Althouse: Biden says "I would do everything possible to make it required the people had to wear masks in public"...

June 26, 2020

Biden says "I would do everything possible to make it required the people had to wear masks in public"...

... then says that he can't "imagine" himself "taking the oath of office wearing a mask," "because I could take the mask off at this distance," CBS Pittsburgh responds.

1. Maybe "do everything possible to make it required" is clever phrasing and he's really thinking the President lacks the power to order everyone to wear masks or to commandeer local law officials to enforce a mask requirement. So it wouldn't, in fact, be possible.

2. "... to make it required the people had to wear masks in public" — That's substandard English. Maybe the transcription is off, but if not, this is either more evidence of his declining ability to communicate or an awkward effort to avoid speaking like a normal person. A normal person finding himself in the middle of that sentence would finish it something like this: "I would do everything possible to require people to wear masks in public." That is, he threw in extra words, which put the brakes on sloppily: "I would do everything possible to make it required the people had to wear masks in public." "Required the people had" is especially bad. You could say: "I would do everything possible to make it required that the people have to wear masks in public." But he didn't get that far. I presume he got started saying "I would do everything possible to require people to wear masks in public," realized it sounded too controlling or too far beyond legitimate federal executive power and patched in some extra words.

3. The idea of a federal requirement to wear masks is so bad, so out of touch with the values of federalism. The conditions vary from place to place, even within states, even within municipalities. It's wrong to have one rule for everyone. Presumably, any federal rules would have exceptions for people who do things outdoors when they're not near other people. But the impulse to control from above is worrisome. And it's politically bad. It generates mistrust. And I'm saying this from my remote outpost in flyover country.

4. No sooner does he announce that "the people" should all be wearing masks than he tells us he can't even imagine himself wearing a mask to take the oath of office. Rules are for little people? That was an unforced error. He could so easily have said yes to the question whether he could "imagine" wearing a mask. That wouldn't even box him in. Later, he can say he imagined it, but thought it wasn't the best option. But apparently he wasn't agile enough to get that far on the fly.

70 comments:

Matthew Heintz said...: He should have as a plank in his platform that all blacks will wear condoms.; 6/26/20, 4:58 AM
JAORE said...: I would do everything possible to make it required that Joe Biden had to be not elected.; 6/26/20, 5:25 AM
West Texas Intermediate Crude said...: The years of hair sniffing have taken their toll.; 6/26/20, 5:29 AM
Earnest Prole said...: Biden was a clumsy gaffe-o-magic when he ran for President in 1988. It's hard to see this recent quote as a sign of mental decline when he's been saying goofy stuff like this for more than thirty years.; 6/26/20, 5:37 AM
stevew said...: This is why there will be no debates. The contrast in lucidity between Joe and Trump is wide and stark. For sure, Trump has his malapropisms and inarticulate moments, but they often seem purposeful rather than confused.

Almost makes one feel sorry for Joe. Almost but not quite because due to his history he is a thoroughly unlikable fellow. Polls showing him with a huge lead over Trump are baffling. If true those say a lot more about the intelligence of the polled than the viability of either candidate.; 6/26/20, 5:42 AM
Marcus Bressler said...: The first debate, if it occurs, will expose his condition. Sad. Very sad.

THEOLDMAN; 6/26/20, 5:58 AM
rehajm said...: The people = You pie-faced hobby horses!; 6/26/20, 6:08 AM
Rory said...: The question was, "Couldn't you use your federal leverage to mandate that?" So he's saying he'd use Presidential power generally to bully states into doing what he wants, but doesn't have the specific power to do.; 6/26/20, 6:09 AM
Ralph L said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/26/20, 6:12 AM
Dave Begley said...: I want to see Biden wear a mask and debate Trump.

How was it that we weren’t wearing masks three months ago?; 6/26/20, 6:15 AM
Ralph L said...: The obvious solution would be to put CJ Roberts in a body condom for the oath. Presumably, he's already breathed on Dr. Jill.; 6/26/20, 6:16 AM
rehajm said...: Biden is how you get more riots. It let's the bad guys know the tactics work...; 6/26/20, 6:24 AM
AllenS said...: Biden comes out of his hidey spot, and this is what America hears. Great, just great.; 6/26/20, 6:28 AM
rehajm said...: This morning the TV pundit attitude is it's over so now let's speculate about what it will look like. CNBC, which was once a source for economic and business news, has on air talent pre-scolding the 'financial markets' for not responding positively to Biden's inevitability. Shame on you S&P 500...; 6/26/20, 6:30 AM
Earnest Prole said...: How historically gaffe-tastic is Biden? Over at Instapundit this morning, we read “Former Vice President Joe Biden is facing increased scrutiny over his record on busing and racial issues, and this week old comments resurfaced in which he said, in 1977, that busing for the purpose of desegregation would cause his children to ‘grow up in a racial jungle.‘“; 6/26/20, 6:32 AM
rehajm said...: On guy, speaking from his garden shed, had the gall to suggest the election isn't over and Biden had the political advantage of hiding. Shed guy won't be invited back. They've already lost his Zoom credentials...; 6/26/20, 6:32 AM
Tom T. said...: He may have said "... to make it required THAT people HAVE to wear masks in public." That's grammatically correct, and requires only a bit if5 mumbling to get the transcription wrong. You're on stronger ground sticking with the substantive criticism.; 6/26/20, 6:35 AM
Kevin said...: If you don’t wear masks, he’ll defund your police.; 6/26/20, 6:43 AM
Temujin said...: I keep hearing the horrified comments out of people from the left and many from the right as well- that the President or at the very least, each Governor should make mask wearing a mandate. Even from so-called sports media people, who, since sports have gone away, have uncovered their SJW bonafides.

There's no way a Federal mandate could be monitored without the people calling out each other. A nation of Karen's ready to turn in their neighbors for washing their cars, or walking their kid in a stroller, while not wearing a mask.

Governors also oversee a large geographic area with many different demographic features. For instance, here in Florida, our cases are rising sharply, but they are rising in the youth aged groups- 15-25, and 26-35. And they rise more in Miami-Dade than they do in Sarasota, across the state.

How do you mandate for all, given that we know many people, the young and others, will do as they please, still thinking they are individuals with those rights of an individual. I know that the key is how it affects others. But people will do as they will and we're not going to toss people in jail for not wearing a mask...are we?

I say this: We know now that the virus was active in China long before the world became aware of it. And it appears now that it was active in Italy way back in December, and active in the US last fall as well. IN OTHER WORDS, THERE WAS NOTHING WE COULD DO TO STOP IT. It was well under way here long before we started arguing about how to best beat it.

Now we know that the younger can live with it. They seem- for the most part- unaffected by it, don't even know they have it. I suspect at least 50% of the public has had it, or will have it. And I think it's time we just deal with that knowledge and figure out how to develop those vaccines and therapeutic meds.

Those of us in upper ages and/or people with compromised immune systems- we need to take the precautions. We're the ones who have to wear masks. We're the ones who need to think twice before going to a restaurant, or flying on a plane, or sitting at the symphony. We're the ones who have to sit out a part of life until we can get the fix or the cure. Let the young live on and keep our society going (unless they are using their health to bring this society down...but that's another story). Further, I say the pro sports teams should have pizza parties and allow their players to all get it (probably many have already had it). Get it done. Then get on with their lives. We can watch them from our TVs. And for a few more months, they'll have to stay away from their parents or grandparents. We've all had to do that anyway.

Time to move on. Another shut down and you'll wake up to a Marxist run country with a dead Marxist economy. We'll have turned into Venezuela in a summer.; 6/26/20, 6:47 AM
jpg said...: That's our Joe.; 6/26/20, 6:51 AM
Andrew said...: "Polls showing him with a huge lead over Trump are baffling. If true those say a lot more about the intelligence of the polled than the viability of either candidate."

I would never answer a poll honestly these days, even if I knew for sure it was legitimate. My guess is that very few Trump supporters are being included in these polls. They are oversampling Dems as usual. And many Trump supporters who are polled will pretend to support Biden, whether out of mischief or out of safety concerns.

Did anyone catch Biden's "Cold War" comments the other day? The man is getting worse with every appearance.; 6/26/20, 6:57 AM
Birches said...: He's going to be standing pretty close to John Roberts in his imagination, right?; 6/26/20, 7:07 AM
iowan2 said...: Federalism.

Dems/media use that only when they believe it gives them a rhetorical advantage. Much like their clown nose. Used when needed, creates the needed ambiguity to deflect from their multiple standards they are so burden with. As noted yesterday, police reform is even more removed from the federal govt, than just constitutional protection defined in the constitution. Police reform is a very LOCAL power. A lowly watch commander could ban choke holds on his watch. How about the Police Chief? The public safety committee? The full city council? A Mayoral directive? Democrats refuse to make hard decisions, because that creates a position they then have to defend. Democrats are not principled enough to defend any of their positions. The will out yell anyone, fighting a hypothetical. But on the ground decisions, they punt up to the next level of governance, or better yet, have some judge make laws for them.; 6/26/20, 7:08 AM
Sebastian said...: "But apparently he wasn't agile enough"

Gonna need that phrase a lot.; 6/26/20, 7:11 AM
Sally327 said...: I think Biden is just sucking us in. It reminds me of that Phil Hartman skit on SNL when he would play Ronald Reagan, first as this clueless, sweet old guy and then the door would close and out would come the clever, ruthless Reagan ordering his minions around. Biden is making us think he's lost it, too far gone, oh so sad, and then the debates will happen and he'll come out as this fierce competitor on top of his game, ready to fight and win. And we'll all be wowed and thank heaven our champion has arrived.; 6/26/20, 7:12 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: I had a thought a bit ago. A lot of the mask wearing these days is more virtue signaling than anything. Other than that, what is the purpose of it? Sure, in a closed space, it made sense but outside somewhere like Manhattan, why does it make sense esp now outdoors? Little evidence that COVID-19 spreads outdoors. Certainly not on an uncrowded beach, or up on Loveland Pass skiing (but Jered Pollis, being a Democrat, closed that skiing down too). I mentioned yesterday, I think, that very possibly the best thing that we could do right now, in the middle of the summer, is let the virus rage through the colleges, and maybe the school systems. We can maybe build up immunity in a significant part of the younger population, hopefully providing significant herd immunity when the virus returns with a vengeance this winter.

It almost seems that going about masked, or unmasked, for many is almost tribal these days. Blue Tribe wears masks, and Red Team doesn’t. Almost like shirts and skins in pickup basketball. The Karen’s of this world, lambasting the unmasked to mask up are the Blue Tribe monitors. And this division makes some sense, because Blue Team is centered in the biggest cities, where the pandemic hit the worst, and Red Team is more rural, where masking is very often a waste of time and effort.

Then came along the BLM/AntiFA riots, and many of their combatants were masked in order to are identifying them harder. Dem Congressional leaders wore matching African scarves and masks in sympathy with BLM. And that suggests that Blue Team is starting to mask themselves to show solidarity with their violent BLM and AntiFA thugs, rioters, and arsonists.

I think that Trump caught onto this this early on, which is why he mostly goes around unmasked, while Biden, who rarely actually sees anyone new personally, is now usually filmed masked. This should be interesting; 6/26/20, 7:12 AM
Kevin said...: Joe has already picked his VP.

But it was Rosa Parks.

So they’re walking him through the process all over again.; 6/26/20, 7:16 AM
cyrus83 said...: An additional criticism beyond the heavy-handed one-size fits all approach is the idea that it would be necessary to implement such a policy in 2021. It suggests Biden thinks this needs to be a permanent thing, but I don't think there's any way the public is going to stand for that idea, nor do I think there is any scientific reason to do so unless the idea is that the human race needs to socially distance and live in a protected bubble forever because socializing inherently carries some risk of infection.

Note that it is also to some extent a backdoor attack on 2A rights, since concealed carry regulations generally bar carrying while wearing a mask in most states.; 6/26/20, 7:19 AM
mezzrow said...: I'm calling my bookie to see if I can put some money on no Trump-Biden debate.; 6/26/20, 7:24 AM
stevew said...: "Time to move on. Another shut down and you'll wake up to a Marxist run country with a dead Marxist economy. We'll have turned into Venezuela in a summer."

This, and everything written above it. It is wrong to sacrifice the livelihoods and quality of life of 320 million people on the chance of saving the lives of a few thousand old an infirm individuals who can save themselves by taking known effective health precautions.; 6/26/20, 7:26 AM
Phil 314 said...: I betcha Joe would feel good wearing an oxygen mask.; 6/26/20, 7:28 AM
iowan2 said...: The media has been getting away with reporting an alternate to reality, for 5 years. (look at polls from 4 years ago and explain to me how the media can report Biden is ahead today with no hint of embarrassment.)
Biden is not the candidate. Biden will never debate President Trump. Never.

Fun game. Speculate on how the media is going to sell the notion all is good never having a debate with who ever the Dems install on the ballot. You know that's how it plays out, how will dems peddle their idiocy?; 6/26/20, 7:30 AM
Brian said...: Biden isn't going to be taking the oath of office so its doesn't matter if he's going to be wearing a mask or not.; 6/26/20, 7:43 AM
MikeR said...: My mother's in California and they're requiring masks outside. As far as I know, no medical advice is really saying that you need masks when you're outside and not too near other people. And where I live in Baltimore that's what everyone is doing: masks inside stores, mostly no masks walking around outside. It's a reasonable compromise.; 6/26/20, 7:56 AM
jaydub said...: "He says he can't imagine taking the oath of office in a mask."

I can't imagine him taking the oath of office period. OTH, it would be fun to have a president whose press conferences resemble an snl skit.; 6/26/20, 7:57 AM
Ralph L said...: Biden is facing increased scrutiny over his record on busing and racial issues

My late uncle was prez of a Wilmington suburb's school board in the 70's. Busing was THE big issue then--no one wanted any downtown black kids in their schools, or to send some white kids to the scary black schools. Biden couldn't get elected/reelected if he'd been pro-busing or neutral. Now I'd bet Dupont would pressure the suburbs to knuckle under.; 6/26/20, 7:58 AM
Mary Beth said...: I think Biden is just sucking us in

He must go in for the long con. Really long con.; 6/26/20, 8:09 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Roberts could duct tape the Bible to pole. Problem solved.
Good thing I came along when I did.; 6/26/20, 8:11 AM
MadisonMan said...: I think NYC, Chicago, LA, all should mandate that everyone wears a mask all the time. Superior WI? I don't think everyone-in-masks is necessary. Same in Madison, I walk outside maskless and you know what? No one is anywhere near me!
I'm in a coffee shop now, and the guy 10 feet away is coughing. I put my mask on (That I wear per the shop-owner's request when I order). Hard to drink coffee with a mask on.; 6/26/20, 8:12 AM
Owen said...: Steve’s @ 7:26: “... It is wrong to sacrifice the livelihoods and quality of life of 320 million people on the chance of saving the lives of a few thousand old an infirm individuals who can save themselves by taking known effective health precautions.”

This, and everything above it. The Wu Flu crisis is ultimately a spiritual one. Are we so afraid of death that we will try to prop up a relative handful of the senescent for a few more months on the actuarial average (when in fact they can be well protected far more cheaply by maintaining quarantine for them —not everyone else)? Or are we going to let the rest of the country breathe free, make its choices and take its chances? Which will hasten herd immunity and thereby (virtuous paradox!) hasten the day when the most vulnerable can leaveclockdiwn behind? Why are we so willing to bleat and follow like sheep? Is it all due to a small but vicious cadre of Karens and Twitter-snitches who bark and nip at our heels, driving us wherever they choose; and the driving itself becomes a lesson not to resist, don’t make a scene, they must know something we don’t?

This has to end. And soon.; 6/26/20, 8:17 AM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: Democrats have no use for rights, only an ever-expanding list of requirements and prohibitions.; 6/26/20, 8:19 AM
Lucien said...: Notice that all the COVID19 “reporting” these days is about new cases, not deaths.

They even let slip that many of the new cases are in younger people. That means that in two to three weeks somewhere over 99% of the people testing positive today will have survived the disease and be presumptively immune. But the media are doing their best to scare people.

Previously I had rejected the idea that the MSM actively wanted the nation to do poorly. Now I am not so sure.; 6/26/20, 8:20 AM
Birkel said...: Biden might be thinking complex thoughts?

That thought occurred to you?

You are amusing, Althouse.; 6/26/20, 8:33 AM
cfs said...: At least the police officers will have a job once they are totally defunded from investigating crimes and arresting criminals. They will be in charge of mask enforcement. Of course, as in Oregon, masks will not be required for "people of color".; 6/26/20, 8:34 AM
Owen said...: A continuation to my comment above at 8:17 on the Wu Flu and how it has to end, and soon. Read this, people. The guy has done good work assembling (and analyzing) some pretty solid material. Bottom line: we are probably much farther along, through prevalence of asymptomatic/mild infection, toward herd immunity; and that herd immunity may come at a lower point (43% of population rather than other models' estimates of 60+%); plus the death count is inflated thanks to CDC revising guidance for which cases should be seen as due to Wu Flu (rather than just associated with it). A number of independent factors are driving toward a somewhat less-dire assessment of our likely fate. Let's get on with it, shall we?

Here's the link: https://medium.com/analyticaper/covid-19-what-the-data-tells-us-3a08e42ee36f; 6/26/20, 8:40 AM
JML said...: I wonder how it would play out if Trump said, "I don't think Sleepy Joe will end up being the candidate or President. He's just a front man until the democrats decide on what left wing radical they really want to run the country. It could happen before the election or if, God forbid, he wins shortly after the election. That's why they are starting to pave the way for no debates. They can't let Joe debate me one on one, because then the American people will see just how far he is gone."; 6/26/20, 8:43 AM
I'm Not Sure said...: "And where I live in Baltimore that's what everyone is doing: masks inside stores, mostly no masks walking around outside. It's a reasonable compromise."

A reasonable compromise? For now. Maybe. Do you think it's going to stop there? Ask gun owners about how "common sense" gun control laws go.; 6/26/20, 9:05 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: You can break windows, loot stores, tear down statues you don't like but Goddamn it you must wear a mask!; 6/26/20, 9:18 AM
rcocean said...: Also, Biden has been pressuring Twitter to censor the current President of the United states when he speaks out about Mail-in voting. We can safely assume "Joe the Moderate" will be 100% in favor of Big-tech censoring anyone who disagrees with the current Democrat Party line. He was also in favor of the President, not leaving the lockdown to the states, but "Locking it all down". Which is odd, since he was also against stopping flights from China or the EU, calling that "racist".

When is Joe going to pick the REAL President aka his VP? Is the delay part of the "stay in the basement" strategy? OR is that he's decided on a white woman, and he needs more time to pass, so people (aka black lives matter) forgets the riots and George Floyd?; 6/26/20, 9:39 AM
mikee said...: Joe Biden has dementia, and it is only going to get worse. Admit it, and move on.; 6/26/20, 9:47 AM
rcocean said...: BTW, there is no reason to wear a mask unless:

1) you can't social distance, and
2) You're indoors; OR
3) you're shouting "Black lives matter" in a crowd.

I'm beginning to sense people have gotten tired of the CV-19 scaremongering. The bottom line is if you're under 60, you have a 1/3 chance of having no symptoms if you get CV-19. If you have symptoms, odds are 98-2, you'll get well and stay out of hospital. If you're one of the 2% who go to the Hospital, chances are 3 out of 4, you'll be released without going to the ICU.

Until we get a vaccine (assuming we ever do), we can't stop the virus from spreading. All the measures (masks/social distancing) are just "flattening the curve"). It's make more sense to just lock Granddad and Grandma away for six months, and remove all the restrictions. We're basically destroying a lot of young persons lives to save old people.; 6/26/20, 9:48 AM
rcocean said...: There was some idiot on the web that was laughing at Trump for saying more testing was resulting in more cases. Typical Left-wing dimwit. Of course if 1/3 of the population doesn't get CV-19 symptoms, you'll have lots of people who've already had the disease, showing up as "New Cases" as we expand testing. They were always there, we just didn't know about them. But now we've identified them.

These people are in no or little danger, but they make it appear as if new cases are rising & the CV-19 is "out of control". And as someone stated, it doesn't matter how many people are "new Cases" - what matters is how many are hospitalized and eventually die. And both those numbers are coming DOWN.; 6/26/20, 9:55 AM
rcocean said...: another way of looking at it. If we could test all 300 million tommorrow, the number of CV-19 "new Cases" would EXPLODE, since millions of people who are asymptomatic or thought they had "a bad cold" would discover they HAD CV-19. But the number of CV-19 cases needing to be Hospitalized would NOT go up. The untested population is made up of the three groups:

1) People who had the disease and didn't know it.
2) People who just got the disease - and will have no or mild symptoms.
3) People who just got the disease - and will need to be hospitalized

The more we test the more of Group 1 will be discovered.; 6/26/20, 10:07 AM
rcocean said...: BTW, i don't think "Slow Joe" has dementia. He's always been stupid. That's why he was never considered Presidential Material in 1988, 1992, 2000, 2008, or 2016. That the Democrats decided to run him in 2020 at the age of 78 says a lot about how weak their leadership pool is.; 6/26/20, 10:10 AM
Michael K said...: It might help to learn a few facts about what is going on.

In most U.S. jurisdictions, unlike many other countries, if someone dies with COVID-19, that becomes the cause of death for official purposes. That’s true even if it didn’t technically “cause” the person’s death.
***
In California, San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond investigated 194 COVID-19 deaths through mid-May and found that only six could be clearly claimed as caused by COVID-19. “We’ve unfortunately had six pure, solely coronavirus deaths — six out of 3.3 million people,” said Desmond.

Washington state reported that at least five of its then 828 COVID-19 deaths were actually due to gunshot wounds. Pennsylvania had to remove “hundreds of deaths” from its tally for misreporting the actual causes.

Same thing in Colorado, where a man found dead in a park with a 0.55% alcohol blood level was declared a COVID-19 victim.

This is an information operation by the DNC and its media allies.; 6/26/20, 10:18 AM
walter said...: ewetoob is placing a Biden campaign ad before certain clips now and it is open captioned. He is shown outside, addresses the camera, presumably with prompter. Even in this controlled setting, the take they went with had a random "for" left in it along with various slurring of speech. The open captions make it worse, as if it was translating Joebonics or suggesting "This is what he's trying to say".
I can't imagine the takes that made the chosen one the best.
Whoever directed it should be watched for signs of PTSD.; 6/26/20, 10:40 AM
Skeptical Voter said...: Substandard English from a person with substandard intelligence. But then Joe was always "slow".; 6/26/20, 10:55 AM
Yancey Ward said...: "BTW, i don't think "Slow Joe" has dementia."

No, he has dementia- it is relatively mild at this point, but it is dementia. My father had Alzheimers as did his mother. They had the exact same speech problems at the beginning- the missing words, the misused words, the forgetting of what they were talking about.

Additionally, though, we have video evidence that Biden can't actually read any longer- there are multiple videos of him trying to read cue cards and failing, both in his hands are off camera. I watched the exact same behavior in my father.

Finally, we also have the angry outbursts at being pressed mentally by others. I saw the exact same behavior from my dad. Any sense that people are noticing the deficits would set my father off. This is the biggest danger of a one on one debate for Biden.

I think if people get to watch Biden for a couple of days trying to navigate the normal world, they will immediately recognize the deficits. I pretty much guarantee that he can't navigate his own home without aid at this point in time.; 6/26/20, 11:09 AM
Rabel said...: Curious George at 6:33 has the accurate quote. And that comes after an edit that most likely omitted something even worse.; 6/26/20, 11:10 AM
Tomcc said...: It occurred to me yesterday that Mr. Biden reminds me of Admiral Stockdale in 1992. Stockdale was only 69 at the time and was clearly a bit diminished in his public appearances.; 6/26/20, 11:18 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: “In most U.S. jurisdictions, unlike many other countries, if someone dies with COVID-19, that becomes the cause of death for official purposes. That’s true even if it didn’t technically “cause” the person’s death.”

George Floyd? It’s actually easier to justify him as having succumbed to COVID-19 than the person in CO with the .55% BAC, which probably would have been even worse than if Floyd had had twice the fentanyl in his system than he actually had. Floyd had just under the typical fatal level of fentanyl in his system, while the guy in CO had a BAC that is often fatal.; 6/26/20, 11:18 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: This from an anesthesiologist: What good do the masks do, really?

But do properly used surgical masks reduce disease spread in the general public? To say there are almost no data would not be overstating the case. When households with sick kids were examined, even rigorous mask-wearing provided no statistically significant improvement in adult infections.

Let's put that in plain English. Even if you did everything to protect yourself with surgical masks, even keeping it on when your kid wants to see your face, it might reduce your chance of getting sick, but we can't prove it. And that's in a well designed study intended to get a meaningful result. "[H]ousehold use of face masks is associated with low adherence and is ineffective for controlling seasonal respiratory disease" (emphasis added).

What about homemade cloth masks? In a study using influenza, masks made from cotton T-shirts "should only be considered as a last resort to prevent droplet transmission from infected individuals." They were only one third as effective when worn by the sick person as a surgical mask. If you're sick, they're better than nothing, but that's not much. The CDC says, "Cloth face coverings may slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others." Translation: It might help, but we don't have any data to back that up.

I esp liked this:

Another problem arises when we look at the use of masks by the public. Even accepting the uncertain premise that masks are useful, "incorrect use and disposal may actually increase the risk of pathogen transmission, rather than reduce it, especially when masks are used by non-professionals such as the lay public." Given that most "masks" are simply kept handy for use when required, set aside, and then re-used, most mask-wearing by the public is likely to increase virus exposure, not reduce it.

As I said before, outside a medical facility, where they take disinfecting masks seriously, mask wearing for much of the population for much of the time is nothing more than virtue signaling and now tribal identification.; 6/26/20, 11:33 AM
Jupiter said...: The Democrats don't want the police to arrest criminals, because that would interfere with the criminals voting for Democrats. But they don't want to fire all those cops, either, 'cause that would piss off the unions, and anyway, a lot of those cops still vote Democrat. Go figure. Anyway, this way is perfect. They can have the police arrest people for not wearing masks. No way they were going to vote Democrat.; 6/26/20, 11:43 AM
Anthony said...: I'm thinking all these polls showing Bidean way out front is battlespace preparation for him losing. "See!!", they'll say, "Trump STOOOOOOLE the election!!11! Eleventy!!"

There is zero evidence masks do anything, in public or in doors or in closed spaces. It's pure virtue signaling pandemic theater.; 6/26/20, 11:45 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Michael K,

The surest, cleanest way is to look at excess deaths from the CDC. Since the first of the year, there have been 70,000 excess deaths in the US. Now, that number is a first pass estimate, but it needs to be emphasized that it doesn't include a complete tally yet for most of May and all June- the data for those two months up-to-date is about 75-80% complete- the last week only about 30-40% complete, the week before that 80% complete, the week before that 90%, then 95%, then 98% etc. If I go with the 75% figure for the last 7 weeks in total, then add another 40,000, which is roughly what the CDC reports for deaths with COVID-19.

I have no problem saying that there are 110,000 excess deaths since the first of the year. When the data for the full year is complete, we can then look at all the subcategories, too, and probably give a firm estimate for how many of the excess was due to COVID-19 directly. Right now we can't do that.; 6/26/20, 11:47 AM
Floris said...: The solution is easy Joe. Just declare that not wearing a mask makes you subject to a $10,000 tax. The Robert's court will agree with you.; 6/26/20, 11:51 AM
alan markus said...: @ Bruce Hayden

What about homemade cloth masks? In a study using influenza, masks made from cotton T-shirts "should only be considered as a last resort to prevent droplet transmission from infected individuals." They were only one third as effective when worn by the sick person as a surgical mask.

Too bad - awhile ago Inga was cranking out home made masks. Turns about that cloth from used granny panties may not be so effective against the spread of the corona virus. And we know that right now she is wearing a pair to make a "special mask" just for Joe Biden when he visits the convention in Milwaukee.; 6/26/20, 1:40 PM
Earnest Prole said...: What good do the masks do anyway?

Efficacy studies of masks worn by people who are required to be in close, daily, face-to-face contact with virus-suffering patients are utterly irrelavent to the question of whether masks help protect ordinary people in ordinary three- to six-foot public interactions.; 6/26/20, 2:02 PM
Matthew Heintz said...: I tried to get an appointment with Dr. Jill Biden. The receptionist said she was running out of patience!; 6/26/20, 4:00 PM
Crazy World said...: Rip roaring start to us freedom loving Americans Joey!; 6/26/20, 6:14 PM