Name:   architect - Subject:   OMG...CRD still doesn’t get it Date:   7/23/2020 4:25:31 PM (updated 7/23/2020 4:35:07 PM)

To start with you CAN have the virus without ever having any symptoms and it can be spread even if you do not have symptoms...what kind of doctor are you for pity sake?  You are still talking about protecting yourself.  Fine, seal yourself in an abandoned fallout shelter if you want to!  I’m talking about protecting others.  To get this under control we have to stop or at least slow the spread. The easiest, most reasonably effective, inexpensive and efficient way of doing that is stopping those who are infected but don’t know it from spreading it to others that are not infected.  That is what the mask does!  It is certainly not 100% but it is helpful!  To be sure we also need testing to identify those infected, isolating them for 14 days and then tracing all the persons the infected case can remember being in contact with then testing them and if positive isolation and further contact tracing.  Testing, quarantining, and contact tracing are effective (or at least would be if it weren’t taking up to 2 weeks to get results) but they are time consuming, expensive and, due to the delays we don’t seem to be able to overcome, far from highly effective.  Until we get basically universal cheap immediate result hopefully in home testing, masks are cheap, simple, and effective in slowing the spread according to every medical expert that is not in the tank with the rightwing conspiracy machine!