"They want to throw God's wonderful breathing system out": Comments from Florida anti-maskers

All those blasphemers who cover up God’s wonderful reproduction system will pay for their sins.

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We always quote him, too.
We had the great pleasure of meeting Sir Terry at the first US Discworld convention. His documentary, Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die, made me cry harder than his death actually did.

GNU Terry Pratchett

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And the corollary : The stupid, it literally kills.

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In all fairness, the docs and nurses are wearing professional kit, while some current civilian users are using homemade fabric masks, constructed by random seamsters or Etsy crafters, some of whom have weird ideas about what kind of fabric makes an effective antiviral filter.

I’ve worn several homemade masks that were, indeed, hard to breathe through, and produced low-level CO2 intoxication in < 20 min. of wear.

OTOH, I can wear cheap Chinese knock-off (uncertified) disposable surgical masks (of standard three-layer SMS (Spun/Melt/Spun) polypropylene construction) all day long with no breathing problems at all.

Wearing a WELL-MADE mask shouldn’t cause breathing problems, but there are a heckuva lot of poorly-made homemade fabric masks out there at the moment.

If your mask causes breathing difficulty, you need a better mask.

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Still, surgeons and nurses wore cloth masks made out of cotton and other fabrics for generations before modern professional/disposable masks were developed and nobody was complaining about breathing problems back then.

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Plus ça change…

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plus c’est la même chose
image

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“'allo, oy’m Terry Pratchett.” I was expecting some kind of Oxbridge accent.

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Allow me to amend my earlier statement:

Surgeons and medical professionals who wore masks on a daily basis as part of their jobs weren’t complaining about breathing problems back then. There were still assholes in the public who opposed public safety measures on general principle, even if they didn’t have the enthusiastic support of the President of the United States at the time.

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I’m honestly trying to understand the mindset of people who feel it’s unpatriotic to wear a mask or practice good hygiene, you know to hopefully prevent yourself catching a highly contagious and potentially deadly disease. I’m coming up with nothing.

Jon Stewart had some on point things to say. Again.

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Well, they are free to inhale God’s wonderful airborne viruses I suppose.

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Sadly, they are free to exhale them, too. And do so without a mask.

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Yeah, the people with actual breathing problems are the most interested in not getting COVID from these fuckwits. I have a family friend with ALS. You know the disease that literally paralyzes you from the outside inward until you require a ventilator and then die. You can bet he wears a mask when he goes out – usually to the doctor. In fact two: he wears a N95 respirator with a washable cloth mask over it to reduce contamination on the non-washable N95 masks. He already decided he didn’t want to be on a ventilator before COVID, but if ventilators are in short supply that won’t even be his choice to make. So imagine how sorry he feels or I feel for these people who are upset the mask makes it hard for them to breath.

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World War Z was much on my mind even before the outbreak. It’s no masterpiece, but I keep noticing that it’s ultimately about a society wide solution, where the big problem is solved by everyone doing their job, following standard procedures and just getting on with things.

This is in contrast to so much popular fiction where one hero makes one decisive gesture which blows up the alien mothership and then everything’s allright.

(I’m talking about the book here - the movie, from everything I’ve heard, is all that the book is not.)

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ive been curious: shouldn’t a mask help with pollen and dust related asthma and allergies?

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and isn’t requiring corrective lenses for people driving an automobile full on facism? i should be able to drive with my eyes shut if i want to. that’s the american way.

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Probably the first time they’ve ever said “system”.

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Just from the screen shot there, it seems that Stephen was drinking a bit more than he usually does…

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As far as I know, that’s part of the reason masks were seen in places like Japan prior to even the SARS outbreak, people trying to cut back on allergic reactions.

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My asthma leans more in the direction of exercise and cold temperatures induced, but also more phlegmatic and less bronchial spasms. I’m the guy who slowly becomes short on oxygen, sometimes without realizing.
Pollen and dust are a problem for me, but more that they are increasing the production of phlegm. Humidity is an equal problem.

ETA: In the fall of 2018, I was using a Glaxo-Smith-Kline diskus that evidently wasn’t delivering my medication, and I was gradually getting worse each day. When I went to the doctor, I almost collapsed on the floor, and was given a shot of liquid Prednisone to keep me from dying. The next 48 hours was a really rough time.

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