In Taiwan we've been wearing masks for over 2 years with near zero complaint at school. I have to remind a few kids a day to put it over their nose. We've had Omicron here for awhile, but it's still only a trickle of cases, with no exponential explosion. The policies here, with contact tracing, quarantine and masks, have kept things open and people from dying. I don't understand the hesitancy.
It's the incredible selfishness of some Americans (speaking as an American). Plenty of people who take their own personal comfort and opinions as higher priority over others.
Even from day one we've had people refusing to mask/sanitize/social distance, claiming it "violates their freedom".
I disagree that it is rooted in selfishness. It's healthy to live in a society that has at least some degree of skepticism over public health claims that tend to optimize one variable at the cost of others.
Since this article is about children, there is a lot of evidence to show that kids are experiencing developmental delays that are likely correlated with masking. The long term effects of which is not yet well understood. I would much rather live in a country that challenges assumptions and fosters debate, instead of blindly pursuing countermeasures that may have extremely detrimental outcomes in the future.
Same here in Japan. When I leave home, I put on mask and keep it on until I return home. Only time I take off mask is to eat and drink. Most people do the same.
KISS, We have kept it simple. There is no discussion about when to wear or not wear, who need to wear or not, what type of mask to wear or not.
Wearing mask is pretty basic so no discussion, but mask type is a bit controversial topic in Japan.
At the beginning of pandemic, gov sends cloth mask all house. I think this was good try at the time, but finally the mask isn't used well because non-woven mask become available soon. Now gov still has huge cloth mask stocks.
After that, some research suggests that nonwoven mask is the best for protect, cloth mask isn't the best, urethane mask is relatively bad. But because the gov sends and still has cloth mask, gov don't want to say avoid using other than nonwoven masks.
Anyway over 80% (I assume) of people wear non woven mask so totally fine.
While government initiative to supply masks was a fiasco, I don’t believe that mask type is a controversial topic here. Majority of people are wearing whatever type of masks they want. There is no controversy about mask type. Even at several hospitals that I have visited, majority of doctors are wearing regular surgical masks, only a few wear N95 or double up on regular surgical mask.
Citation needed that obesity promotes spread. It may increase symptoms, but places like India have millions of cases, many likely undocumented, and low levels of obesity.
