Scott Madin

You should be GLAD to wear a mask, you should take PRIDE in doing reasonable and effective things that aren't even hardships for you and that not only protect your community but visibly signal THAT you care about protecting your community.

"but that's just virtue signaling!" first of all, fuck off. second of all, "virtue signaling" means saying things you don't mean in order to convince people you believe things you don't, so they'll like you better, without really doing anything useful. do you see the difference?

third of all, the whole idea of "virtue signaling" concedes that even unvirtuous people will seek to give the appearance of behaving in virtuous ways if they feel enough social pressure that's actually good! that is, again, an outcome we should want.

I personally would rather a person do the right thing for bad reasons, than refuse to do the right thing and then go "but at least I'm being honest,"

anyway masks are a _remarkably_ successful public health intervention. they're inexpensive, they're easy to use, even disposable surgical masks or handmade cloth masks provide not-insignificant protection while N95s/KF94s provide excellent protection.

wearing a mask when you're going to be around people you don't live with and you aren't and/or you don't know if all of them are fully vaccinated, and keeping a decent physical distance apart when you can, are good _general_ behaviors we should all keep up forever.

plus, lots of masks come in colors and patterns now, embrace it as fashion. and it'll drastically reduce transmission of other airborne disease like flus and colds, and as a bonus it makes government and corporate face surveillance harder.

every time I see a headline about "will vaccines free us from masks" or "when will we be free of masks" I assume a cop wrote it