Leaked documents: Ugandan government expects explosion in Ebola cases

I read "do your own research" differently. I think it can go two different directions.

In the positive direction, it can mean "Ignore all the loudmouths, all the liars, all the self-anointed experts. Even ignore me, the speaker. Find out who really knows what they're talking about, and listen to them." This assumes, though, that the listener can do that. Am I actually capable to discern truth from lies, or even real expertise from incompetence, in virology? Maybe, if I devote enough time to it. Do I have that kind of time for every topic on which someone tells me "do your own research"? Probably not. So what it really turns into is finding someone who at least sounds like they are doing their own research (and doing it well), and listening to them.

More negatively, I suspect that "do your own research" at least sometimes is a veiled way of saying "If you really knew, then you would agree with me" in a much less in-your-face way than just saying it. The person saying this may have done their research as you say, finding a loud voice that said what they wanted to hear, and now be totally convinced that they are right, and that if you did your research, you would wind up agreeing with them.

I meant it in the more nuanced sense of trying to actually do research. A layperson who wants to be informed has to start somewhere, and when the stakes are as high as with global public health, I think it behooves the person in the street to try to at least read the abstracts of some papers, try to identify experts on both sides of a controversy, and be aware that credentials are no guarantee of reasonability.

Shockley played a big role in the transistor, IIRC got the Nobel, and later spent years advocating for racist eugenicist horseshit: credentials are a good guideline, but they can’t be blindly trusted.

I really wish the medical community just agreed about all this stuff: then my job would be easy, do what they say.

Unfortunately you seem to get one group of MD/PhD people saying those other MD/PhD people are cranks, we’re the “real” scientific consensus. This does not make it easy for the well-intentioned layperson.

Masking certainly does cause accessibility problems for many people.

For example, people with mobility and other issues involving their fingers, hands, arms, shoulders, neck, and ears can find it quite difficult, or even impossible, to put on, to wear, or to remove a mask.

Masking can also aggravate respiratory and cardiovascular-related medical issues.

Masking can aggravate PTSD and other psychological issues.

Masking can cause problems for those with hearing-related issues, as it can make it difficult to hear the muffled voices of others, as well as making lip-reading impossible.

In jurisdictions where accessibility is considered important, the forced masking bylaws or legislation typically had accessibility-related exemptions, because masking does cause severe accessibility problems for many people.

The harmful social impacts of masking take many forms.

Among the most egregious were when exempt individuals were denied service, reasonable accommodation, and in some cases employment.

Such people also faced significant harassment when in public, even in so-called "tolerant" societies. Sometimes this would involve verbal abuse. Sometimes it would involve having creeps take and share photos of them, in attempts to socially shame them. Sometimes it would unfortunately involve physical abuse, even with the police being the perpetrators at times.

A less-visible aspect to this very real threat of harassment was how some people just stopped participating in society as much as possible, even at the cost of financial, psychological, and social harm to themselves.

Forced masking, especially in schools, has definitely had a negative impact on the education and development of children. This manifests in various ways, including communication-related delays and difficulties, trust/fear-related issues, immune system deficiencies, and so on.

Perhaps you were spared the worst of this based on where you happen to live, and luckily didn't have to experience the costs of masking yourself.

Others, however, suffered significantly because of masking, even if you may not realize it.

There is a place that accepts products that are obsolete and reusable and they have a section dedicated to PPE since a lot of outfits obsoleted their PPE inventories once Covid was better controlled.

They also have a shit-ton or more of other things that can be repurposed from their original tasks.

Repurposed Materials - Sanitary stuff [0]

[0]https://www.repurposedmaterialsinc.com/sanitarystuff/