31–40 of 159 posts
Maybe we can keep using masks? Now that we already got used to them, we may reduce the effects of pollution with good filtering masks. Of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't address what's causing the pollution in the first place.
You can do that! No places that dropped mask mandates have made a law against wearing masks. Just leave the decision to individuals.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can do that! No places that dropped mask mandates have made a law against wearing masks. Just leave the decision to individuals.
A few countries in Europe ban face coverings in public. Mainly driven by fear of people wearing burkas.
I'm sorry, but I'm totally over this type of nonsense. "Expert says" just signals bullshit to me at this point. Clickbait. I'm exhausted at this point.
I feel your pain, but let me ask you: how should we manage this as a society? The fact that air pollution kills massively is not 'new'. Should we stop reporting on it? Should we continue, but use other headlines? Because the solution can't be "keep chugging along as if nothing were". I'm heading up infosec in our company, and it's a similar "inconvenient truth" type of situation. My approach so far is to appeal to "c…
A laundry list of institutions lost functionally all of their credibility in the eyes of the public during covid. Speaking on behalf of the government, a prestigious university or having a blue check, none of those things mean squat anymore. Sure they make you credible than some Youtube talking head but that's a low bar. Rebuilding that credibility (or building replacement institutions) will take time or it will take force.
So yes, "just ignore it and keep chugging along" is an option and IMO it's probably the better one.
Maybe we can keep using masks? Now that we already got used to them, we may reduce the effects of pollution with good filtering masks. Of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't address what's causing the pollution in the first place.
But their pollution is a lot higher than ours. Pollution here in Barcelona is not high enough that I'd consider wearing a mask for it. And the upcoming bans of old diesels and two stroke scooters will make things even better.
I'll never get used to masks anyway. They'll always be an extreme annoyance. I wear them because it's mandatory and I agree right now they make sense. But as the pandemic turns endemic they have to stop. I'd rather live 10 years less than have to wear them for the rest of my life. Especially outside.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pandemic or no pandemic, wearing a high filtration respirator (N95/FFP2 mask at a minimum) on the tube, where air pollution levels regularly exceed Beijing and Delhi, is advisable. Also sensible on inexplicably still diesel choked busy London streets above ground.
Streets are getting considerably better thanks to ULEZ and all the horrible busses and taxis being replaced.
Maybe we can keep using masks? Now that we already got used to them, we may reduce the effects of pollution with good filtering masks. Of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't address what's causing the pollution in the first place.
It's completely unnatural.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can do that! No places that dropped mask mandates have made a law against wearing masks. Just leave the decision to individuals.
A few countries in Europe ban face coverings in public. Mainly driven by fear of people wearing burkas.
Is this a moral fatigue problem? People are fed up of hearing that common action X "causes" Y, regardless of how true it is?
Are we going to go back to smoking, leaded petrol, and polio? After all, the evidence against those was only statistical.
(There may also be diminishing returns / age effects; after all, I'm only 40, and just about remember what a smoke-filled room smells like, or the tang of leaded petrol. For the dominant 60-and-up group of voters, the air is cleaner than in their childhood, so what's all this talk of "air quality crisis?")
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel your pain, but let me ask you: how should we manage this as a society? The fact that air pollution kills massively is not 'new'. Should we stop reporting on it? Should we continue, but use other headlines? Because the solution can't be "keep chugging along as if nothing were". I'm heading up infosec in our company, and it's a similar "inconvenient truth" type of situation. My approach so far is to appeal to "c…
> how should we manage this as a society? If COVID crisis has been any indication, common gut feeling has proven right on many occasions such as mask, airborne, lab leak etc. It was very clear early on masks might help, until health experts chimed in with their poor messaging saying masks don’t work. The virus being aerosolized and spreading airborne was also quite clear given how common symptoms tended to be to flu,…
> It was very clear early on masks might help, until health experts chimed in with their poor messaging saying masks don’t work.
The administrations (not just the 45th, we had this shit worldwide) suddenly realized that they had no stockpile of masks and other PPE, and instead of communicating to the people and admitting fault for about three decades of globalization gone bad, they just went ahead and claimed against better knowledge that masks were not needed - at best, some asked the population to leave masks to the hospitals and help themselves with woven-cloth selfmade masks.
> The virus being aerosolized and spreading airborne was also quite clear given how common symptoms tended to be to flu, yet there was hyper focus on hand washing etc instead of cleaning air or ventilation.
I would only classify this as a partial communication failure. All the hygienic measures introduced worldwide drastically brought down the numbers of virtually all infectious diseases, which meant that hospitals now had more capacity to deal with COVID cases. On the other side, while a lot of German public offices (most notably, parliaments) have air filtering systems installed, the rollout of these devices in schools is ... underwhelming (and that's putting it mildly), with courts denying lawsuits asking for their installation with the simple excuse "if ventilating by opening the windows every twenty minutes makes you cold, use better clothes" [1].
Given that ridiculousness, it is definitely legitimate to claim that there is a significant interest of the governments to save money at the expense of parts of the populations that don't have political representation.
[1]: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bildung/muenster-schueler-au...