Regarding Germany, masks, and Dr. Lauterbach’s 75%:
I wouldn’t put too much trust in the 75% figure by Dr. Lauterbach. He has used that exact figure since as early as March 2020 on twitter—mask wearing has become obligatory in many areas of public life at the end of April 2020 in Germany. Dr. Lauterbach (epidemiologist and politician) is probably the most hardline politician when it comes to fighting Covid in Germany (not a bad think from my perspective) so I think your remarks about Dr. Fauci and the Simulacra Level 2 apply to him, too.
And from what I am seeing mask compliance and social distancing in the public in Germany are quite high. E.g. I can’t remember having seen any customer in a grocery store without a mask for the last 6 months. On the public transport systems, too, the mask compliance seems to be quite high. And there are fines if you don’t comply, and they have been in place for months.
Here are parts of a press release by the public transport system of one of Germany’s metropolitan areas (Rhein-Main, Frankfurt) describing mask wearing checks since mid August, i.e. even at a time when the subjective threat level was quite low in Germany (ca. 1,000 diagnosed infections per day in Germany):
“50 days after the start of the campaign, the team has encountered more than 300,000 passengers. The result: Less than one percent of all passengers were travelling completely without any mouth and nose cover. A further almost 7 percent wore their cover incorrectly, for example under their noses. More than 88 percent of all passengers without or with incorrectly worn masks complied, corrected the fit of their mouth-nose-covering or accepted a mask from the prevention team.
The rate of mask refusers was less than one percent over the entire period. However, the number of passengers with incorrectly worn masks fell from just under seven percent to a good five percent over the course of September on regional rail services, for example.” RMV.DE
I think where social distancing and mask wearing hasn’t worked the last months are two specific areas: private life (including large weddings or funerals) and schools. In many parts of the school systems it was believed possible to stop forcing the students to wear masks after the summer. Not such a good idea. And the German school bureaucracies are the less efficient parts of the civil service, quite dysfunctional in some German states while the local schools in many cases don’t have the autonomy to decide for themselves to do more when it comes to infection prevention.
Regarding Germany, masks, and Dr. Lauterbach’s 75%:
I wouldn’t put too much trust in the 75% figure by Dr. Lauterbach. He has used that exact figure since as early as March 2020 on twitter—mask wearing has become obligatory in many areas of public life at the end of April 2020 in Germany. Dr. Lauterbach (epidemiologist and politician) is probably the most hardline politician when it comes to fighting Covid in Germany (not a bad think from my perspective) so I think your remarks about Dr. Fauci and the Simulacra Level 2 apply to him, too.
And from what I am seeing mask compliance and social distancing in the public in Germany are quite high. E.g. I can’t remember having seen any customer in a grocery store without a mask for the last 6 months. On the public transport systems, too, the mask compliance seems to be quite high. And there are fines if you don’t comply, and they have been in place for months.
Here are parts of a press release by the public transport system of one of Germany’s metropolitan areas (Rhein-Main, Frankfurt) describing mask wearing checks since mid August, i.e. even at a time when the subjective threat level was quite low in Germany (ca. 1,000 diagnosed infections per day in Germany):
“50 days after the start of the campaign, the team has encountered more than 300,000 passengers. The result: Less than one percent of all passengers were travelling completely without any mouth and nose cover. A further almost 7 percent wore their cover incorrectly, for example under their noses. More than 88 percent of all passengers without or with incorrectly worn masks complied, corrected the fit of their mouth-nose-covering or accepted a mask from the prevention team.
The rate of mask refusers was less than one percent over the entire period. However, the number of passengers with incorrectly worn masks fell from just under seven percent to a good five percent over the course of September on regional rail services, for example.” RMV.DE
I think where social distancing and mask wearing hasn’t worked the last months are two specific areas: private life (including large weddings or funerals) and schools. In many parts of the school systems it was believed possible to stop forcing the students to wear masks after the summer. Not such a good idea. And the German school bureaucracies are the less efficient parts of the civil service, quite dysfunctional in some German states while the local schools in many cases don’t have the autonomy to decide for themselves to do more when it comes to infection prevention.