Creating policies like this is not zero-externality though. If it will not actually improve health outcomes, then we’ve raised a bunch of ire and cost ourselves weariness for nothing. That matters- when we need to take real steps, like mask mandates in all public spaces, we need a public that is willing to comply. We burn up that political capital if we spend it on a bunch of more confusing smaller policies that don’t actually work. It would be nice to have a world where political capital with the public didn’t matter, but it does. Public policy has to consider this.
I’m sorry, and with all due respect, but saying “we don’t need data” for public health policy is never something I can support. The world is full of things that “everybody knows” that aren’t true. Public health policy has to be based on data (and I believe all public health policy experts would agree here) otherwise it’s just throwing darts in the dark.
That’s very difficult data to collect, and it’s also not a population benefit, so the data is irrelevant. It’s a benefit to a small cohort, but a very sensitive one. I know it doesn’t cost much in the way of political capital because it’s been the rule here since general masking has dropped and no one is pitching a fit, protesting, or even objecting. Everyone wears masks in pharmacies; that’s that.
I will put it more bluntly: how many cancer patients need to die to collect your statistically-significant data? Because there needs to be a control group of some kind, and that control group means immunocompromised people will die.
That’s a very reactionary interpretation of what I said. I’m going to bow out of this thread now, because the discourse is turning unproductive very quickly. I only ask that perhaps people should actually talk to public health experts before forming opinions about this topic.
I’m sorry you think that it’s reactionary, but I think that we already have the data needed. Masking helps a little in public situations for the person wearing the mask; better yet is, in crowded environments, that everyone be required to mask. It’s not rocket science, and there’s nothing magical about pharmacies that would change those outcomes.
Even the worst anti-maskers don’t bat an eye at the requirement to wear masks in hospitals; pharmacies are the only other place immunocompromised people have to go. Note that there’s no data about COVID and masking in hospital environments, and yet that’s not at all controversial.
To put it in medical-statistical perspective, if one wanted to do a study on the subject, it would likely be rejected by the IRB. The high risk to subjects would likely make it unethical.
I think i may qualify here. Masking is very good for protecting others from you, and somewhat helpful in protecting you from them. If we would think about others more often, we would be much better off. Remember, to others, you are other.
Where it’s legally mandated, just like it is in a hospital or doctors office. They have free masks sitting at the entrance, big signs making it clear where the mask requirement line is, and the staff won’t serve you if you ignore it.
And we’ve got just as many violent anti-maskers here as in Michigan. Same kind of armed state-house “protests” during general masking requirement, too.
Pharmacies are where people go to get symptomatic OTC care or prescription meds for coughs, colds, flu as well as the mystery virus of the week. Immunocompromised people have more meds to pick up than average patients/customers. Same thinking as having people on a cancer ward wear a mask, why would you want to risk making vulnerable people more sick? Not a bad idea to have people wear a mask.
At any point did I say otherwise? Please don’t strawman me into a monster.
I was explicity in favour of public masking policies in every post in this thread. I was questioning a policy specific to drug stores, which I think makes less sense than a broader one. I think I was very clear on that, but everyone jumped down my throat as though I must hate the immunocompromised.
I think that was explained pretty thoroughly, too, though. There are three public places those at highest risk from COVID have to go: hospitals, doctors/dentist offices, and pharmacies.
A broader mask requirement would be great! But there isn’t great support for that, unfortunately. But public support or no, the requirement for masking in healthcare environments is a necessity to protect the highest risk people.
<getting off-topic />
My workplace’s mgm’t., in their infinite wisdom, is having a mandatory meeting where we will discuss challenges facing the company. This entails an on-site/in-person gathering where up to 80 people will gather in one room for 6 hours. I’m wondering if any of these are among the challenges facing us:
Any meeting lasting more than 90 minutes will have diminishing returns even given the most robust attention spans
it’s flu season
there’s also still COVID in the wild
Perhaps it’s a test to see how many of us realize these things? Or to see who’s polishing up their resume? OTOH they’re providing lunch…
What kind of “ire” and “weariness” should there be about wearing a mask? Seriously. Has there been any “ire” about shoes and those “No shoes, no shirt, no service” signs? Do we ever consider public “ire” when instituting the rule about no bare breasts for women? Do we ever consider “ire” when instituting a dress code or school uniform code?
Why can’t we call things by their proper name - toddler tantrums about a fairly minimal article of clothing? And why are we indulging a bunch of overgrown toddlers at the cost of people’s actual lives?
Well, actually… yes on that one. In part because women breast feed, and that’s sometimes banned in some places… Plus, it is misogynistic to sexualize women’s body parts when men are allowed to show off those same parts…
Again, sometimes, yes, we do… because sometimes dress codes often carry forms of bigotry within them.
Agreed. Wherever you fall on the spectrum of current masking policy, there’s plenty of room for more data to better inform the details of these policies moving forward. It’s really disappointing that over the last three years remarkably little hard data has been generated on the nuances of masking outside of retrospective observational studies that are extremely hard to disentangle from other confounding factors.
For example: in areas where masking was already being required it would have been really great to have a cluster-randomized trial where, for example, some schools were provided N95s for everyone, some were provided with surgical masks for everyone, and some were allowed to continue using the not-so-great homemade cloth masks that most students had for the majority of the pandemic. Learning just how much additional benefit and reduction in spread was provided by the N95s in real-world school settings could help policy makers make well-informed decisions on allocating those limited resources in the future.
You should totally write up a clinical study protocol for that and see if you can find an IRB that will approve of killing off a percentage of immunocompromised people in order to quench your thirst for data.
