@Shop-et-al wrote:
I wonder if some people (the ones who have no particular difficulty with masks) who prefer not to wear masks are expressing their displeasure at the denial of rights. In this situation, masking is a form of treatment. People should be free to accept of decline treatment. Forcing them to wear masks is forcing them to accept a treatment they might not choose for themselves. Please do not throw tomatoes; I wear masks.
a.) "individual rights" argument - I don't think individual rights can be a defense/applies, as we've discussed before, because your simply breathing at me with COVID could kill me.
I tend to think of it like smoking. You don't have the right to smoke next to me in a restaurant, because that behavior is not just dangerous to you, but also to me. And, this is different from the flu, because it's a novel virus that we don't have widespread herd immunity from (and vaccines - ...yet) and 10x deadlier in terms of case fatalities. So, I don't think one can use a flu non-masking comparison either.
I do wonder if people would still adopt a "rights" argument if COVID killed infants and toddlers/kids mostly between the ages of 1 month and 10 years old? I think after 250,000 child deaths from COVID, mask mandates might be law (I could even imagine parents pointing guns at people to stay away without a mask). Anyone objecting at that point just because it was uncomfortable to wear a mask would be pretty rotten, imho. But, since it's the elderly who mostly die, for some reason people don't care.
b.) It's partially political. I'll leave it at that to honor forum etiquette. There are some who don't wear them to support a particular person, who has previously encouraged people to not wear them.