remember when they told you to wear two masks?
they'll keep moving the goalposts forever
Exactly three hundred and sixty five days ago today, eXpErTs were wavering on their entire month of March stance of, "MaSkS DoN'T WoRk - StAY iNSiDe, DoN'T LeAVe YoUr HoUsE." How quickly that's been forgotten. Then, they switched to, "Well,
only an N95-level mask or equivalent can mitigate spread" Then, it became "any ol' face covering" on April 22nd.
I remember this very well, because I had been keeping up with the events going on in Japan with the Diamond Princess cruise ship in January, well before Americans started paying attention. Despite tWo MoRE WeEkS every two weeks by Japanese and Western media, Shinzo Abe never shut Japan down, subways and train stations remained fully operational, schools started the new semester (beginning of April) and Japan never faced any major issues.
I remember distinctly eXpErTs saying cherry blossom season was going to cause a massacre throughout Japan, because there was no directive from the federal government for people to not travel. Lol Never happened.
I remember a Japanese biologist had a hell of a thread pointing out mask usage among the general population could likely be the significant difference between the Western countries and East Asian ones and a Japanese-American reporter lambasted him and told him Abe was going to kill hundreds of thousands and the 'only way to deal with this is for everyone to stay inside until the virus dies off.'
I remember talking to one of my cute ass Jamaican friends who teaches English and she was terrified, because schools were starting back at the beginning of April (Japanese students only missed the last two weeks of the school year in March.) I told her she'd be ok and lo and behold, she's fine for a year. Her students have been fine for a year. Her school has been fine for a year.
A lot of people don't know this, but the entire reason mask directives were given is because eXpErTs kept predicting Japan was going to collapse or whatever, but never did and that's when they stopped calling them "Asian voodoo" (I saw a reporter on Twitter call masks this last March) and started considering recommending their use.