safe upper limit.”
I do not buy the argument that masks offer little protection to the wearer but significant protection to others. That is an absurd claim. In fact FFP or N95 masks do offer some personal protection when worn correctly. That is why people tried to buy so many last year that hospitals had shortages. That is also why governments then told us first that masks won’t work anyway (so we would not use up stock meant for medical workers). Later they ordered us to wear “community” or cloth masks to assuage a frightened populace. Of course no government could say these “community” masks protect people (because they don’t) but the claim that they “might help limit” the spread of the virus was something that could be claimed and was hard to disprove.
So. Cloth masks are neither useful for self protection nor community protection. FFP or N95 masks do offer some protection when worn correctly and obviously protect others as well (as long as the masks have no exhale valve). This means that mask mandates should be opposed on the same grounds as vaccine passports.
In fact I made a photographic argument against mask mandates a few days ago…it might be of interest: https://www.thedullchannel.com/against-masks-an-argument-in-four-pictures/
In contrast to the ambiguous information on mask transmission reduction, we apparently have good clinical data that vaccination reduces transmission by 90%. As such, if we could credibly know that someone was vaccinated without building new permanent and horrible privacy intruding extension of the government, I’d rather know that someone is vaccinated than someone is mask wearing (except a trained person wearing a N95 or better mask). Because of cheating and my disinterest in a federal database tracking COVID vaccinations, I think this won’t happen, but I support private entities being permitted to use vaccine passports if they want to as a complement to or substitute for mask wearing.
Re: Vaccines and transmission. See research findings about the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine (published 22 February 2021) from the SIREN study (UK):
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3790399
“We have estimated the vaccine effectiveness against all (symptomatic and asymptomatic) infection for the BNT162b2 vaccine to be at least 70% 21 days after the first dose, which increased to at least 85% seven days after the second dose. [… .] We provide strong evidence that vaccinating working age adults will substantially reduce asymptomatic and symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection and therefore reduce transmission of infection in the population.” (p. 4)
See also early findings in Israel, indicating that vaccination causes sharp reduction in viral load. (Reduction in viral load is a mechanism that reduces transmission.) See “Decreased SARS-CoV-2 viral load following vaccination” (published 6 February 2021):
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.06.21251283v1.full.pdf
“Abstract:
Beyond their substantial protection of individual vaccinees, it is hoped that the COVID-19 vaccines would reduce viral load in breakthrough infections thereby further suppress onward transmission. Here, analyzing positive SARS-CoV-2 test results following inoculation with the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine, we find that the viral load is reduced 4-fold for infections occurring 12-28 days after the first dose of vaccine. These reduced viral loads hint to lower infectiousness, further contributing to vaccine impact on virus spread.”
Re: “Metaphorically, I would say we should give people a ‘vaccine discount’ at the movies rather than banning unvaccinated people from going to the movies altogether.”
Other possibilities:
— The individual provides evidence of a current negative test result for Covid-19 (rapid tests are good enough).
— The individual provides evidence of antibodies test.
Given range of options, a vaccine passport is arbitrary and excessive.
Re: Mask mandates.
At the very least, discriminate by context!
Outdoors?
Or picture the following scenario: A professor has been vaccinated. The professor’s students believe that the vaccinated professor should be allowed to teach without a mask because (a) vaccination reduces transmission greatly, whilst a mask scarcely reduces transmission in classrooms with protracted interaction involving sustained effort at vocal projection, and (b) students get less utility from masked instruction.
The students say: “Please let the vaccinated professor teach without a mask, even if you (university) still make us (students) wear masks because we can’t get vaccinated yet.”
Never!
Don’t you know that wearing a mask has absolutely no effect on anyone and is not uncomfortable or causes any negative affects at all and anyone who thinks otherwise is lying and it is ABSOLUTELY COSTLESS.
I mean, you THINK that you can’t clearly hear the lady at the DMV with a thick accent wearing a heavy mask to the point that your interaction is nearly impossible, but you’re wrong.
And you think that wearing a mask on a hot and humid day while you are running around is extremely uncomfortable, but you are wrong.
And you think that wearing a mask while you try to keep up with your kids in the bouncy house restricts airflow and leaves you exhausted and short of breath, but you’re wrong.
And you think that young children not being able to see each others face is affecting their social development, but you’re wrong.
Masks are COMPLETELY COSTLESS. Why weren’t we wearing them all the time everywhere every minute of the day before COVID. I mean they could have prevented the flu or other pathogens. I think I read an article about how some people in East Asia wear them some of the time on the subway during flu season when they feel sick, so obviously we should just have universal mask mandates everywhere forever. It’s COSTLESS!
Pro tip: poke several inconspicuous holes in that mask. Problem solved. You get all of the moral legitimacy for having worn the mask, but without many of the downsides (e.g. fogged eyeglasses).
The Texas neanderthals said no more masks several weeks ago. While some private establishments are still requiring them here (e.g. Kroger) many people are basically treating them as optional. And, have a look at our virus numbers.
Only 15 more days to slow the spread…
It is likely that black people will be over-represented in the unvaccinated, and thus will be impacted in a disparate manner by passports. In short, the very first time a black person complains to the media that he or she was not allowed to fly to Disney World, or was not allowed into Disney World because they were not vaccinated will mean one of two things- (1) vaccine passports are immediately abandoned or, (2) exemptions are handed out to ethnic minorities which will eventually lead to the abandonment of vaccine passports.
On masks- masks made of the proper material, worn correctly, and replaced or cleaned timely and correctly probably are effective to some degree at stopping transmission. However, none of those conditions are really met by more than 10% of the people wearing such masks. In short, if masking really worked, then why didn’t it work?
It’s won’t survive a SCOTUS challenge anymore than ID’s and Gilmore did. An American living in Guam has a right to petition his government in person in Washington DC.
“But your mask offers significant protection to me”
Pandemics bring out the religious side even where you think unlikely.
Cuz Arnold, I totally agree. I got my Pfizers last January. Of course I still wear my mask and stay socially distanced and expect others to do so as well.”My mask protects you, your mask protects me.” Vaccine passport are useless and inappropriate .Greetings to the family, Mark
Define the following groups. Group A: people that are vaccinated and for whom the vaccine is effective. Group B: people that are vaccinated but for whom the vaccine is ineffective. Group C: unvaccinated people.
Group A are protected from Covid by the vaccine. They gain no benefit from excluding Group C from public spaces. Group C are unprotected and thus would benefit from excluding other Cs. However, since Cs themselves will be excluded by the very same passport policy, they also gain no benefit, and indeed are hurt by, vaccine passports. Group B people are not protected by the vaccine and thus could benefit from vaccine passports. However, because the vaccine is ineffective for Bs, they are actually just as potentially infectious as people in C. In fact, some people in A for whom vaccines are effective at preventing symptoms could still be infectious. So, if the justification for vaccine passports is that the unvaccinated pose an infection threat, then Group B people should also be excluded. So, excluding potentially infectious people from public spaces doesn’t really make sense because the only people left (Group A) don’t actually need to be shielded from such people.
It’s about punishing non-compliance with the prevailing mood. If Trump won on Nov 3rd it would be the Trump Vaccine and NY and CA would have outlawed it, but he lost so now its the thing all good people that are right and just should do.
I’m 100% pro-vaxx and really dislike anti-vaxxers, but I can tell a power play when I see one. At least some people with anti-authoritarian streaks will refuse to get it on principal, and then there will be justification to discriminate against them ostensibly because they are a danger but mostly because they didn’t comply.
These are not vaccines , they are experimental gene therapy . The drug mafia states as much. I’ll take my ivermectin and vitamin therapy. Hey , it’s worked so far. Been exposed twice.
Not antivax just anti this vax.
I tell everyone to take shingles vaccine , after getting shingles. I just wasn’t paying attention.
DeSantis just issued an executive order banning vaccine passports in Florida. Chalk up some points for “Clan Graham”?
https://news.yahoo.com/florida-gov-ron-desantis-bans-184110024.html
Well, the mask wearing has justification if in, prolonged close face to face contact, or prolonged stay in a small poorly ventilated space with people shedding virus. But instead of sticking with the “when you can’t socially distance” they had to keep doubling down. Anytime indoors, even in a big box with lots of air changes and you just pass people without interaction. Then some real morons went with outside, when at sea, when a thousand yards from all human life. The problem with “mandates” is the media, the politicians and bureaucrats can’t stop, they have to keep pushing to prove their existence has value, it doesn’t.
But if masks are good, then so would a year of teaching people not to talk into other people’s faces. You look someone in the eye from closer than 10 ft, especially if talking, singing or breathing heard, you need a punch in the face. That simple change would be far less intrusive.
For the life of me, I can’t tell what problem the “vaccine” passports solve. (Right now, the “vaccines” are only officially shown to stop symptomatic COVID-19 and thus the need for medical assistance or death.) So people who are now unlikely to get seriously sick are going to exclude those who haven’t lowered their risk (assuming they haven’t already had exposure to the virus)? Even if the sterilizing immunity is proven, those vaccinate can then now interact with the unvaccinated, the SARS 2.0 shedding even, with low risk of getting sick. Right now, the vaccinated could still be a threat to the unvaccinated since the “vaccinated” may still be able to get and shed the virus.
Again, this “vaccine” passport stuff is not based on the well-vetted science and doesn’t solve any problem other than preening by those who can’t critically think of what these shots are officially demonstrated to do.
And these are the same people who demanded double-blind, triple-backflip studies for the well documented and known hydroxychloroquine as an early intervention, even as the FDA purposely imposed restrictions on any use to the “Miracle Max” scenario where the patient was already mostly dead.
JK Brown: Please stop making so much sense, you are harshing the debate! Killjoy!!