It's not hard to find the science backing my claims. As for why doctors don't mask, they're humans too, and just as susceptible to propaganda and competing forces like wanting to "return to normal" or simply having kids in school and assuming getting them to mask is too tall of an order (frankly, it is imo).
Here's a Canadian researcher who still masks and explains how the many 'mistakes' were made in order to convince people to throw caution to the wind:
But that didn't make the threat go away. People just pretended that it did. Group psychology is weird like that. Further compounding matters is the fact that neverending COVID reinfections impacts the part of the brain responsible for executive function, making it that much easier for people to not care. The more common and palatable term is "brain fog." Toxoplasmosis has a similar known reinforcing effect.
Life is a set of tradeoffs. The actual occurrence of Long Covid (which can also occur with influenza and other infections) is rare.
My personal calculation is the reward of enhanced expressiveness when interacting with others is worth the risk of infectious disease in 2026. In 2020, the variables were different!
> The actual occurrence of Long Covid (which can also occur with influenza and other infections) is rare.
Again, it's undercounted. Furthermore, LC is more comparable to AIDS than it is run of the mill influenza in the systems it affects and how. Also, note it took years of denial and lag before people finally acknowledged the long-term damage that AIDS caused. Except here it's not sexually transmitted but instead airborne year round.
Anyway, do you what want. I'm just pointing out most people have been misled, so they can't even make informed decisions. People with LC live with this regret.
Looking at credible sources, it appears that long covid occurs at rates around 1 in 20 to 1 in 30, which is high. It's rational for people who have elevated risk factors to avoid under-ventilated / unmasked gatherings.
This statistic doesn't match what's published, but I am not an authority and don't have the expertise to critically evaluate published studies on the topic.
The fun thing about science is that it’s not hard to find science backing X claim, and one can keep going on about that, while ignoring all the science backing not X claim.
Yeah that’s the fun thing about science, you can pretend to address things too. Seriously though, there is no way I am trusting some random researcher making a youtube video…like what is that. I am a researcher and I can make nonsense youtube videos about things too and throw some science flair around it for good measure.
Here's a Canadian researcher who still masks and explains how the many 'mistakes' were made in order to convince people to throw caution to the wind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCft7qu1Iv4
For the US version, this is a decent timeline of events:
https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
The best part was after that extended disinformation campaign, lawmakers asked people what they wanted to do, then told them what they wanted to hear:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240802024326/https://docs.hous...
But that didn't make the threat go away. People just pretended that it did. Group psychology is weird like that. Further compounding matters is the fact that neverending COVID reinfections impacts the part of the brain responsible for executive function, making it that much easier for people to not care. The more common and palatable term is "brain fog." Toxoplasmosis has a similar known reinforcing effect.