Saturday scenery: masked city

We not only wear masks ourselves around here; our icons wear them. If your cultural competence needs a prompt as much as mine, that's Tony Bennet belting out "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" in front of the Fairmont Hotel.

Most of us believe the science. And many of us would happily inconvenience ourselves to follow where it leads us.

Wearing masks is really important for reducing coronavirus transmission. A study by a team of five researchers out of Hong Kong and several European universities calculates that if 80 percent of a population can be persuaded to don masks, that would cut transmission levels to one-twelfth of what you’d have in a mask-less society. Widespread use of masks is likely part of the reason Japan’s coronavirus outbreak has been mild thus far, and grassroots mobilization starting with masks is almost universally seen as part of the Hong Kong success story.

For the broad population, the key fact is that while wearing a mask does little to protect the wearer from the risk of getting infected, it does a lot to prevent the risk that the wearer spreads the virus to other people. Consequently, an interdisciplinary Yale team featuring biologists, medical doctors, economists, and public health specialists calculates that “the benefits of each additional cloth mask worn by the public are conservatively in the $3,000-$6,000 range due to their impact in slowing the spread of the virus.” And the benefits of professional-grade masks for health care workers may be even higher.

Matthew Yglesias, Vox

Rogue street artists who have had a field day decorating our boarded up storefronts offer their own cultural commentary. Their ambiguous tribute seems fitting now that masks have become a symbol of partisan division. Trump thinks he might be un-manned by wearing a mask. Not so; he's a pathetic specimen with or without one.

Wearing a mask when you’re among other people isn’t about being afraid. It’s about being considerate. You’re reducing the risk to the people around you.

Not wearing a mask isn’t brave, it’s rude and selfish.

— Darcy Burner (@DarcyBurner) May 16, 2020

Marni Sweetland photo

I wear a buff when running, pulling it up when I see other runners coming. If the parks remain as crowded as they are now, I'll become used to breathing through it. I wear a mask when Walking San Francisco unless there is no one in sight. I guess I'll be wearing a mask for the next 18 months.