You are not arguing in good faith here, you had said "masks are.. somewhat effective at best" and "and a serious risk to any future return to normalcy" implying that you believe that masks aren't important or necessary. The statement "for most people, the risk of getting severe covid is already incredibly low" is not only false it is harmful and ignorant.
I'm not arguing in good faith but you take me out of context? I said
obviously not suggesting we all pretend it doesn't exist but the attitude of extreme caution is overblown and a serious risk to any future return to normalcy.
The statement is correct, actually: the WHO estimates that "Among those who develop symptoms, most (about 80%) recover from the disease without needing hospital treatment."
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/question-and-answers-hub/q-a-detail/coronavirus-disease-covid-19 About 1 in 5 cases are aysymptomatic as well!
If you consider 3 million dead not a lot then I don't know what to tell you. You have to understand that yes, in general for young people covid will most likely not cause you to be put in the ICU or be fatal, but just for your own selfish reasons wearing a mask can reduce viral load and aide in recovery time.
Who says I don't wear a mask or believe 3 million dead to be a travesty? Where is this coming from? And please don't say I'm "insinuating" anything, because my argument this whole time has been 1) there are situations where masks aren't required 2) vaccinations have impacted death rates (yay!) and 3) there are situations where mask mandates don't seem to be effective in stopping the spread of cases, and therefore mask mandates aren't a guarantee of a reduction in cases! There's nothing incorrect about that! For reference, here's everything I've said so far about this:
However, if you're not a selfish asshole, preventing it from spreading to people who can "get severe covid" should be reason enough.
I will certainly try my best; however, wearing a mask may not prevent this from occuring.
I also call into question you're source here The Slate Star Codex which as far as I can see is a random blog by a Psychiatrist. There's no need to politicize this or try to be big brain here, if the government says I should wear a mask, then I will because I don't think I'm "enlightened" or being oppressed because I have to wear one.
I encourage you to actually read the article; every claim is sourced scientifically. I recommended the article because of the way its written, which I find more effective in explaining the somewhat in somewhat effective. I must admit to not reading all the studies he referenced, but if you want to do so, I included them all in this
pastebin. If you find a discrepancy between what he claims in the blog post vs what is said in the articles, please do so and I will stop recommending this article at once!
But ok ok, let's say for arguments sake you're right Theodin. Wearing a mask does almost next to nothing or is "somewhat effective", then why not just do it if you could help save just a single person? Are you so self absorbed and selfish you can't be bothered to put on a piece of cloth? Even if it reduced transmission by .0001% (which is not the case) on the global scale, that is tens of thousands of transmissions avoided. People like you argue that a "return to normalcy" is important, yet you don't realize that in a pandemic maybe the most important thing isn't a return to normalcy.
I do do it. I'm not that self absorbed, and before he was vaccinated, I avoided visiting my at risk family member - and wore a surgical mask when I did. I have not denied the efficacy of masks here. Please remember that! But there is a prevailing attitude that incorporates two ideas: that masks = no covid, which is not the case, and that no masks = covid, which is also not entirely correct. Masks are a
factor in the spread of covid, not
the factor, and treating them as such is not reasonable. A return to normalcy is actually extremely important, because the negative effects of lockdowns and "not normalcy" are extreme. Less so in Western countries, but we also have rapidly progressing vaccinations, so the return to normalcy is in many places upon us. And also, lol, returning to normalcy is actually the goal in a pandemic!