@syag-lchochma Like everyone else in the universe, I consider myself to be pretty open minded. I generally change, or at least question, my worldview if it’s ever challenged. On this particular subject, though, I have yet to see anything even approaching a legitimate challenge. It’s like Flat Earth Theory or 9/11 Conspiracies. On one hand, there are tons of scientists and other experts giving a pretty reasonable explanation to things, on the other hand, there are a lot of random people on the Internet and “experts” that are often revealed to either be not experts of simply misquoted.

I’m inflexible not because I’m an inflexible guy, but because I haven’t yet seen a decent argument to sway me.

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.” – Terry Prachett

@syag-lchochma I learned a new phrase the other day called “The Paradox of Tolerance”. Basically, it means that you can’t put all sides of every argument on equal grounds, else we will be tolerating Nazis for their viewpoints. I find that this falls into that category. While I’m sure there are some health care professionals who aren’t as aggressive in recommending masks as others, I doubt there are many. And if there are any who say that wearing a mask makes no difference, there certainly isn’t enough to account for the sheer number of people who claim to quote them. I mean, the biggest frum doctors offices in Brooklyn, Monsey, and Lakewood have all advocated for mask wearing as much as possible. Whomever these alleged doctors are that say that masks don’t help at all certainly are a minority and don’t even begin to account for the sheer numbers of people who refuse to put on masks.

I think a lot of it comes from people hearing what they want to hear and ignoring the rest. A relative said to me the other day that he doesn’t wear a mask because he heard that a certain prominent doctor said that only a full hazmat suit will protect a person from COVID. I asked if Dr. Hazmat tells people not to wear masks, and what does he think of masks protecting well people from someone who is ill, and he didn’t have an answer.

The biggest raya that the Democrats didn’t cheat is that, despite tons of preparation, precautions, potential witnesses, lawyers, safe guards, and statisticians in place the GOP has yet to produce a single actionable piece of evidence. The best they were able to come up with was “we don’t have Republican witnesses at this particular point so we don’t know for sure that there wasn’t cheating”.

A room full of people when regulations in most states require reduced capacity indoors?

Don’t be ridiculous. Obviously it was at reduced capacity in accordance with the health guidelines. I think there were 50 people when the shul held 250.

Also, if the virus is transmitted via aerosols and not just large droplets, the masks would’ve become useless by Yishtabach as breath escaping the increasingly saturated masks became well mixed into the room air.

It’s mostly transmitted by large droplets. Aerosol transmission isn’t nearly as common. Sure it’s possible, but still a low enough chance to risk it.

He said hatzolah almost was called on Yom Kippur.

Read our follow up conversation. There are very very few people who have such difficulty with masks that they cannot wear them. Those people should stay away from others. For everyone else, the issue is just being uncomfortable.

The level of protection given by a mask for the wearer or others around the wearer is largely unknown, especially in non-clinical settings.

It’s more well known than you are choosing to acknowledge. Like I said before, there isn’t a legitimate health department in the world today who says not to wear masks. If I have a question in halacha, I ask a Rov and don’t question his reasoning. If I have a question about health, I ask a doctor. In this case, the doctors are saying “Wear a mask”.

Many of you are picking and choosing what mitzvos Bnei Noach you find issue with. If Trump were an open mishkav zachar, I doubt he would have any support from any frum community. But he’s “just” a mezaneh so it’s OK I guess?

@Abba_s What’s not to understand? Harris and Cuomo are politicians and put their politics before the health and wellbeing of their constitutes. They don’t want to acknowledge the vaccine, because it looks good for Trump!

If you won’t get vaccinated by choice, then it is your responsibility to stay away from people until herd immunity kicks in. I’m sorry, but that’s the harsh reality of the situation. Your choice, however informed, if it puts people in danger is something that you have to take into account when you make it. And it remains your responsibility to minimize that danger.

@SyagLchochma First off, I don’t live in NY. Second, my experiences about mirror what the CDC says are rates of hospitilizations due to COVID-19. Sure “only” one out of a thousand people who catch it die, but about a hundred times more than that are seriously ill, many of which end up in the hospital. CDC data, and the data from independent tracking sites, shows that there have been several million people admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 since March.

@SyagLchochma I’m going according to my own personal experiences where I know about 10 people who were hospitalized or seriously ill for every one that was niftar. Considering that over 250,000 people in the US died, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that millions of people were hospitalized for COVID-19.

@rightwriter I tried researching the topic, but I can’t seem to find anything legitimate. What has Gates and Fauci done in connection with the two current vaccines and the thousands of others that have been in development? And I still don’t understand what would be so bad. We need a vaccine. Millions of people in the US alone were severely ill or hospitalized from COVID-19. Without a vaccine, this will keep happening year after year. What possible dangers are there in an FDA approved vaccine that can be worse than what’s already happened and what’s bound to happen again? Personally, I am unopposed to capitalism. If some greedy people are making money or gaining power over something we need, then let them gain as long as we gain too.

@syag-lchochma What part about my answer did you find difficult to understand? In a sentence, everyone needs to wear masks because this is a situation that if you don’t have 100% compliance, you end up with close to 0% compliance.

I do not swear allegiance to anything other than Hashem and His Torah. I find that the Republican Party and the American Conservative stance is slightly closer to my allegiances than the Democratic Party. Therefore I am a political conservative. But, now here’s the kicker, that means I do not have to agree with everything the GOP does. And I certainly do not have to support everyone who calls themselves a Republican.

So just because I don’t support the particular mushchis who joins whatever party is convenient for himself, does not mean I am automatically in support of yenner party and the extremist positions of certain people on their.

Oh, and Trump himself once wrote an entire book called The American We Deserve advocating for universal single-payer healthcare. He only stopped voicing that opinion after 2010 when he realized that being a Republican suited his means more and the GOP doesn’t like universal healthcare.

@SyagLchochma I know I’m coming across as being motzei shem ra to a lot of Yidden in saying that their arrogance is killing people, that was not my intention. The majority of people I know who refuse to wear masks are because their city or community is very casual about COVID-19 in general and they just go with the flow. The leaders and askanim of these communities, on the other hand, I have a very hard time being dan l’kaf zechus on them. All they have to do is say “It is important to listen to what the doctors tell you about social distancing, hand washing, and face masks.” Instead, if they choose to say anything at all beyond empty platitudes of teffilah and nisyonos, it’s always “me me me me me”. “Wearing a mask makes me uncomfortable”, “I shouldn’t have to lock down if you feel in danger”. etc.

@SyagLchochma Before I answer you, can you not see how your lines of reasoning are a detriment? You are a very reasonable and intelligent person as I can see from our conversations. Which is why your comments sometimes baffle me.

There is a huge fight going on right now, between those who are worried about the health and well being of the oilom at large, and those who only care for themselves. As soon as you start questioning “Well logically I shouldn’t have to follow these rules…” you give ammo to those who don’t have Ray’us for their fellow bnei Adom and sneer and scoff with phrases like “99% survival rate”. “Just asking questions” is one of the most dangerous lines of reasoning out there and has been responsible for everything from the Reform movement to Holocaust denial.

But sadly, these questions need answers. I can talk for a while about percentages, issues of enforcement, and rates of recurrence, but I believe there’s a much simpler answer. Let me give you a moshol:

Why do thousands of race car drivers, that raced in professional circuits in extremely difficult situations, have to follow the speed limit?

The truth is that you can’t set rules for only some people. Either there is compliance or there isn’t. And as soon as there is a precedent of people who don’t have to follow the rules, you end up in very murky and very dangerous territory.

Can we look at someone without who is following science without condemning them as uncaring and not complying with science?

No. A mask is a silly, stupid, little item of clothing. It’s not difficult to wear, it doesn’t cause any sort of damage (yes, there is some psychological problems associated with mask wearing, but they are far outweighed by the benefits), they are cheap, and easy to find. So anyone who refuses to do this one silly little thing that can probably save lives is clearly either uncaring, or brainwashed by a community that is.

@theprophet You’re missing my point. If you don’t wear a mask, I am notsafe. Masks are not to protect yourself, they are to protect others from you. If you are too sensitive to wear a mask, then the only responsible thing would be for you to lock yourself down and not expose yourself to others.

I wear a mask because I care about you and don’t want to make you sick. Please wear a mask so that I don’t get sick either.

Dear @theprophet,

You are making a common error in your assumptions.

A mask won’t work to protect you if someone with COVID sneezes on you, that is right. But it protects others from your own sneezing COVID saliva by not allowing you to spread it.

Since we don’t know for sure who has COVID and who doesn’t, everyone should wear masks as a measure of Bein Adam LaChaveiro to make sure we don’t C”V accidentally make our friends ill.

In my personal, unasked for, and minority opinion: The frum community in NY could have just pretended for a few months that COVID-19 is a dangerous disease, insisted on mask wearing, socially distant shuls, Chasunas limited to less than 100 people and outside, etc.

Instead it was ignored, people died, and everyone was shocked when Cuomo and DeBlasio went nuclear.

Whatever damage a vaccine can cause is certainly less than COVID-19. Something like one out of every twenty people who get COVID have terrible, possibly permanent, damage. And out of those, one out of every 100 dies. There has never been a vaccine that has even come close to the damage that COVID-19 causes.

@etzhar

Is there fraud in this election?

Maybe. Unlikely to be more than any other election. And certainly not enough to swing the vote in any state.

Did Dominion software change the real result?

No evidence.

Why were votes withheld?

Only a small handful were caught in red tape. Still not enough to swing a state

Were some votes trashed?

No

how did so many Biden votes turn up in the middle of the night?

Not many, if any turned up at all

were the people stopped from observing?

No

Were votes included that arrived too late and were mainly for Biden?

Not in any statistically significant increase over the other mail in ballots.

If you dont get these questions answered, the election means nothing.

Well then there you go. I guess the election means something now.

@jewishcommonsense The lockdowns in March and April worked, but in NY they came too late. Cuomo and many frum communities deliberated a good week after Purim before shutting down, which is where most of the infections came from. Another issue was that huge swaths of frum people out and out ignored the lockdown, with “secret minyanim” and “underground weddings”. Compare New York to places that initially took it seriously, like Chicago or LA.

Yes

There was a line in “Binah” magazine last week that I’ve been saying for years. “If there’s a Shidduch crisis, it’s not causes by bachurim who don’t know a size 6 from 2, it’s caused by their mothers.”

Mizrahis love to gripe about Ashkenaz cooking. Lemme let you in on a little secret: Dumping a container full of cumin into everything does not make it better.

@syag-lchochma Ah I see now my mistake. I take it back. When I refer to “Corona Kofrim” I refer to people who actively deny that COVID-19 is an actual issue. Those people who claim it’s “just a flu” or something similar and refuse to do anything to mitigate any risk or damages that they may cause, no matter how small.

It actually is pretty close to 95%. There are other methods of transmission, sure, like by touch. But the overwhelming vast majority of people who got COVID got it from someone who they were in close proximity with inside and wasn’t wearing a mask. I made it a habit to ask people how they got it. “I talked to a guy outside of shul and we took our masks off. He came back from a Chasuna where no one was wearing a mask” “I got it from my son who got it from a friend” “I was in a Yeshiva dorm” “A shiva” etc.

How did the exceptions that you know about catch it?

@Effi I wish I wish! The problem is, like I’ve said before, that you’re viewing this as a machlokes where there are two legitimate sides. This is as much of a machlokes as the frum/Reform “machlokes”. There are some people who are making massive and grave errors and it is a responsibility of klal Yisroel to educate them.

@syag-lchochma When did I ever say “people who don’t think like me are killing people”?! I want line and verse and I will retract it immediately!

But I will say this and stand by it: People that have derided social distancing and masking, making big simchas, underground minyanim, and ignored the advice and pleas of our Rabbonim have killed people and are still doing so today. That’s not “my thinking”. That’s basic derech eretz and common sense.

Do people get sick even when wearing masks or keeping socially distant? Of course they do, I never denied that! But the masks and social distancing have been proven by a multitude of studies to drastically reduce the rate of infection. You keep harping on those miniscule number of cases where masks didn’t work as if that proves something. You’re acting as if something that is 95% effective isn’t effective at all because of that 5%.

@chan56 You cannot ignore the scientific articles I posted then claim “there’s a dearth of science”. They science is there. You’re just choosing to not look at it. You’re no different than a flat-earther in that sense. Sorry if I’m being harsh right now, but I have little regard for people who throw out Nazi comparisons to everything that makes them a little uncomfortable. Did Dr. Fauci line up Yidden and execute them? Did Joe Biden encourage “No Dogs Or Jews Allowed” signs?