Header Image (book)

aowheader.3.2.gif

Monday, December 14, 2020

Masking


I can barely tolerate wearing a mask,  I do so only because I must in order to enter any medical facility and any store — and because I'm a senior citizen at significant risk of contracting the China Virus.

When I'm wearing a mask, the seconds and minutes crawl by.  And I do mean crawl!

I recently had a kidney scan lasting almost two hours and was miserable beyond words.  The longer I have the mask on, particularly a medical mask, the more I gasp for air and — Get this!— begin to drool.  I can hardly wait until the time comes that I can sanitize my hands, then can rip off that mask and breathe.

And then came the day that I had to visit an oral surgeon for the extraction of a molar.  I had never before even laid eyes on this doctor of dentistry.  What an eerie experience!  I, of course, had to remove my mask, but the oral surgeon and his assistant were masked.  They were faceless.  They were nearly disembodied voices.  Twilight Zone time!  Remember this episode?
 

Here in this annus horribilis, we are being told that wearing a mask, even a cloth mask, is an important element of an effective method to curb the spread of COVID-19. An effective method now, that is.  At the start of the declaration of this pandemic, we were told that masks did no good and were even dangerous.  A few weeks later, we were told "Mask up!  I protect you, and you protect me."

Then the edicts from governors and mayors began in earnest.

Do masks protect us, really?  Or is something else afoot?


...Suffice it to say that some people are too much in a state of fear and ignorance to see mask mandates as anything but safety measures, but most of us know when we’re being played — and we are indeed being played. We can see it in the experts’ vacillation since day one of the pandemic. 

We began with “15 days to flatten the curve” to no end in sight for lockdowns and masks eight months later. We began with Dr. Anthony Fauci’s claim that “there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,” but now experts insist that they are “required” to stop the spread. We began with the logical assumption that a vaccine would bring us back to normal, but then we heard from Fauci that a vaccine won’t change anything “for at least a year.”...

"A vaccine won't change anything for at least a year"?  

Huh?  The way that talking heads and politicians of all stripes are pontificating about masks, we are led to believe that COVID-19 vaccines are magic talismans, along the lines of "We're going to wave the magic wand and get back to normal."

Meanwhile, masking has now progressed to lockdowns mandated by state and local governments.  Talk about isolation on steroids!  Sheesh.

Returning now to the above-cited essay, which ends as follows (emphases mine):  

If we wish to remain free, however, we should reject mask-wearing as any kind of normal. We should never get used to seeing a landscape of masked faces at the grocery store, at businesses, and especially out in the open air. Small children in particular should never have to adopt this as normal — because it is confusing and abnormal. It isolates us and erases our unique identities. 

Acquiescence to politicized mask mandates also removes our sense of common humanity. We end up living in a faceless, dehumanized sea of anonymous people, and that is no way to live.

Please read and consider the entire essay HERE.  Worth your time.

What do you believe about masking and lockdowns?

41 comments:

  1. Nameless faceless people. Dehumanizing. Not talked about is death.. Since the early hominids there is evidence that rituals took place including burying artifacts as part of a grieving process for the loss.
    No longer. There are no farewells. No place for grieving. We have had a number of deaths here where I live. Several I knew well. Poof and they are gone. Whatever emotional connection is lost in a moment and on to the next.
    I suggest that as dehumanizing the masks are, the lack of the ability to acknowledge the passing in a meaningful way is far more destructive.Its almost like they never existed. Anomie - one more breakdown of society.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Question 1: If masks work, then why, as the emphasis on masking increases to fever pitch, and the practice has increased dramatically, again, why has the number of cases (and now deaths as well) skyrocketed so dramatically this month and last? It seems from empirical evidence that the more we wear masks the WORSE the pandemic becomes.

    Question 2: If masking works so well why do 85% of patients admitted to the hospital testing positive for Covid-19 claim that they, "wear my mask all the time" and are shocked by the positive test? Some are undoubtedly lying, but...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jayhawk,
      Those are two good questions!

      Does anything work to mitigate this virus? Other than isolation, that is -- which is a non-starter, really.

      Delete
    2. 1. The worse the pandemic becomes, the more we wear masks.

      2. Would you cite a source?

      Delete
    3. Masks are at best virtue signaling.
      At worst, signs of submission to domination.
      They hide your self, your uniqueness, your identity.

      Delete
    4. People not wearing masks are *intentionally trying to kill people.*

      Delete
  3. Acquiescence to politicized mask mandates also removes our sense of common humanity. We end up living in a faceless, dehumanized sea of anonymous people, and that is no way to live.

    I think you just described the effect of phone toys. The only difference between the two is that masks are required, phone toys are voluntary. It occurs to me (what do I know about anything?) that if a sense of common humanity was important to us (individually or within society), no government policy or techno-whizzard device could keep us from it. There was a time in this country, although a very long time ago, when neighbors reached out to one another -- to lend a helping hand when needed, and to celebrate the good things that happened in their lives. We don't do either of those things any more. A sense of common humanity hasn't been common for a long time ... face masks and phone toys are just two of the latest examples.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mustang,
      A sense of common humanity hasn't been common for a long time ... face masks and phone toys are just two of the latest examples.

      Spot on, my friend!

      A pity that we no longer have Rod Serling's Twilight Zone to highlight the truth of your two analogies.

      Delete
  4. I don't believe masks are worth anything. Maybe someone who has Covid is walking around coughing on people. Extremely unlikely. More likely they are in bed somewhere.
    Lockdowns are clearly useless.
    Covid = mail-in ballots = Vote Fraud, cooked up by China and the democrats.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Did you get your FINAL NOTICE to pay off Trump's campaign debts?

      Delete
    2. No, but you must have since you're asking others.

      Delete
    3. No, I laughed off the obvious grifting attempt aimed at exploiting those that were all-along window-lickingly stupid enough to vote for Trump in the first place, much less a second time.

      Delete
    4. Makes sense, you fit the Hillary profile.

      Delete
    5. Yeah, it would have sucked to have elected Hillary and held onto the House and Senate 🙄

      Delete
  5. It's just kabuki unless everyone follows the detailed mask protocols that includes don't touch the mask, have a good seal, removing it properly, washing the mask daily, etc.

    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-to-wear-cloth-face-coverings.html

    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/about-face-coverings.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lockdowns (Governments ordering people under house arrest) are unconstitutional and have ZERO basis in science. Wearing masks outdoors also has no basis in science unless you are in a dense crowd for more that 15 minutes. Same goes for banning outdoor dining.

    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
    ~ C. S. Lewis

    ReplyDelete
  7. Many here have been critical, both today and in the past, of masks and mask wearing.

    I've got lots of friends who work in both the medical and science world. To a person, both Trump fans and Biden fans, here is what they say...

    No mask is going to 100% prevent you, or anyone else from becoming infected with the Coronavirus. But, and I guess for me, this is what's important, if you wear a mask, you will lessen the amount of the viral spores you can get. If the person with whom you are speaking, or sharing close quarter air, say in an enclosed office or house, also wears a mask, that viral load is further reduced.

    Is it all perfect?

    Probably not. Helpful? My non scientific research of both conservative and liberal doctors, scientists and other health care professionals seems to say yes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dave,
      Your points about viral load seem valid to me.

      It's the matter of viral load that makes me wear the damn mask at all!

      Delete
    2. Sounds good for utter hogwash.
      Viral load.
      Really a load of something else.

      Delete
  8. "What do you believe about masking and lockdowns?"
    Accomplishes a flu-d'etat.

    The most deadly virus is not smallpox, ebola or Covid. It is authoritarianism. Spelled out well in this presentation on the rise of medical technocracy.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjYvitCeMPc&feature=emb_logo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Great video link.
      And truth about authoritarianism.
      What point remaining perfectly healthy in a perfect bubble?

      Delete
  9. Regarding Twilight Zone.
    I was walking into Home Depot and almost everyone in the parking lot and then the store had a mask on.
    Except me.
    and I thought of that episode where the patient's face was bandaged, wondering if he'd ever look normal.
    The surprise ending?
    They remove the bandages and he looks normal. Our normal.
    But everyone else looked disfigured.
    This new normal is abnormal.

    ReplyDelete
  10. And now the news that a surge in England is caused by a new variant of the 'Vid. So COVID is a rolling biological attack gifted to us from China.

    Masks? Social distancing even AFTER taking the (current) and pseudo vaccine which is about like an injectable Tamiflu?

    I choose freedom.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tammy,
      A new variant?

      Viruses do morph on their own, so I'm not sure that it's a rolling biological attack. That said, it could such an attack.

      Delete
  11. Should schools allow people to attend and work there without the vaccine? From the mid 50's to the at least the 80's when my son went to school, vaccines were required for attendance.

    What is different today?

    And... were we less free then as it relates to vaccines given they were required?

    I guess I am trying to understand when vaccines, which Americans willingly and overwhelmingly took as they were required, switched from being a civic duty to a freedom issue.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dave,
      When?

      In part, because of the polarization of our country.

      I myself question the efficacy of the COVID Vaccine. After all, even after the vaccine, we still have to mask and social distance.

      Delete
    2. AOW... I get part of the why. Yes, we are more polarized today.

      My question, besides the when, is back in the day, when it was required to be vaccinated for school admission, all the way through college, were our freedoms being taken from us then?

      Or, were we willingly setting them aside for the common good?

      Delete
    3. There's a difference between smallpox and the flu.
      Just in case you didn't know.
      Which it seems you don't.

      Delete
    4. Dave,
      Note what Ed typed in.

      Polio and smallpox were bigger threats than Coronavirus -- particularly for those pre-puberty.

      Delete
    5. Ed... I get there is a potential difference in the severity of the diseases. But the principle should remain the same, shouldn't it? Either government can order vaccination, or it can't. Degree of danger shouldn't be an issue.

      Those old time school restrictions also included vaccines for the mumps, measles and a tetanus shot. Those were not generally life threatening diseases.

      But back then government, across many levels, made a decision that we had to get vaccinated. And people did. or we were not allowed to participate in certain areas of American life.

      We're still stuck with how all of this moved from civic duty to an issue of freedom.



      Delete
    6. From Could mRNA COVID-19 vaccines be dangerous in the long-term?:

      ...[T]hese will be the first-ever messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines brought to market for human patients.

      [...]

      [T]here are unique and unknown risks to messenger RNA vaccines, including local and systemic inflammatory responses that could lead to autoimmune conditions...
      .

      Other experts are unconcerned.

      My take? Nobody knows.

      Cost-benefit analysis: Is COVID-19 worth taking the risk? Individuals and their doctors will have to draw conclusions for individual patients, I suppose.

      Delete
    7. The smallpox vax that the court upheld allowed for an opt out fee.

      Delete
  12. Why do some people, working crew and even Executive - Managers, alike, have to be injected with some type of "SHOTS"; when one travels to foreign lands.
    What do they have there that we don't have in our Country? Ok, we eradicated some of those diseases? But can be infected when visiting there?
    But then our Country lets those foreign specimen enter our Country thru the back door! What gives? No holding tanks to see if some of them have a terrible disease we have not had sense long ago. That's what Ellis Island was for; but not important enough now.
    And it seems that everything that we have in question for the Elites, the Elites force upon us as if we are the underlings that have no business living and breathing their Air.
    Yes, it is all about submission. We are the Underlings.
    Mask up or else. Take the Vaccine or else.
    No Vaccine - no flying on a plane, no admittance to public buildings, no Driver License, no this or no that.
    No vote that matters, no Constitution that matters.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thank you for sharing that clip. I've thought about every since my ears felt bent forward and the irritating mask line on my chin.

    I never could find it because I was thinking it was an Alfred Hitchcock vid.

    ReplyDelete

We welcome civil dialogue at Always on Watch. Comments that include any of the following are subject to deletion:
1. Any use of profanity or abusive language
2. Off topic comments and spam
3. Use of personal invective

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

!--BLOCKING--