You seemed to be talking about mask mandates versus individual responsibility, and that’s what I replied about. If you think my reply didn’t address your comment, can you rephrase it or point out why you think my comment wasn’t responsive?
I didn’t say anything about ever requiring anyone to wear a mask, and yet that’s the only topic that you addressed in your reply.
I think there are a lot more options than a simplistic binary between collectively forcing people to wear masks and individually forcing people to accept all responsibility for their own infection outcomes. Those two positions aren’t even really points on a single dimension, because not all responsibility is enforced responsibility. Indeed, the OP spends a fair number of words trying to discern their current unenforced responsibilities to others.
My comment was, loosely speaking, simply an informal proof by contradiction demonstrating that our society is not in fact currently and effectively aligned with your asserted state of the world. I started by granting your comment’s argument that making appropriate respirators available for sale in appropriate quantities means that individuals are expected to manage their risk of COVID infection without supporting interventions from the rest of society. I then pointed out that there’s at least one clear-cut way that society currently falls short of this premise — people are not always free to choose whether they will wear or not wear a mask, and by definition one cannot be the sole responsible party for a decision they cannot decide. Because something needs to change in order to enact your asserted state of the world, we know that this world state hasn’t been fully implemented yet — both sides of a contradiction can’t be simultaneously true.
I suspect we mostly agree about this, and the apparent disagreement was caused by a misunderstanding.
So, let me clarify: what I tried to say is that as long as individuals can protect themselves, there is no compelling reason for society to force others to protect individuals or for others to voluntarily protect individuals in those situations in which individuals can protect themselves (I probably should have been more explicit about this to avoid any confusion). For instance, if you need a root canal, you obviously can’t protect yourself by wearing a respirator (and assuming that vaccines weren’t effective), and dental staff should wear respirators and perhaps also increase ventilation. In the case of flying, individuals can protect themselves by using a respirator, and there would be no point in having anyone else mask up. Earlier in the pandemic, having everyone mask in most situations was a good policy at the societal and individual level, but now it’s not for the reasons I’ve already mentioned.
It seems like you’re treating “protect yourself” as binary, when it’s not? If I wear a snug N95 I might lower my risk by ~6x. If I swap the N95 for a P100, maybe ~12x. If I also shaved, maybe ~32x. But 32x is still not ∞x, and if the people around me also mask then risk is lower than if only I mask.
Which is not to say that everyone should mask all the time. But I think your view of responsibility is too simple: it has to depend at least in part on the level of risk remaining after taking reasonable efforts to protect oneself.
In most situations (with some exceptions like going to the dentist) and for nearly everyone (with some exceptions like people living in a nursing home), the level of risk remaining after taking reasonable efforts to protect oneself seems miniscule.
I don’t see how that’s particularly responsive to anything that I said in my comment?
You seemed to be talking about mask mandates versus individual responsibility, and that’s what I replied about. If you think my reply didn’t address your comment, can you rephrase it or point out why you think my comment wasn’t responsive?
I didn’t say anything about ever requiring anyone to wear a mask, and yet that’s the only topic that you addressed in your reply.
I think there are a lot more options than a simplistic binary between collectively forcing people to wear masks and individually forcing people to accept all responsibility for their own infection outcomes. Those two positions aren’t even really points on a single dimension, because not all responsibility is enforced responsibility. Indeed, the OP spends a fair number of words trying to discern their current unenforced responsibilities to others.
My comment was, loosely speaking, simply an informal proof by contradiction demonstrating that our society is not in fact currently and effectively aligned with your asserted state of the world. I started by granting your comment’s argument that making appropriate respirators available for sale in appropriate quantities means that individuals are expected to manage their risk of COVID infection without supporting interventions from the rest of society. I then pointed out that there’s at least one clear-cut way that society currently falls short of this premise — people are not always free to choose whether they will wear or not wear a mask, and by definition one cannot be the sole responsible party for a decision they cannot decide. Because something needs to change in order to enact your asserted state of the world, we know that this world state hasn’t been fully implemented yet — both sides of a contradiction can’t be simultaneously true.
I suspect we mostly agree about this, and the apparent disagreement was caused by a misunderstanding.
So, let me clarify: what I tried to say is that as long as individuals can protect themselves, there is no compelling reason for society to force others to protect individuals or for others to voluntarily protect individuals in those situations in which individuals can protect themselves (I probably should have been more explicit about this to avoid any confusion). For instance, if you need a root canal, you obviously can’t protect yourself by wearing a respirator (and assuming that vaccines weren’t effective), and dental staff should wear respirators and perhaps also increase ventilation. In the case of flying, individuals can protect themselves by using a respirator, and there would be no point in having anyone else mask up. Earlier in the pandemic, having everyone mask in most situations was a good policy at the societal and individual level, but now it’s not for the reasons I’ve already mentioned.
It seems like you’re treating “protect yourself” as binary, when it’s not? If I wear a snug N95 I might lower my risk by ~6x. If I swap the N95 for a P100, maybe ~12x. If I also shaved, maybe ~32x. But 32x is still not ∞x, and if the people around me also mask then risk is lower than if only I mask.
Which is not to say that everyone should mask all the time. But I think your view of responsibility is too simple: it has to depend at least in part on the level of risk remaining after taking reasonable efforts to protect oneself.
In most situations (with some exceptions like going to the dentist) and for nearly everyone (with some exceptions like people living in a nursing home), the level of risk remaining after taking reasonable efforts to protect oneself seems miniscule.