
Coronavirus: Germany's states make face masks compulsory - finphil
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52382196
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anotheryou
And loosen everything else.

As of tomorrow I can get my child baptized, buy a new bed, go to the mall.
With some weird standards for other thigns: I can't attend a funeral if I'm
not in the closest circle of 10-10 ppl and my boss _could_ force me to give up
on our totally working remote office.

Oh and in Berlin they are only compulsory in the train, not when going
shopping. And the train company says they won't enforce it.

I'm seeing us rowing back in 2 weeks and hope we can get away without a
catastrophe once more...

I understand we need to help especially small businesses, but this will
manifest a tiny compromise at the cost of lengthening the lock-down
indefinitely (unless there is cure, vaccine or testing _everyone_ _often_.

Oh and of course we don't know if putting just _any_ cloth in front of your
face does much anyways...

~~~
leipert
To your last point. We do know that it helps. Corona spreads from your mouth
and nose to other people’s mouse and nose. So if you cover them, you’ll
protect everyone around you. It always has been mindboggling to me that people
who have the flu or a child don’t put on these masks. It’s customary in a lot
of other countries and protection of others should be the norm.

Back to Corona: Anecdotally in Jena where the mask order is in place since >2
, there have been no new reported cases.

~~~
LeoTinnitus
I'm in the camp of Dolph Lundgren honestly. You cannot tell me this virus has
a higher mortality rate than any other major outbrekas like cholera, polio,
tuberculosis, leprosy, etc. If we're worried about old people dying, tell them
to stay inside. I don't get why we gotta halt the economy for less than 10% of
the population. I personally feel it was a major overreaction by governments.

People get weird when they come to grips with their mortality. Yes ideally we
don't want people to die en masse but have we gotten so cozy that we forget
it's still a fact of life? People die, tragically and often.

This shutdown is going to have larger long term ramifications to our system
than if we just let it spread like normal. Those numbers reported, do we know
if they're even accurate? What if a doctor was like "welp it sounds like
Corona, so I'm just gonna say it is."

~~~
eozoon
> You cannot tell me this virus has a higher mortality rate than any other
> major outbrekas like cholera, polio, tuberculosis, leprosy, etc.

Cholera and polio are transmitted by unhygienic food and water supply, you
don't catch it by breathing in someone's cough or spit, we try to (and largely
successful in developed well) by improving access to clean water and cooking
food thoroughly. While they can be deadly, they are not highly transmissible
between people.

Transmission method of leprosy was not well understood (even now, and
especially when its effect was devastating), and nowadays it can be treated
and even cured, plus it's effects are slow and rarely result in death.

TB is the closest in your examples - but it has some key difference, for one,
it is not transmissible while it's still latent, so you are not going to think
you are in perfect health while actually transmitting it. We also have vaccine
for it, that is in wide use in areas where TB is commonplace, we also have
treatment for it. It rarely results in death in places with adequate medical
facilities.

In short, this virus is different from "any other major outbreaks", at least
in recent centuries. And we currently do not have vaccine nor treatment for
it.

I'm no economist, so I cannot tell you if "less than 10% of the population"
dies or become severely ill would result in bigger economical impact, but I
find it highly responsible to basically say "sorry, but these dozen companies'
survive is more important than your grandpa's life" to the society at large.

~~~
LeoTinnitus
It's not some libertarian ideal saying companies should survive over people,
it's if a large portion of the economy gets halted, other people will become
impoverished too possibly leading to other devolving societal effects.

Remember that the black death cause such population decline among the peasants
that the equivalent of wages increased dramatically. Artisans as well as they
were skilled. Leftists always claim they want higher wages, well a dramatic
death toll and innumerable job openings will put a massive premium on labor.
Even bad labor.

