Really?
The people in the office you work have assumed that risk? The person walking past you in the supermarket has assumed that risk? The cashier at the check out counter has? The cashier's elderly mother who she lives with has?
The problem is, you can't realistically isolate your actions to only hurt yourself. They impact everyone. We aren't a land of rugged individuals. We're human beings and we live in a complicated social web of dependencies on each other.
Ok the problem with this is that you aren't endangering yourself by not wearing a mask, you are endangering other people, that's the point that is being made.
So to basically flip it right back on you, if you are concerned about drunk driving, just don't drive drunk, that is your right. I will however perform my own risk assessment and drive in whatever state I feel personally comfortable with.
ETA: And people are very bad at risk assessment. Unbelievably bad. You want to go swimming in shark infested water because you've done your own risk assessment? Go ahead. You want to release a bunch of sharks (with lasers) into the public pool because you've done your own risk assessment and deemed it not risky? No thanks.
Both of these posts are nice summaries as to why most COVID precautions to "slow the spread" are exponentially more detrimental to poor people than privileged people. They get to do zero risk assessment whatsoever while they stock your shelves and bag your groceries.
This was the biggest argument against lockdowns and other less stringent isolation measures prior to COVID.
Look at this 108 page CDC document from 2007 -- https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/11425
It thoroughly discusses the pros and cons of various policies, from masks to social distancing to closing schools to home isolation. Unfortunately, discussing the "cons" has somehow become aligned with "TRUMP" because, well, who knows.
Read it for yourself, but COVID is quite clearly a "Category 2" Pandemic. We are implementing Category 5 protocols, and all of you guys are using Category 5 logic. Why?
I don't have time to read a 108 page document (or the revised 36 page document) fully and respond, so I have just a few comments.
That document was updated in 2017, so we should be using the updated version.
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/45220Yes "somehow" it became aligned with "TRUMP" because who knows? I mean besides every single person that watched him downplay the pandemic at every opportunity, calling it a hoax, claiming it will miraculously just disappear multiple times with no evidence, stressing that the CDC recommendation to wear a mask was
voluntary and he would not be wearing a mask, and also making fun of people that wear masks. Complete mystery as to how wearing a mask was politicized and Trump became associated with anti-mask.
How is this clearly a category 2 pandemic? That chart says "Assumes 30% Illness Rate and Unmitigated Pandemic Without Interventions". (and this system doesn't even appear to be in the revised document)
237k+ deaths, 9.6M+ cases -
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/237k/9.6M =~ 2.5% CFR, right? And that's with severe mitigation. I mean we're on page 90 of this thread whose entire purpose is people bitching about the mitigation strategies and how much freedom it's taking from them. The original estimate from imperial college was 2.2M deaths in the USA if no mitigation was taken.
This seems like a pretty severe pandemic to me, and it's not over.
Also the same organization you are linking to is currently recommending mask usage.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html