@MadeAliyah The “default position” flew out the window when there was something called a “global pandemic” and “millions literally dying”. At that point the “default position” became “whatever experts said that would help mitigate the situation”. The experts were near-unanimously saying that if most people wear masks, the deaths would drop significantly. So to contradict that, you would need a very VERY good reason.
You keep getting back to the flu and I keep having to explain myself again. I actually did a lot of thinking back when your first made your comparison and looked up some details and statistics. You’re right, there’s no good number for “acceptable losses”. Especially when something as simple as wearing a mask can prevent it.
But, and I repeat myself, according to the experts, (unless there’s a flu epidemic going around) wearing a mask is just overkill. You can prevent people from dying from the flu by just using some seichel. Like don’t go to the supermarket when you’re running a fever. Or don’t bring your sniffling sneezing kids to visit Saba at the nursing home.
So we’re getting back to our speed limit analogy. Experts have determined safe speeds on the streets. That will not prevent all vehicle deaths, because bad mazal will still happen. Changing the speed limit to 5 KPH (nimshol: wearing masks for the flu) everywhere won’t stop people from ramming their bikes into buses, or falling under a car wheel. So we have safe speed limits and I think we are both in agreement that those are there for a reason and it’s a darned good one. But then we get to your logic of “personal liberties” (a concept completely foreign to Yiddishkeit) which sounds like taking Libertarianism to the extreme (Randism?). The concept of a society that cannot prevent people from doing things that is a danger to others is just broken and wrong. So Israel, the US, and almost every non-Somalian country in the world saying that people have to drive the speed limit (nimshol: wear masks during the worst pandemic in a century) is the right thing to do.
What I don’t get is this. Rabbonim and Rebbetzins have been standing up in front of their kehal for generations and telling people how to dress. Especially women. Often that way of dress is extremely difficult and uncomfortable. So why when it came to telling kehillos to wear masks did a lot of people balk and say “You can’t tell me what to do!”.