en-us

To add to this, there is a book called The Body Keeps the Score that dedicates several of its chapters to exploring the physiological consequences of trauma. Some of the changes are quite profound and I have a hard time believing that just one or two hundred years of evolution would have an appreciable effect in this matter. We can't teleport a combat veteran from antiquity into an fMRI but either the findings would be the same or something very profound changed in the human brain in a very short period of time and it went unnoticed.

I think it is far more likely that people either didn't discuss these things due to stigma, or they conceptualized it as the haunting of demons and ghosts since severe cases of PTSD can cause split personalities and convulsions and things like that.

As opposed to public outcry from them saying masks don't work while countries with mask usage fare better?

That is exactly why I already had masks. I've kept a small stash since the Ebola epidemic.

I read a paper on this last week but I can't find it at the moment. However I recall them polling people on mask usage, and pre-SARS it was single digits percentage, post-SARS it was 85-90%.

We could improvise them though. I know in Hong Kong they have asked people to improvise using layered paper towels and tissues because those are readily available nonwoven fabrics.

It isn't as good as the real thing, but done at the population level I expect it would lower the reproductive value of the virus and thus help flatten the curve.

I have been asking myself the same question. I think it comes down to two reasons:

1. Masks are in short supply and they believed they could save them for healthcare workers by convincing the general population they don't work.

2. If you are measuring efficacy, the general population won't reach the same level as a healthcare worker because they have not been professionally fitted and trained in on/off procedures. So instead of reducing risk by 95% the average person would see something like a 70% reduction, and they decided "perfect is better than good enough".

I will not be surprised if mask usage becomes normalized in Western cultures after this, just as happened in Asian cultures after SARS.

What you say is directly contradicted by the researchers at University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital, as detailed in my link above.

Can you cite a study that supports your claim?

The people in at-risk groups are people too. You're acting like their lost lives don't matter.

Perhaps partition your hard drive then and dual boot? Then reclaim the Windows partition after the program is no longer needed.

Regardless of whether or not you are right, this is just not an appropriate way to respond to someone who has just shared a trauma. This is a case of "if you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all".