Oh, yeah: by all means listen to epistemology sages like Jonahdog, when they tell you that you should listen to, and obey, the dictates of those whom they call "the experts" regarding what's best for YOU. (Don't bother to ask them WHY they call them "the experts" regarding what's best for YOU, however, unless all you want is to hear them respond by saying something amounting to no more than, "BECAUSE they are the experts".)
You got your ologies confused. Epidemiology. MDs, MPHs, PhDs etc who study disease transmission. They study the data, analyze it and try to understand it I am neither an epistemologist nor an epidemiologist, but my daughter is an MPH/MD, infectious disease specialist epidemiologist at a NYC hospital. I take my advice on covid issues from her because she is an expert by education, training AND experience, not just because she or I say so. (And the expertise in this area of this particular sheriff is???). Her hospital was overtaken by covid patients. Based on her experience---you do not want to get this bug. The infection rate appears now, months later, to be on the down slope in NYC and her hospital. WHY? the NYC lockdown and masks/social distancing. Masks and social distancing work; see this study in The Lancet,
https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/233365.php. The disease is transmitted via the air for the most part therefore limiting exposure from someone who is infected is important. Limiting exposure to contaminated water is important in limiting the spread of cholera--do people complain about water treatment, after a flood if you are told to "boil your water" before drinking or cooking is there an out cry? Are you being a sheep when you do that?
Perhaps we do not hear complaints about water treatment because it does not normally impact day-to-day life and mask wearing and social distancing do. Well, "cowboy up, put on your long pants". Masks and social distancing appear to slow the transmission and limit the spread of this disease. Doing that may affect your life in some minor degree but it protects other people. Wear a bandana, will make you feel like a bad a** (cant believe I used ** to avoid TOL censors) , wear a mask with your favorite sports team logo (Yankees-a Father's Day present from my personal epidemiologist). Show respect for your fellow human beings. Masks and social distancing protect others more than you. And that is bad, why?
So what is the issue? Wearing a mask interferes with which particular Constitutional right? this is a public health/public safety issue. One of the main purposes of government is to protect the populace. One of the purposes of the Constitution is to "promote the general Welfare". And here is another interesting issue, I think under the 10th Amendment, the ability to require masks etc, does not belong to the Federal government (sorry Joe) but to the states, it is part of the police powers that the states have . See this from Wiki "The authority for use of police power under American Constitutional law has its roots in
English and European common law traditions.
[3] Even more fundamentally, use of police power draws on two (Latin) principles,
sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas ("use that which is yours so as not to injure others"), and
salus populi suprema lex esto ("the welfare of the people shall be the supreme law"), to justify restriction of individual liberties in order to protect the general welfare.
[3] The concept of police power in America was further expanded in a series of notable court cases in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, including the landmark 1851
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case
Commonwealth v. Alger, and the 1905
Supreme Court case
Jacobson v. Massachusetts." Jacobson is applicable because it approved mandatory vaccinations for school children as an appropriate use of the police powers by the State.
I've said enough, much more than my usual snarky response, and at 6 am I hope it makes sense. Finally I suggest we all reread Luke 10:29-37, the parable of the Good Samaritan.