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The problem is we can't lie to grandma that it's safe to go ride the train with a bunch of maskless, coughing idiots just because she's wearing a bandana around her face. The protection gained from masks is a bit like herd immunity with vaccinations -- you're supposed to do it because it protects the most vulnerable and because doing it as a group imparts the most protection, not simply because it gives you 100% protection (some vaccines do give close to 100% protection, but it is lower for many others, and only approaches 100% if everybody does it).So moving forward, how do we convince people to wear masks? I just don't think that telling people that masks don't protect the wearer has been a good strategy to encourage widespread mask wearing.
Thus it's no surprise that the same people who are resistant to masks tend to be anti-vaxxers as well. They're the same people who voted a proudly anti-science xenophobic narcissist into the White House. If we can't convince people using science and empathy, maybe we do just need to lie to them?
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