Using “Science” to Justify Not Wearing A Mask
I recently flew on United Airlines, and one of the passengers did not wear a mask for most of the 8-hour flight.
This action infuriated me, so naturally, I vented about it to a friend a few hours after landing. I lamented my fellow passenger’s callous disregard for human life, hardcore judging his lack of effort to protect the strangers around him. Apparently my friend did not share the same sentiments, and our conversation devolved into a long argument about the effectiveness of wearing a mask to reduce the transmission of Covid-19.
In short, my friend believes that mask mandates are not an effective means of preventing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
“CDC research says masks don’t work!” — anonymous friend
To be clear, the CDC does not say that. However, I had no idea that my friend held such beliefs about masks. Neither one of us are ideological zealots. Quite the opposite, we are both fact-driven, science-minded, educated young professionals, so I was curious what evidence he had to support this view. While a number of different points were raised, I would like to focus on one piece of his supposed evidence from the CDC in the hopes that doing so might save other people from misinterpreting this data.
