Battle Hardened Euro Countries Handling This Better

[togor]

Article may be behind paywall, but it talks about how Croatia (war) and Greece (financial crisis) have citizens showing more discipline and resilience in the face of this epidemic than richer countries (GB, France, etc.) whose citizens have not been tested in living memory.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/w...esilience.html

The USA is showing a bit of the same problem. Ask someone to wear a mask or respect social distancing and they b*tch about their rights!

If they found a cure tomorrow, I would celebrate. Meanwhile I just remember the old saying about the "melting pot":

If the pot isn't stirred every once in awhile, then the scum rises to the top and the bottom gets burned.

The American pot hasn't been stirred for 80 years, but that may be in the process of changing.

[bruce]

"The American pot hasn't been stirred for 80 years..." My my my, I do recall the pot getting stirred ... but of course it's mostly been blue collar folks in the stew ... loss of jobs in manufacturing, etc. And let's not forget that little stirring when the housing boom went bust ... when the dotcoms went bust. This time around the usual folks are getting hammered ... folks who can't afford to physical distance b/c they have to go to work every day just to keep the rent paid and food on the table. And of course there are the folks who work lower level jobs that are currently laid off ... w/o health insurance, etc. They actually need the $1,2000 being sent out by the Fed. Govt. So, don't think the pot hasn't been stirred in 80 years. Plenty of folks know better. Sincerely. bruce.

[clintonhater]

Ask someone to wear a mask or respect social distancing and they b*tch about their rights!

Not about "rights" they're bitching, but the utter stupidity & irrationality of mask-mania, which has metastasized into a 21st C. SUPERSTITION that's the equivalent of throwing salt over your shoulder, knocking on wood, or turning around if a black cat crosses your path. If you do any of those things & nothing bad happens right away, it "proves" the superstition...to idiots; so with wearing masks.

[dryheat]

There's three heartfelt posts and I'm not sure I completely agree with any of them.

[S.A. Boggs]

Again as a SURVIVOR to protect one self is sane, to do otherwise is not. I wear a respirator, not a mask because I WANT INCREASED PROTECTION for my self. People who complain about wearing a mask are childish IMHO as what is the harm to one self? It beats laying in bed with tube in and out depending on others for what one did for self...I know! Grow up, grow a pair and take care of self not waiting until a team of some one else has to do it for you.
This thing is here now and we know how to protect our system, why not try and do it instead of bitching about our "normal" routine being changed.
Sam

[rayg]

Well said......

[togor]

A couple of comments Bruce,

By stirring the pot I mean big sudden changes in society, from external events. The depression turned 1920s millionaires into suicide victims or ordinary laborers, and contributed to large scale movements of people around the country. WW2 of course caused a radical reorganizing of society around the goal of winning the war, with competency becoming for a short time the critical success factor.

Since then changes, but none so sudden that they upset the social order. Those on top found a way to stay there.

Like many here I've read a fair bit about this country's performance in WW2. The Axis understood our economic potential but were hoping that the American fondness for money and good times would limit it's ability to field an effective fighting force. As we know now, the Great Depression had hardened the American people, giving them the necessary discipline for the fight.

Greece and Croatia, having been through bad times in recent memory, are finding it aids them now. As one guy in Greece joked to me, "Greeks are acting like Germans now!"

CH, cloth masks provide some benefit as a physical barrier to the virus, and are also an elementary call to the public to show some discipline and mutual solidarity in the fight. People rebelling against mask discipline will rebel against other forms of discipline too. Even if you don't like masks you seem to understand the need for self-control by the population.

[clintonhater]

People who complain about wearing a mask are childish IMHO as what is the harm to one self?

Being forced to do something that (except in certain very special circumstances) is clearly irrational & unscientific is causing profound harm to my MIND; it's as idiotic as being forced by the ins. regs of a company you work for to wear a hard hat in situations where there's absolutely no danger of anything falling from above to hit your head. When stupidity doesn't upset you, I'd say you have a problem.

The REAL reason for mask-mania is to keep the hysteria boiling! It's why the media throws a fit every time Trump attends a meeting in which the participants refuse to make fools of themselves by wearing masks. The Dems have shown clearly (as in O-SOB's recent remarks) that the entire thrust of Biden's campaign will be to blame Trump personally for Chiflu, so keeping the panic in the forefront of the public's attention--by forcing masks on them--is a key component of their strategy.

[togor]

Hey Ray, someone else brought Trump into this! (Don't worry, not taking the cheese this time.)

CH, Conservatism has no problem with the idea that individuals have some responsibilities to the whole, and that inevitably these are of the "broad brush" type.

I hear a lot of bellyaching about individual rights out of the mask protestors. How come nothing about individual responsibility? Because all they're showing IMO is an entitled attitude wrought from an easy life.

[clintonhater]

Hey Ray, someone else brought Trump into this!

The media frenzy has made it ALL about Trump!

I hear a lot of bellyaching about individual rights out of the mask protestors.

Not from me! It's compulsory stupidity I'm talking about, which I, & every rational person, has an individual responsibility to resist.

[Vern Humphrey]

Being forced to do something that (except in certain very special circumstances) is clearly irrational & unscientific is causing profound harm to my MIND; it's as idiotic as being forced by the ins. regs of a company you work for to wear a hard hat in situations where there's absolutely no danger of anything falling from above to hit your head. When stupidity doesn't upset you, I'd say you have a problem.

The REAL reason for mask-mania is to keep the hysteria boiling! It's why the media throws a fit every time Trump attends a meeting in which the participants refuse to make fools of themselves by wearing masks. The Dems have shown clearly (as in O-SOB's recent remarks) that the entire thrust of Biden's campaign will be to blame Trump personally for Chiflu, so keeping the panic in the forefront of the public's attention--by forcing masks on them--is a key component of their strategy.

Let's get it straight, guys.

Corona isn't Trump's fault
Ebola wasn't Obama's fault
SARS wasn't Bush's fault
And only a few hundred cases of Herpes were Clinton's fault.

[lyman]

Let's get it straight, guys.

Corona isn't Trump's fault
Ebola wasn't Obama's fault
SARS wasn't Bush's fault
And only a few hundred cases of Herpes were Clinton's fault.

[Mark in Ottawa]

My understanding is that N95 masks work to protect the wearer from 95% of the pathogens that might otherwise be inhaled. Other types of mask serve to prevent the wearer's saliva, etc from expelling from the wearer's mouth into the air or onto receptor surfaces including other people. That is to say, these other types of mask protect others, not the wearer since the virus can penetrate non- N95 masks.

[togor]

My understanding is that N95 masks work to protect the wearer from 95% of the pathogens that might otherwise be inhaled. Other types of mask serve to prevent the wearer's saliva, etc from expelling from the wearer's mouth into the air or onto receptor surfaces including other people. That is to say, these other types of mask protect others, not the wearer since the virus can penetrate non- N95 masks.

And then there is the ongoing question of aerosols versus big droplets.

[clintonhater]

Other types of mask serve to prevent the wearer's saliva, etc from expelling from the wearer's mouth into the air or onto receptor surfaces including other people.

That only happens, according to what Faucci & other MDs have said, when coughing & sneezing, NOT breathing normally; drooling idiots would need to be avoided. Where is all this coughing & sneezing going on? No place I'm going. I have no recollection of myself coughing in public going back decades.