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**Dill** · 05-19-2020, 01:45 PM

(05-19-2020, 10:28 AM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Look, I posted a meme that made me chuckle, and I get a swarm of negativity. I make reference that the "expert" that everyone trusts said masks aren't a failsafe option. I get another swarm response of skepticism and negativity. I point out exactly when the expert said what he said, I get a swarm of people wanting to move the goal posts.

Look, nobody is saying that you shouldn't wear a mask if it makes you feel safer. I'm just saying that you're likely not as safe as you might want to believe by wearing one. However, there is no reason that one single opinion that differs from all of y'all in yours, is any reason to try to hold a massive group intervention, like "quick, someone just threw a lit match into the hay barn!"

Sunset, I know you're a good guy and I don't want to seem part of the negativity. You know I follow your meme posts and enjoy your humor.

I think what got people riled was not that you were suggesting masks were not "failsafe," but your meme's implication that the pandemic is some kind of psyop "ruse" --that the pandemic itself is a hoax. There are people who actually believe that and don't want to go along with public safety recommendations by health officials. Someone who thinks the pandemic is real will not "chuckle" about the meme's embrace of disinformation, so you can't be surprised there will be a "swarm of negativity" in response.

"Goal posts" are going to move back and forth during a pandemic, so WHEN an "expert" says something is also very important.

From your article:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be t esting for the coronavirus in people in five major cities . . . .

If that testing shows the virus has slipped into the country in places federal officials don't know about, "we've got a problem," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told USA TODAY's Editorial Board Monday.

Short of that, Fauci says skip the masks unless you are contagious, don't worry about catching anything from Chinese products and certainly don't avoid Chinese people or restaurants.

"Now [Feb 17], in the United States, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to wear a mask."

Once cases skyrocketed into the hundreds of thousands in places like New York and Texas, then we were past "skip the masks."

Think of it in football terms. Most coaches advise against onside kicks on the opening kickoff. But with one-minute left in the game and your team down 3 pts, the "goalposts have moved," right? An onside kick is not failsafe, but it's your best option.