Banning masks means banning (a subset) of disabled people from public places without great risk to their health

Mayor of New York

I thought he was trying to reinstate a pre-Covid ban and it has exceptions for wearing masks for medical reasons?
- It’s not just about the disabled person, but anyone who lives with them needs to be wearing masks in public places because if they get sick it’s pretty hard to avoid spreading at home.
  Medical exemptions have never been good enough.
  
  I mean that whole idea is stupid. I'm still wearing masks on occasion. I don't want to spread my mild flu to all the coworkers in the office, crowded train etc... I think we should do it like in some asian countries, where you'd just stop the flu spreading to some degree. Since you can't stay at home all the time and that's kind of contagious...
  And the only benefit is that some dystopian total video surveillance keeps working...
  
  Super stupid. Most everyone who wears a mask wears it for medical reasons. It's none of our business whether they're disabled or just don't want to catch/spread a cold. It's not even our business if they're wearing it for non-medical reasons- I'm sometimes more comfortable in public in a mask and sunglasses so I don't have to autism-mask as much.
  
  I mean, masks are medical devices. That's kinda what they're for. Banning them is just supporting the disease.
  
  Sounds like a good case for Work From Home more than anything
Thx. Seems I'm not too bad off, not following the news that closely... 😔

North Carolina already passed the law.

https://apnews.com/article/masks-ban-north-carolina-campus-protests-128a6aa32a4c832faa83befb2e7dd77e

Nice... Using a law that was meant for the Ku Klux Klan to repress democratic routine and freedom. At least that one seems to be targeted at protests and not all every day life. And it contains exemptions. I'm just not sure if "we want to film the faces of everyone who doesn't agree with us" is a valid reason in a democracy. At least not on it's own and if there isn't some good reason to do it.
- At least that one seems to be targeted at protests
  You're celebrating that, rather than accidentally targeting immunocompromised people, it deliberately targets people exercising their constitutional right to dissent?
  
  Btw, like with abortion, any exemptions a GOP ban has will just be a fig leaf for the complicit media that's not going to be in effect in the vast majority of cases.
  
  ??? I'm not celebrating that. I'm saying it's "better" to target immunocompromised people the two times a year they go to a protest, than to target them every day in their daily lives. You could as well also ban them from protecting themselves in the supermarket or in the subway. And make their lives completely miserable. Going to protests happens more rarely, so it has lesser impact. But no. It's totally not good or acceptable either.
  
  It's going to affect immunocompromised people every day of the year regardless, whether it's supposed to or not.
  Infectious disease doesn't take a break because the cops "need" to identify "troublemakers" with their Orwellian spying on blameless people.
  Besides, making it unsafe for everyone who ever participates in a protest to be around anyone who's immunocompromised is a whole new level of oppression!
  
  I think we're talking at cross purposes... I 100% share your perspective. Same for me: Don't throw sick people under the bus. In fact, don't throw anyone under the bus. Don't cut down on freedom and democracy. Don't turn it into a total surveillance state just because you're a politician and took Orwell as an instruction manual.
  
  Fair enough heh. You have yourself a nice day 🙂
  
  My concern is the application of it. They could see three people in a crowd wearing masks who are legitimately needing to wear a mask and then arrest them saying the crowd was an impromptu protest or illegal gathering and they can then apply that new law to them.
  
  Sure. Wording and implementing a law, applying it, and the original (pretend) idea of what it's going to solve are two things. But if you can slip into an illegal gathering by accident, we have yet another problem and those laws aren't well-defined. I mean that's caprice. And we're supposed to live in a democracy, not depotism. So it's wrong either way.
  
  Clearly not what they were saying. You went out of your way to draw that conclusion.
  
  Not really, no. Read my subsequent response to their poorly thought out reply for more information.
  
  Of course, your reply was very well thought out.
  
  Yes, it was. Now leave me alone before you start your nonsense on me again.
  
  Yeah, that person wasn't smart enough to connect those dots on purpose. It was clearly an accident.
Lol what a bunch of reactionary hicks
The law allows people to wear medical or surgical-grade masks in public to prevent the spread of illness. Law enforcement and property owners can ask people to temporarily remove those masks to verify their identity.
Am I missing something, it looks like this law allows medical masks.
- The problem is that law enforcement doesn't do nuance like that. You know full well they will tear masks right off of disabled/immunocompromised people's faces (probably wrecking the mask forever) and point to the law as an excuse.
  There's no good reason to ban masks in general. The Healthcare CEO shooter wore a mask during the crime but the police still caught him.
  
  but the police still caught him.
  Allegedly...
- Ah yes, certainly this will never ever be abused by law enforcement ever.

Victoria government in Australia