Businesses like In-N-Out Burger are banning staff from wearing masks (unless they provide a medical note)
🇳🇱
Considering the huge amount of harm masks has done to the deaf community, who rely on lip reading, and the excessive nature of mask wearing in general, I have to say I support this.
inb4: Obviously masks serve a purpose, particularly in a medical setting. But improper mask use (particularly all day use of the same mask and reuse) has the potential to spread disease as well. So even from the perspective of reducing the spread of germs its not a particularly good choice given the down sides IMO.
@barney LOL typical... I am literally a research scientist who spent the last 2 years researching COVID... god your a fucking moron with this shit
I never said masks dont prevent disease transmission, in fact, I made it quite clear that when handled properly they absolutely do.
I see you totally ignored the immense harm to the deaf masks cause, which was the main point... good job at being a talking head and not even addressing the points raised, excellent job indeed.
Your post was nonsensical. With neither logical nor empirical justification, you expressed your support for an employer's indefensible decision to ban mask wearing by employees.
This is the case whether or not you are "a research scientist who spent the last 2 years researching COVID." A critical principle of online information intake is that the logicality of an argument is a property of the argument, not of the claimed or actual prestige of the person who offers it.
@barney Whatever nonsense you gotta tell yourself. If you arent smart enough to understand the "logic" and arent mature enough to ask and try to understand, then sadly **you** are the one who is the problem here.
Generally when a successful published COVID scientist says something (easily confirmed with the internet today) then you at least try to understand it first, something you are clearly not mature enough to understand, so instead you resort to name calling.
Your ostensible professional accomplishments are irrelevant to your argument, but they help explain why you chose to make that argument.
The real person's identity you claim (truthfully, I'd guess) is a stunning compendium of wildly grandiose self-promoting exaggerations and outright falsehoods. Sort of a computer-enthusiast George Santos.
Here's a link to PubMed, the National Library of Medicine's massive, comprehensive database where anyone can look up publications on COVID or any other medically-related subject:
Is there a unifying formulation that might simultaneously explain your brazen, wildly grandiose lies about your professional accomplishments, your incomprehensible assertion that scientific expertise leads you to support mask-banning, and your inauthentic and consciously inaccurate attempts to convince left-leaning voters to propel right-wing extremists into positions of power?
I can only guess, but I think you’re neither an anti-science crusader, nor a committed fascist, nor an adherent of any other extrinsically organized ideology. I think you’re addressing powerfully aversive feelings of self-doubt by concocting these grandiose stories about yourself, and you perceive selling the un-sellable, in any domain, as a way to validate these stories, which are, inescapably, invalid. You harm people, but I don’t think that’s your primary intent at all.
@barney LOL now im lying about my professional accomplishments... Im listed prominently on the website of the lab I run, and we list our publications.... so all your proving is your an idiot who makes acusations without even the slightest effort to validate the nonsense you spew,.. you should be ashamed.
Whatever you gotta tell yourself to sleep at night
@barney Funny how you actually having addressed either of the points I made, b3ecause you cant because they are well established and accepted by virtually every scientist on this planet... Both my points are undeniable.
1) The use of disposal masks for extended periods of time (more than a few hours) has a lot of risk factors for the spread of disease:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-20692-9
2) The use of masks is harmful tot he interests of the deaf community since they are unable to lip read which is essential for their day-to-day functioning (this one shouldnt even need a source).
But yea... take two very reasonable positions, and turn that into me being republican... what an idiotic white-knight bullshit.
I generally support mask-wearing reflexively, but I appreciate your perspective
interesting & unexpected take - thanks for posting
If your going to be responsible and wear it correctly and throw it away (or disinfect it) after a few hours.. then the deaf issue aside you are probably helping with disease. Im not against that.
My issue here is wearing a mask all day at a job isnt good since it is harmful to deaf customers and the procedures for masks require you to only use one for a few hours max, and since they are probably touching their mask all day long too they probably arent helping much anyway
Basically I have nothing against proper mask use, but be aware of the nuance here with deaf people and the effects of dirty masks.
I am not an expert on the deterioration details, do you have a favored link so I can check that out?
Thanks
Deterioration? Do you mean the fact that masks are usually intended to be worn for a few hours max?
@freemo @luckytran yes I would generally wear one for the duration of my time in the office, whatever that is.
I've been known to re-use them as well, and I might need to stop doing that at least.
So far, I've dodged this thing. Despite exposures - and I'm inclined to believe the mask didn't hurt here.
@freemo @luckytran also I don't know how often customers at In n Out Burger are really gonna need to rely on lip-reading to place a burger order.
Generally it's pretty predictable transaction, but maybe I'm being insensitive 😬
The deaf generally rely a great deal on lip reading, at an in and out burger with high volumn probably most of all.
@freemo @luckytran true. I had a deaf roommate in college.
but still, to order a hamburger.. plus now most people are probably ordering ahead using their phones..
I think the whole notion is a bit silly, especially compared to preventing the spread of a communicable disease, TBH
Thinking its silly to want deaf people to be able to talk to other people rather than to have to resort to apps and cant just walk in and buy a burger without a whole ordeal... sorry no...
We could also just argue that everyone can just use the drive through and not need a mask to go in at all then if they want masks.
@freemo @luckytran i don't mean to trivialize anyone, be it deaf people or immuno-compromised folks ✌️
So the mask guideline of a few hours is the one recommended by the CDC for nurses in medical situations. It was the normal guideline before COVID.
During covid there was a mask shortage so they generally recommended to the general public relaxed guidelines and suggested 24 hours max.
But considering these guidelines were chosen particularly in light of a mask shortage I would say the original guidelines, which had years of data to back it, is the better choice.
Anyway here is a study addressing the topic and some relevant quotes showing the short-term nature of disposable masks:
"...demonstrates a noticeable humid air filtering degradation during the first 60 min of use."
"...the practice of wearing an FFR disposable face mask for excessive time is not only uncomfortable but can affect the health of the wearer."
"From a morphological point of view, our results show that using a disposable face mask for several hours, without proper disposal or cleansing, may lead to collecting, growing, and cumulating inorganic as well as organic matter. "
"Our reported data confirm the urgent need to inform the general public about the importance of wearing single-use face masks for shorter periods of time with respect to the current common practice"
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-20692-9
@luckytran
@freemo @luckytran If masks are harmful when used the wrong way (all-day without changing), then better education seems to be the rational choice, while some burger joint forbidding masks won't do real good.
Furthermore, being in support claiming to be for the deaf community while ignoring that this will hurt those that need the protection from masks (which will either be pressured to not get a doctors note or have trouble getting one, possibly to monetary trobles) concerns me. It seems like you dislike everyday mask use, perhaps that could be an ulterior motive?
@admitsWrongIfProven @luckytran
> If masks are harmful when used the wrong way (all-day without changing), then better education seems to be the rational choice, while some burger joint forbidding masks won't do real good.
If there is a need for masks that outweighs the harm to the deaf community, then I agree, education is better than banning.
> Furthermore, being in support claiming to be for the deaf community while ignoring that this will hurt those that need the protection from masks (which will either be pressured to not get a doctors note or have trouble getting one, possibly to monetary trobles) concerns me.
Time and time again the official stance is that masks help everyone else and protects them from the wearer, not the other way around. So any argument for masks wrt to at-risk people would require everyone wearing one. That is even greater harm to the deaf community and even more excessive a request. So the policy of not having its employees wear masks makes sense. If you are an at-risk employee you'd need a full respirator to protect yourself at which point im not even sure you could be heard clearly enough to do your job.
> It seems like you dislike everyday mask use, perhaps that could be an ulterior motive?
Yes, and I stated my ulterior motives:
1) if not used properly it tends to cause more harm than good, and despite education efforts no one seems to use them properly.
2) It is immensly harmful to the deaf community.
Given its excessive nature combined with its potential to harm I dont feel the rewards outweigh the harm. That is my ulterior motive.
@freemo @luckytran The conclusion from the article Dr Freemo cites further down in the thread is" As a conclusion we can say that, while it is evident and commonly accepted that wearing a face mask is very important for reducing the virus spread, especially in circumstances where proper ventilation and social distancing cannot be guaranteed, our study underlines that wearing a face mask is really beneficial only if it is used correctly. " https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-20692-9. For a business like In-N-Out Burger that would require that an employee ought to be provided with enough masks that they can be changed regularly, and very briefly removed and replaced when the need arises to converse with someone having difficulty hearing them. Much like also ought to happen with disposable gloves.
@freemo @luckytran We ought to have learned from the pandemic experience that we need to be much more attentive to indoor air quality, social distancing and relationships between those two. Even where we are packed in like sardines, as in an airplane, structural modifications could help. Meanwhile, I like my envo mask, with lots of replacement N95 filters
Diseases aside better air quality is a good idea for countless other reasons too.
@freemo
You've established yourself as an inauthentic pro-Republican propaganda account, but I didn't realize that your lies extend specifically into the domain of #COVID #disinformation.
Masks prevent disease transmission. There is absolutely no doubt about this. None.
Should masks be required everywhere? No! Should businesses *ban* their use by employees? Obviously not.
And by the way, "excessive nature of mask wearing in general" is not something that someone would actually say.