Returning to more normal living, regardless of mandates

Last update: Thursday 2/17/22 

Masks have been controversial throughout the pandemic. After an infamous flip-flop, the CDC told all non-healthcare professionals in March 2020 to wear cloth masks. Cloth masks reduced the amount of virus pollution their wearers exhaled into the air around a cluster of people who were positioned closer than six feet from each other. This reduction in pollution density caused a reduction in the percentage of the people in the cluster who became infected. Given the wide variety of masks that people chose to wear, often incorrectly, there were no reliable estimates of "mask effectiveness" akin to estimates of "vaccine effectiveness". Had comparable data about masks been available, the controversy about masks would have been reduced, but not eliminated.

Editor's note: This discussion focuses on N95 masks for two reasons: First, N95 masks are the masks preferred by U.S. healthcare professionals; and second, the fact that there have been no reported surges of hospitalizations and deaths among U.S. healthcare professionals throughout the pandemic provides conclusive proof that these masks are highly effective in preventing their wearers from becoming infected.

N95 masks block the virus both ways

Unlike cloth masks, properly fitted N95 masks prevent the virus from entering their wearers' mouths and noses when they inhale; they also prevent infected wearers from exhaling the virus into the surrounding air. In other words, wearing N95 masks substantially reduces the risk of infection to the wearer, regardless of whether nearby persons are wearing or not wearing

N95 masks vs. variants

Unlike the case with vaccines, the protection provided by N95 masks does not waver from one variant to the next.
 

Mandates vs. N95 masks + personal immunity + self-tests + antiviral meds

Some people are risk averse; others are risk tolerant. The good news may be that N95 masks, vaccines, boosters, self-tests, and antiviral medications may provide a way for us to finesse divisive conflicts over mandates as the pandemic evolves into a prolonged epidemic. 

Covid fatigue has given way to mandate intolerance. Even Democratic governors have lifted mandates recently. Lifting mandates imposes high cognitive dissonance on the risk intolerant. They have come to loathe mandates, but the prospect of living without the protections promised by mandates makes them even more anxious ... but most people shouldn't be concerned.

The CDC may declare that "we're not there yet" or that it is "too early" for us to lift mandates for the country or even for specific states and local communities. But risk averse people who take personal responsibility for their health care can return to more normal living without mandates imposed by government agencies like the CDC if they voluntarily assume equivalent policies for themselves and for their families.

Most people who are fully vaccinated and boosted have a high degree of personal immunity. If infected, their immunity makes it highly unlikely that they will become severely ill (unless they are immunocompromised or very old).  They can leverage their personal immunity by wearing N95 masks in public spaces, thereby reducing their exposure to the virus to near zero levels, regardless of whether the other people in these spaces are wearing masks or have been vaccinated or not. They can further leverage their personal immunity by applying home self-tests at least once a week to determine whether they or any other member of their household has been infected. If despite all these precautions they test positive, they can ask their physicians to help them obtain anti-viral meds, assuming that they tested positive in the early days of their infection. 

In other words, assuming personal responsibility for decisions to vaccinate, boost, self-test, wear N95 masks, and take antiviral meds will provide protection against infection, severe illness, and hospitalization without the damage to our economy, disruption of our schools, and the political discord often associated with government mandates.

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Links to related notes on this blog:  

• "Omicron Defense", Updated every week
• "Why is the CDC incapable of producing timely guidance?", Last update: 2/5/22
  
• "Maybe it's time to defund the CDC ... #DefundTheCDC", Last update: 2/16/21