Masks are actually a derivative debate to the more important question of what is this "killer bug!" ^tm we are supposed to be fighting. I remember back in January looking at China and thinking not enough people were dying relative to the response being taken. At the time, I thought China was downfaking the numbers, but now - with the global response in play - I see it was the other way around. The numbers of people dying of this disease are in fact low, and our response is completely and totally out of proportion.

About 11800 people have died of Covid so far in the US (I use the 6% non-comorbidity multiplied by today's CDC death toll). Other than that, our "Covid death toll" comes from a combination of multiple conditions aggravated by Covid. Add to this the overwhelming correlation between Covid death and age, and it becomes impossible to justify the societal reaction we have permitted to this disease.

11800 is a bump in mortality - a bad "flu-like illness" - nothing more. More people than this are dying, but basically the deaths are from a combination of old age (we still haven't found the cure to that, imagine!) and a lot of conditions we as a society have been aware of as we watch them grow for decades (diabetes, heart disease, obesity, etc). These people are not healthy. A new bug comes along and it provides the marginal difference that takes what was a serious condition and tips it into a mortal condition. But the primary problem is not Covid. It's the underlying conditions. And newsflash: old people die!

Now, back to masks: the premise for mask use is to "stop the spread". Covid is a "flu-like illness". It is a coronavirus. You know what else coronaviruses cause? The common cold. I have lived my entire life by the joke, "Yeah, next he's going to claim to cure the common cold..." The reason that's a joke is that cold viruses are insanely well-adapted to live within the human herd, they are super contagious, and they are relatively harmless. Well, now we have a "cold-like virus" that is not so harmless. But it is still insanely well adapted to living within our herd, and it is as contagious as all its cousins. They keep hyping "the new cases!!!!" Seriously? We should look at "the new cases" of the common cold each year. Guess what? There are crazy numbers of the cold. Coronaviruses are highly contagious. This is not a news flash. Mortality and morbidity is all that matters, and more new "cases" while holding mortality and morbidity equal (which is clear again in the statistics) is actually the definition of decreased rate of mortality and morbidity for covid-19.

Masks, meanwhile, are the equivalent of fighting the tide. They are futile. Look at the numbers in different parts of the world where greater and lesser measures are being taken to "fight the virus". You will find zero correlation between the efforts being made and the illness and death resulting. Many areas fighting the hardest have the worst statistics. Clearly what we are doing makes no difference whatsoever to the virus's spread. Covid is laughing at our efforts.

But what are our efforts doing? They are destroying our human society. They are having horrific social effects, leading to many many many more deaths that would not happen in the absence of this social insanity. One among many examples: domestic abuse is through the roof right now.

Covid is a tiny bump in death in the general population combined with being an accessory to death from a variety of known conditions we have been avoiding dealing with for decades (these are basically a side-effect of industrialized civilization). The response to Covid, however, Holy Shit! This includes masks, which brings us back to the point of this thread. This response is killing thousands of people of all ages, and killing them in very cruel ways. It is also destroying us spiritually, every single one of us. First Do No Harm has been completely thrown out the window.

This has to end. We are participating in societal suicide in reaction to a ghost.