It is the responsibility of public health to take all of these variables into account before mandating countermeasures. The fact that people are constantly placed in situations where mask effectiveness is reduced or in some cases completely eliminated should be evidence that mask mandates are pointless when applied at scale.
Very confusing how people seem to keep making the illogical jump from "individuals follow a mask mandate improperly / mask mandates are insufficiently specific to cover the actual means of transmission" to "mask mandates are pointless".
Mask mandates done poorly are pointless. Obviously. But it is completely absurd to conclude that mask mandates writ large are pointless.
“If your solution of some problem relies on “if everyone would just…” Than you do not have a solution. Everyone is not going to just. At no point in the history of the universe has everyone just and they are not going to start now”
That was a poor choice of words on my part. Instead of "pointless" I should have said "impractical." I think most of us agree that we wouldn't want to live in a world where kids are forced to wear N95 masks all day, with tape binding them to their skin, with adults constantly supervising their proper fit, and with absolutely no lunch breaks or ability to drink fluids. If mask wearing done poorly is the only realistic option, then we would be better off without them altogether.
