January 09, 2022 @ Manhattan Contrarian
I thought the whole idea behind getting vaccinated for Covid-19 was to put the societal disruption behind us. Yes, the vaccines may not be perfect; but then, nothing in this miserable world is perfect. Still, with the vaccines we should surely be able to go back to work, go back to school, hold sporting events and theater and concerts and political rallies and everything else where people gather. And for God’s sake get rid of the masks. Right?
That’s the way it works in Florida. But this is New York. Here, we are engaged in end-stage Covid craziness. Most office work is still suspended, and theater and concerts are 50/50, with endless protocols.
But my favorite is the masking. Over the summer and fall, masking was gradually declining — finally! But then came Omicron. On December 10, new Governor Hochul seized the moment to feel the thrill of ordering 20 million people around for no discernible reason, and imposed a state-wide mask mandate for all indoor venues. Suddenly, mask requirements came back almost everywhere, particularly in stores. (Restaurants thankfully got some kind of a pass by checking vaccination passes every time you enter.)
What is the point behind this? I would say nothing whatsoever. But a huge percentage of the population here in New York has been convinced that they are saving themselves from certain imminent death by wearing a mask and insisting that you wear one too.
At Power Line they have presented both sides of the masking debate, and from what I have read it is not a close question. I’ll summarize the debate by saying that there is some evidence that widespread masking can lower by a little the risk that you will get infected on any given contact with an infected person; and therefore, widespread masking could possibly slow the rate of spread of a respiratory virus by a little.
Conceivably, that could be relevant when a virus first arrives and there is a need for some time to ramp up hospital capacity — in other words, “two weeks to slow the curve.” But over the course of months and years, everyone is going to be exposed, masking or no masking. The only way to avoid exposure is to hole up in your house and never come out. And yet here we are nearly two years into this pandemic, with the “delta” variant having swept its way through a masked population and now the “omicron” variant doing the same, and we still pretend that masking is accomplishing something.
To get both sides of the debate, try this January 6 post at Power Line. Scott Johnson put up the original post, with a lengthy quote from a piece by Kevin Roche, who blogs as the Healthy Skeptic. From Roche:
I always encourage people to evaluate any intervention at two levels, the individual one and the population one. At an individual level, in an isolated encounter between a person and the virus, a mask may prevent exposure and infection. But even if a mask were 90% effective, and they aren’t, over large numbers of encounters at some point you will be exposed. . . . At a population level, one has only to look at any chart of cases versus population mask-wearing level. . . . These charts constantly show that there is no correlation. Minnesota is a perfect example, in which the level of cases after the mask mandate was promulgated through when it was ended never dipped to the level before the mandate.
On the January 6 post, Johnson’s co-blogger Paul Mirengoff provides a series of links to a number of articles, both in the popular press and medical journals, giving the pro-mask side of the story. After having read through most of them, I think that they clearly undermine rather than support the case for masks. I won’t try to discuss all of them, but here is a representative example from WebMD, September 7, 2021, with the headline “Large Study Confirms Masks Work to Limit COVID-19 Spread.” The article reports on a massive study out of Bengladesh, where some 340,000 people were divided into groups and either given masks and constantly reminded to wear them properly or, in the other group, just left along to go about their business. The study was conducted by some very fancy researchers from Stanford and Yale. Here is the quote from study leader Ashley Styczynski of Stanford:
"What we really were able to achieve is to demonstrate that masks are effective against COVID-19, even under a rigorous and systematic evaluation that was done in the throes of the pandemic.”
Really, Ashley? I would say that what the study demonstrated is that even the fanciest researchers from Stanford and Yale can be innumerate. What was the actual result of the study?
Compared to villages that didn't mask, those where masks of any type were worn had about 9% fewer symptomatic cases of COVID-19. The finding was statistically significant and was unlikely to have occurred by chance alone.
That’s a big 9% fewer cases in whatever period of time when the study was conducted. But of course, after the study concluded, time goes on, and with an extra month or two the stray viruses will eventually make it through to everybody. So in fact, if this study proves anything, it is that the only effect of masks is to slow down the inevitable by some almost meaningless amount of time. Over enough time, masking is completely futile.
Which brings me to my own activities this past couple of days. You might think that all you get for living in Manhattan is to have Bill de Blasio as your Mayor, and then as soon as he is gone you get Alvin Bragg as District Attorney. That part is true. But there is another side. For example, being here in Manhattan, you might get to perform in Carnegie Hall from time to time. Here is the scene on the stage at Carnegie Hall on Saturday night (January 8):
Credit: @Dgabriel7551
Do you recognize me? I’m in the chorus on the left, furthest backstage in the front row. Wearing a mask, of course.
We were not expecting to be forced to wear masks to sing until the very last minute. We had to go through a whole protocol to get cleared to perform: vaccine, both shots, booster, negative PCR test the day before the event; and then supposedly, sing unmasked. But in the middle of the dress rehearsal on Friday afternoon, word came down from on high: masks must now be worn.
How about for the wind instruments, brass and woodwinds — how would that work? They got an exemption. So about two-thirds of the performers were masked and one-third not. (You can see this in the photo if you enlarge it and look closely.). Does it make any sense? Definitely not! It’s end-stage Covid craziness. But at least they allowed the show to go on.
Supposedly Governor Hochul is going to re-evaluate the mask mandate on January 15, and possibly end it. I’m betting that it gets extended. It’s just too much fun for our newbie Governor to exercise these great powers of the office.
OK, you’re probably wondering, what was the event that called for my performing at Carnegie Hall? It was the Final Fantasy VII Remake Orchestra World Tour. They had two sold-out performances, and this for a 2800 seat hall. Final Fantasy is apparently a very popular video game, although I myself would never have heard of it other than getting called on to sing in their concerts. The game is known for its music, mostly written by Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu. The producers put together a fabulous professional orchestra, with about 20 or more brass players who could blow you right out of your seat. And every sort of percussion instrument known to man. It was really quite something to be in the middle of it.
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