I won't say that, but I do wonder about how you reason when you choose to go out into public during a global pandemic without a mask, when masks have been shown to help prevent spreading of the virus and thus be a way for you to help protecting weaker people from dying as well as help giving the virus less chance to keep mutating, thus risking becoming more dangerous even to yourself in the future. Care to share your line of thought? :3 Unless it simply is that it's bothersome to breathe in them.
You could cite several studies that say they're effective. You can cite several that say they are not. You can cite several studies that say vaccines cause the variants, and you can cite several that dispute that as well. Simply put: we don't know. Empirical data is all over the place, and anecdotal data even more so. What I do know is the states in the US with the most mask mandates tend to have the highest rates of Covid, whereas the ones that are lax have lower rates (in general. Like comparing California to Florida; obviously there will be outliers, as there is with literally everything). You have places in the Middle East that have mandated masks and have higher rates of death. You have places next door to these other places that have both mandated masks and have not, that both have higher rates of death and lower ones.
I did a little research about 2 months back, looking at the rates of mask mandates and no mandates vs deaths that I thought was interesting. Pulled some random places and looked their rate of death in percentages. You can see the ones I documented myself here, and draw your own conclusions. All in all, I find the percentage differences so completely inconclusive and insignificant. And they're all very low either way.
The fact that the evidence is shaky at best really has me completely unafraid of this virus, mask or otherwise. Besides, I do things much more dangerous every day. I'm currently pregnant and that has a very good chance of giving me a boat-load of health problems, even killing me or my baby in the end (postpartum hemorrhage could kill me very fast; eclampsia/HELLP syndrome; heart attack; blood clot in my brain or my lungs; baby could have the cord wrapped around his/her neck; could just be born dead from fetal distress; SIDS). I could get into a car accident on the highway to either my OB appointments or my midwife appointments and be seriously maimed or killed.
People bring up the whole "what about other people?" thing constantly. If there are people at risk of Covid, they are typically older and usually hold up in their homes all the time anyway. I've seen numerous elderly people walking around without masks. I've seen plenty with them, too. I know plenty that don't go out, and plenty that do. It becomes their choice. Some of these people have access to ways to mitigate their chances of Covid, and some do not. Some care, some don't. I don't choose to base anything else in my life over what is best for other people - just myself and those closest to me. Some say that's selfish. I say it's a completely normal state of being, and what people have done ever since people have existed.
I think this whole Covid thing is silly as it is anyway. Shit happens, things kill you. You can take every measure against Covid that you want and then still die from it (despite what the media likes to push, both vaccinated and unvaccinated people can die from Covid). You can take every measure, then get hit by a car while walking across the road, or drop dead from a heart attack. I don't go around slapping unhealthy, fatty, greasy foods out of peoples' hands so they can avoid all the diseases known to come from them. I don't advocate for people to never cross the street. And I don't go around telling people what they should and shouldn't do.
I do find it fascinating, and really biased, that people often want you to explain your position for NOT masking and NOT getting the jab, but then never seem to want people to explain why they do want those things. And I don't cave to peer pressure, so all the screaming at unmasked and unvaxxed people to mask up and vax up does nothing to convince me. Not saying that's what you did here, but I remember simply stating that I'm not vaxxed and won't be in another thread, and suddenly 3 people were shoving shoddy statistics in my face and questioning my personal choices, and plenty more places outside of this forum where I've been even more "in hot water" (as hot of water as a stupid Internet argument can be, at least) over my views. As if this world needs yet another thing to divide us.
So wear a mask. Or don't. I don't care.
