A virus needs a host in order to exist for more than a couple hours. It needs us in order to grow and mutate. If we stop hosting this unwanted guest worldwide by some UN decree, it could disappear.
Since it can incubate quietly in people for up to 14 days, we just need everyone to be masked for about a month, in N95s or better, whenever leaving home, absolutely no exceptions. That means only take out food, no dining in. It also means no eating indoors in schools, which is tricky, and there's no month where there's no school worldwide. But I did outdoor supervision once kids were allowed to eat outdoors, in the middle of winter in Canada, and tons of them took advantage of it, so it's possible. It would not be a lockdown, just mandatory masking. It would significantly affect only a few businesses, bars and swimming lessons come to mind, but wouldn't it be worth it??
And look at all the other pathogens that mask stop as well:
Then why didn't the original lockdown work to end it?
Because it never was a true lockdown. We still went to the grocery store and other stores regularly, anywhere that sold anything resembling essentials, wearing just a cloth mask because we had to save N95s for healthcare staff. Or sometimes people wore no mask at all because we were so misinformed, and it was such a shitshow to correct it and finally say out loud that it's definitely airborne. When I went in to my school to help out in June 2020, admin and many staff members were wearing gloves but NO masks. And then when school started, we were all in baggy blue masks or cloth masks, and students HAD to eat indoors. They weren't allowed to leave the building during nutrition break while all students unmasked at once. Those first six months were our chance to stop it in its tracks, and we totally blew it.
But we could try again.
It's disheartening that it could work, but it won't because nobody will do it. No government will mandate it, and no organizations will want to enforce it, and there will be crowds of people fighting against it. We could slow it down dramatically with just 80% masking, and we can definitely keep trying to do that with obsessive word of mouth to give people the necessary knowledge to protect themselves, but we could eliminate it if 100% of people would be willing to endure being inconvenienced for a month.
But what about the animals??
Yup. You got me. So we could have eliminated it. Since it's already spreading in deer and mink and other animals, it might no longer be possible for a month long moratorium on any human spread to stop it cold.
But it might.
FYI: We've know about the benefits of masks since 1850:
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