A troubling turn in the public policy management of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the increasing tendency to justify interventions by assertions of scientific truth that bely the uncertainty of the evidence on which they are based. Nowhere, perhaps, is this more obvious than in the case of mandatory face masks in community settings…
Nothing that follows should be taken as an argument against the truly voluntary adoption of face masks by those who feel personally reassured by wearing them, regardless of the paucity of evidence. However, for masks to be mandated as an act of policy, whether by public or private interests, the bar must be set higher…
If we do not think it is acceptable to have our lives ordered in ways that discriminate against large sections of the population, that impair the development of children, that damage the mental health of the nation and that make each of us fearful of the other, then it is time to hold the advocates of masking to account for the quality of evidence. It is simply too fragile to justify coercive measures, whether by the state or by private actors…
A Social Science Space Blog