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5 Things To Tell Someone Who Harasses You For Going Maskless

(AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

There is technically a statewide mask mandate in New York state, yet I’ve refused to wear a mask since it went into effect. On Wednesday, for the first time in weeks, I was briefly harassed for going maskless in a grocery store. The person who bothered me for my maskless state didn’t escalate the situation after I talked back to him, but I was ready for it. As omicron is likely to spark new COVID restrictions, you might find yourself in a similar situation, and I’ve come up with a few things you can say if it happens.

1. Dr. Fauci said masks won’t protect you

These mask shamers think they’re doing the right thing because they’ve been told to mask up. However, these religious Covidians probably forgot that even their messiah, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said that the “typical mask” you can buy wouldn’t protect you from COVID. He never said this publicly, but we know this from an email released as part of a FOIA request last year.

“Masks are really for infected people to protect them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection,” Fauci wrote on February 5, 2020. “The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.”

2. Studies have shown they don’t filter aerosols well

I guarantee you that most people aren’t wearing N95 or KN95 masks. Those are the best masks by far, but they are more expensive and may not be readily available or practical for some people. So, it’s a safe bet that your mask shamer will be wearing a cloth mask or one of those blue surgical masks they got from a pharmacy or online. A study from the University of Waterloo in Canada determined that most cloth masks, such as the popular blue surgical masks, are only 10 percent effective since they don’t adequately cover the wearer’s mouth.

According to the study, “the most common masks, primarily due to problems with fit, filter about 10 percent of exhaled aerosol droplets. The remaining aerosols are redirected, mostly out the top of the mask where it fits over the nose, and escape into the ambient air unfiltered.”

N95 and KN95 masks do the best job at containing aerosol droplets from the wearer’s mouth, but even they aren’t perfect. For example, they only filter over 50 percent of exhaled aerosols.

Other studies have shown that masks aren’t necessarily effective at protecting wearers from spreading or catching COVID.

RELATED: This Chart Might Prove the COVID Pandemic Is Ending

3. Mask mandates haven’t worked

If masks worked, then places with strict mask mandates should have seen a measurable impact from having mask mandates imposed, right? Guess again. For starters, a CDC study showed no difference in infection rates between schools with and without mask mandates.

Let’s be honest…

If mask mandates had a measurable impact on COVID transmission rates, then we’d be able to observe this. However, the chart below shows cases per population in four different California counties last year; each implemented mask mandates at different times. So not only did the mandate have zero impact on cases, but the counties had nearly identical trajectories.

What about those superior N95 masks? They don’t make a difference either.

4. The omicron variant is mild

Much of the current hysteria has been sparked by the spread of the omicron variant. But, chillax! For most of the pandemic, an increase in deaths has typically closely followed spikes in cases with an approximate two-week lag. Guess what? COVID cases are indeed skyrocketing, but guess what isn’t? COVID deaths.

That’s the omicron variant for you. Like other viruses before it, COVID has become more transmittable but less lethal as the virus mutates. We’ve known for many weeks now that omicron is far milder than previous variants. Some even think it means the end of the pandemic is coming. In South Africa, where the variant was first discovered, hospitalization rates were lower even as infections peaked.

“Fewer than 2% of detected COVID cases required hospital admissions in the second week of this omicron wave, compared with nearly 20% in the second week of the delta wave,” noted PJM’s Stephen Green.

Omicron symptoms have been compared to common cold symptoms or a brief and mild flu. So, at this point, if it’s even less likely to kill you or cause any long-term negative impact on your health, why even pretend you’re trying to avoid it? Bring on some of that superior natural immunity.

5. Kids are safe from COVID

This one is for those with kids you refuse to torture by having them wear masks in public. Chances are, someone might accuse you of being a bad parent if you’re shopping with your child and, not only are you not wearing one of those stupid masks, but neither is your kid! “How dare you! Don’t you care about your own child?”

Heh, just wait until you tell them they’re not vaccinated.

So, we’ve already established that the omicron variant is milder than the past variant. Well, before the omicron variant was a thing, school-age children already had a COVID recovery rate of 99.997%. This, you can tell your mask shamer, is better than their mortality risk from the seasonal flu. Do we mask our kids to protect them from the seasonal flu?

Further, a recent study from the UK found that unvaccinated children are safer from COVID than even vaccinated adults of any age. Kids don’t need to wear masks or even get vaccinated. I’m certainly not going to make my kid wear a mask out in public. As a vaccinated adult, my kid is better protected from COVID than I am.

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