The Covid19 Mask/No-Mask
When, where, what, who, why… are all questions that are being asked by the public and the body politic about medical masks and other face covers.
I smile still when I see someone in a car with a mask on, or when I see a person with a mask off in a liquor store.
The graphic is Ontario, Canada goverment’s signage, and I am not sure it helps. What exactly is a physical distancing challenge? Is that like the Pepsi challenge?
The mask debate will continue. This is an article From Sweden .. local English Language news paper. There is a link to an article on policies in Denmark too. It is not a US article about Sweden to influence American policy.
Sense making is hard.
The mask/no mask debate has turned in to a lightningrod issue in the pandemic with complex, medical, cultural, safety, health, business and governance impacts along with a wide variance of practice city to city and nation to nation.
I am wary of the debate led by foolish people who use "wedge" issues to divide groups so that the groups fight. Newt Gingrich was the master of the "wedge" issue to divide groups to gain votes. I believe this strategy started by Gingrich and promulgated and swung like a bat in Bannon’s shit-show, burn it down mania, leads to failure of government and the destruction of debate as a means to set policy. I see it as evidence that people like them seek power and riches over all else.
My free advice is to not to get sucked in by angry people seeking to divide or who verbally assault authority. Debate, discuss but don’t insult or pander to power.
It is more reasonable to do the science and make evidence based policy that is enforceable and reduces harm. It is reasonable that policies with change... Not because of a "flip flop"s, but because the evidence or accepted practice has changed.
When I wrote Defense Policy in Canada about non mission travel, I thought there would be a page or two of policy. There ended up being over 100 exceptions to the many pages of rules we were laying out. My client at the time said "Rob, that’s the way policy and procedures work. It’s not all black and white, we have to handle the grey areas too, and that means a lot of clear, grammatically correct paragraphs and sub-paras. It’s a contract." Francis was an excellent writer. I was not as good as she was but she made me better with lots of red ink.
Unfortunately, COVIDIOTs tend not to handle grey areas well. They will yell and be angry about policy shifts related to masks for the wrong reasons. Be wary. Think.
