A significant and negative effect was found in the patients’ perception of the doctors’ empathy (CARE score reduction -0.98, p-value = 0.04). In the more established doctor-patient relationship, the effect of doctors’ mask wearing was more pronounced (CARE score reduction -5.67, p-value = 0.03).”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3879648/
PSYCHOLOGICAL
“Masking in Psychology is a process in which an individual changes or “masks” their natural personality to conform to social pressures, abuse, and/or harassment.”
https://mask.thebiointernet.com/masking-in-psychology/
“Far worse is what the mask is doing to us psychologically and socially cutting us off from each other and creating fighting amongst ourselves that would normally not be present. The mask war has turned ugly where some insist others must wear it to protect them and those that do not are selfish. The idea that a person must wear a mask to protect others … has (scientifically) not been proven to work! The media has been highly effective at pushing this narrative on the public twisting words and emotions to confuse people about what is right and wrong. Some people are still under the impression that the mask they are wearing protects them from getting the virus, but it does not!”
I have great appreciation for Dr. Bufka having the professional integrity to call the masking what it actually is. Here are her words:
“Lynn Bufka, a clinical psychologist and senior director for practice, research and policy at the American Psychological Association, suspects that people are clinging to masks for the same reason they knock on wood or avoid walking under ladders. “Even if experts are saying it’s really not going to make a difference, a little [part of] people’s brains is thinking, well, it’s not going to hurt. Maybe it’ll cut my risk just a little bit, so it’s worth it to wear a mask,” she says. In that sense, wearing a mask is a “superstitious behavior”: if someone wore a mask when coronavirus or another viral illness was spreading and did not get sick, they may credit the mask for keeping them safe and keep wearing it.”
https://time.com/5794729/coronavirus-face-masks/
A brief scan through YouTube can call up many videos that show people on both sides of the mask debate being very ugly toward each other just because someone either is or isn’t wearing a mask. This level of vitriol is being displayed in people who several months previously were quite civil towards each other. Somehow, the mask issue has taken on a life of its own. And, even though any evidence of any effectiveness of wearing a mask for protection against COVID – 19 has not been produced in any acceptable medical study, the fight rages.
When most things about our own personal safety are assigned to personal choice, especially if no actual proof can be made to support for or against, somehow this mask issue has been forced to the forefront and has been removed from the personal choice category. The only choice seems to be whether or not you want to be hassled or denied service – so just comply. Make the majority happy – conform to the tyranny.
What I have received the most from the “masker crowd” is severe criticism and name calling for the information I offer from a medical research standpoint. I have been called many names and blocked from supposedly open forums because of the information that I offer. People that I thought I knew and have been friends with for years, all of a sudden treat me as the latest pariah. I am told that I am ignorant, stupid, or even worse. Even though I have researched the subject extensively and have a medical background, somehow, that doesn’t matter. How can you change superstition by using facts? That seems to be a bridge too far.
My biggest concern with this whole issue is that people, who under normal circumstances have been very reasonable and engaging in reasonable debate, have now made such radical shifts in their personalities. “Fear is the mind killer!”