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I am continually surprised at how many people don’t wear masks at places like the grocery store even as cases are rising. I got covid over the summer and it was

• rajup 4y ago
  Masks are unlikely to have protected you much unless it’s a tight fitting n95 mask worn around the clock. This topic has been beaten to death on here, not sure why people continue to cling on to masks as anything other than security theater.
  • aaroninsf 4y ago
    Because it's not security theater, as has been demonstrated time and again FFS It's trivially easy to acquire authentic N95s today. People just won't wear them, so, we all suffer.
    • fullmoon 4y ago
      Austria has mandated N95s for months. No improvement in comparison to neighboring countries could be demonstrated. Mostly because it was pure theater and no attempt at proof was even made.
      • jeffbee 4y ago
        You can't do a study that way. People do or do not wear masks based on emergent social acceptance, regardless of government actions. If you want to do a discontinuity study you have to evaluate actual mask usage in the real world and discover a boundary discontinuity. You can't just do it by jurisdiction and assume that the government proclamations work. People wear masks when they aren't required, and they may not wear them when they are required.
        • fullmoon 4y ago
          I’m well aware. Yet we’ve been hearing since the beginning of 2021 that they’ve been proven to have been much more efficient by the coalition parliament which has come up with this idea.
    • adamsb6 4y ago
      The evidence is pretty mixed, and even the studies showing the strongest effects have mask wearing yielding something like a 50% reduction in transmission. I haven't seen anyone model what this looks like on longer timescales. Does this mean that you're just delaying the inevitable? If so, and the disease is mild and we're not going to overwhelm hospitals with the infected, what's the benefit?
  • jonahhorowitz 4y ago
    I wear a flomask every day when I'm out and about and it works great. You don't need to wear it "around the clock." You just need to wear it when you're inside and there are people around you who might be infected.
  • basch 4y ago
    The primary mechanism these things are spread by is water droplets in the air expelled from the nose and mouth. A sick person wearing a mask will expel more moisture into the mask, and less into the air. None of this is binary. It's not sick or not sick. There is a viral load component, where a persons body can fight off a certain amount of virus.
    • endisneigh 4y ago
      Someone sick should be staying home, not going into grocery stores with a mask on.
      • jonahhorowitz 4y ago
        You're contagious for 2 days before you have symptoms. You should wear a mask if you're around other people.
        • basch 4y ago
          Not disagreeing. I am pointing out the mask is to block the spreader, moreso than shield the recipient.
        • endisneigh 4y ago
          People should wear a mask if they’d like, yes. But ultimately social distancing and getting vaccinated is the best strategy.
      • roflyear 4y ago
        Sure, if you KNOW you're sick. Often you are contagious without feeling sick. Or maybe you just feel a LITTLE sick but still go to the store.
      • sn0wf1re 4y ago
        How else would they get food? Not everyone can afford to order in. Is your opinion that these people should just starve?
  • uhtred 4y ago
    Masks are primarily for protecting other people, you cough and sneeze and breathe out infected water droplets into the mask- not other people's faces. Why do people like you have such anger about mask wearing?
    • gjsman-1000 4y ago
      > not other people's faces Well, in that case, it's easy. Other people who are concerned can wear a mask, and said water droplets will land on their mask instead of their face. Problem solved, we have no conflict. As for why we hate it, here's a good reason for me personally. I have to wear glasses, as I have an extreme prescription coupled with astigmatism. It's so bad LASIK is (or at least, was) high-risk. Wearing a mask with glasses is a miserable experience - you can't stop fogging them up without touching your mask every several minutes to adjust it, defeating the point because you're not supposed to touch it. In which case, wearing a mask (for me) is a self-defeating exercise. There are other reasons but that's my personal biggest one.
  • justin66 4y ago
    > worn around the clock I'm reluctantly curious what your thinking is on that.
  • deanc 4y ago
    At this point, I’d tend to agree. However, this is a bit of a broad and inaccurate statement. Wearing masks gave society time to catch up in terms of vaccinations and other measures.
    • spookthesunset 4y ago
      • KerrAvon 4y ago
        • ryandrake 4y ago
          OP has entered basically every COVID thread since 2020 to make the same kinds of comments. I guarantee, you're not going to dissuade him. You're exactly right, though, COVID and its associated "symbols" like masks have turned into a weirdly politico-religious topic for some.
      • ipaddr 4y ago
        Masking saved thousands of lives from other illnesses. Keep your dna to yourself and mask up
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    Protection isn't binary. At society scale these small changes add up.
• tmaly 4y ago
  I think washing hands and not touching your face are something that is very underrated.
  • gumby 4y ago
    Yes, though those don't help so much with illnesses transmitted through breathing
• fullmoon 4y ago
  We Europeans are continually surprised that talking about masks is still a thing.* Except for 1 or 2 outlier countries masking is over. * Unless they are familiar with U.S. politics
  • morsch 4y ago
    Small outlier countries like Germany, where I still see masks regularly in various settings, and where FFP2 masks are either still mandatory in public transport or just stopped being mandatory a few days ago. Also mandatory in doctor's offices, hospitals.
    • fullmoon 4y ago
      Yes, Germany is one of those few outliers in the 27 EU countries / Europe 44. Land mass or self-perceived importance from within notwithstanding. The result of Germany’s remarkable interventions is remarkable in its mediocrity.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    • rayiner 4y ago
      To be fair, Germans are famously paranoid about health. Are you keeping your kidneys covered so you don’t catch a cold?
      • fnordpiglet 4y ago
        I know plenty of people who bundle up warm against the cold but refuse to wear a mask to prevent the cold. Convenience over effectiveness.
      • morsch 4y ago
        Germans are famously paranoid about health?
    • akavi 4y ago
• dxhdr 4y ago
  I'd rather be sick for 2 weeks than wear a mask every day. Surveying those around me I'd say 98% came to the same conclusion.
  • Diederich 4y ago
    Being sick two weeks is a very clear cost. Less clear are the long-term costs associated with long-covid. How would you characterize the costs associated with wearing a mask most of the time when in public?
    • dxhdr 4y ago
      > How would you characterize the costs associated with wearing a mask most of the time when in public? I tried it for a year and it's dehumanizing. Not sure how you'd rate that vs the unknown chance of long covid but I've made my choice.
      • spookthesunset 4y ago
        It’s sad you get downvoted. Mask wearing is incredibly dehumanizing in my opinion. It is a symbol of fear and control. It never ever should never have been mandated, only recommended.
        • throwaway290 4y ago
          Think about it. It's only a symbol of control and dehumanizing if you don't want to do it. Is waiting at a red light or wearing clothes in public dehumanizing or a symbol of control? If not then what makes masks different? And you don't want to do it because you can't see every X person who caught the virus dropping dead in front of you, since all negative consequences happen out of sight and come back at you with statistics months later you simply can't bring yourself to care, that's all.
          • aakresearch 4y ago
            Of course I don't want it. Why would I? It is like demands for intercourse from random strangers, claiming you're immoral for not caring about "benefits" for THEM. Mask IS dehumanizing, and IS a symbol of control, just like any forced sexual activity. Why breathing and face are suddenly considered less sacred than nether zone? "What makes it different", from masks, or pants, or waiting the red light? If consensual sex between lovers is a wonderful and most natural experience ever, with all soothing and healing aspects, why it is not appropriate to make it mandatory under some circumstances? Even more, why breaching sexual consent even in minor way is considered worse-than-murder in some cultures? Wearing mask is as revolting as sex against one's natural "orientation". If someone thinks this is unreasonable and one should "get help" to "fix" it, I remind them that they may be fighting against strongly held "identity" belief. "Conversion therapy" is being declared evil, for some valid reasons. And I won't even say how I feel about forced, mandatory mask wearing.
• spookthesunset 4y ago
  There is more to life than a myopic focus on avoiding one specific illness. I’ve got a million other problems in my life to worry about. Catching Covid isn’t anywhere near the top of that list. This applies to society as a whole as well. The damage caused by our incredibly myopic focus on Covid is far, far greater than the damage actually caused by the virus itself.
  • KerrAvon 4y ago
    • howinteresting 4y ago
      Long flu and long pneumonia are definitely a thing.
    • anon_coward_ghk 4y ago
      I am a resident doctor and based on my reading and general gestalt most healthy people aren't likely to get "long covid". Also confounding, a significant portion of long covid seems to be a mental health diagnosis (as evidenced by https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/09/depression-anxiety-may-escalate-chances-of-long-covid-says-study/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/09/depression-an...). People who are anxious / depressed are reporting they have "long covid". This same group is more likely to report physical disabily for other reasons eg non-specific back pain.
  • ipaddr 4y ago
    Wear a mask and stop getting other viral illnesses. We should have been doing this before covid.
    • jeffbee 4y ago
      I haven't even had a cold in years. Masks are brilliant. I even prefer to wear one now while bicycling, even though there is no health reason to wear one outdoors, just because it keeps my nose warm.
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• orblivion 4y ago
  Are cases really rising? It looks maybe a little higher than the summer right now, maybe depends on the area. Nothing like the last two autumns, thankfully. We'll see about winter. They keep saying some new variant is going to break through but I don't see it yet.
  • ABCLAW 4y ago
    In my area, cases are rising fairly rapidly and certain hospitals have begun to rescheduling electives on the basis that they're overstressed. This is concerning because winter is just getting started and transmission rates when people are indoors are higher. That said, I think the seasonal wave we're anticipating is a product of when our winter hits and how hard our winter hits - other areas might have very different experiences overall.
  • asiachick 4y ago
    looks like they were highest ever in the SF Bay area just 1 week after Thanksgiving but they've fallen quickly https://covid19.sccgov.org/dashboard-wastewater https://covid19.sccgov.org/dashboard-wastewater
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  I hear you but I'm only going to mask up if required. I've gotten 4 COVID vaccines, caught COVID, and I've never missed a flu vaccine.
• kitsunesoba 4y ago
  I hear you. Having seen family who's suffered from brain fog and greatly reduced stamina ever since getting over covid, I want absolutely nothing to do with it. The fact that it has the potential to so negatively impact my means of earning a living as a developer (my mental faculties) makes it terrifying. If I lose that, I have nothing. It'd be like a carpenter losing dexterity in their hands. Anything that can reduce my chances of a severe outcome or even coming down with it in the first place is worth it in my book.
• gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Never again. Caught COVID, vaccinated friends also caught COVID, vaccinated individuals are now 58% of hospitalizations, and long term effects of both long COVID and having microplastics embedded in your lungs are both unknown. However, long COVID is just long, but microplastics are forever. I've chosen to be mask-free and anyone who doesn't like that can mask themselves.
• rayiner 4y ago
  For vaccinated individuals, being sick for two weeks is unusual. When I got covid the first time, before vaccines were available, I was sick less than a week. I had a few weeks of brain fog after that but it cleared up. I got it again last week and I was sick for only a day. Not any worse than any cold I’ve had before. Indeed I’ve had fewer sick days the last couple of years than I did the year my daughter started daycare. I’m not going to go around wearing a mask all the time to avoid a couple of days of cold symptoms every other year. Getting colds is part of the human condition.
  • gernb 4y ago
    • ABCLAW 4y ago
      While I understand the sentiment of saying that a purely individual perspective is egregious, selfish, myopic and inappropriate for a situation in which individual selfishness can cause extensive social harm, it's not a good look to tell people that you hope their loved ones die. I don't hope their loved ones die, I hope they become better.
      • rayiner 4y ago
        I’m not coming from an “individual perspective.” I wore masks the whole time because I’m an obedient Asian who will do whatever social convention requires. But now the prevailing social consensus is to not wear masks, and I think that’s correct. It’s anti-social to not wear a mask when society has decided to do so. But it’s perfectly fine for society to decide to prioritize normal interactions over safety and abandon the social convention of masking.
        • ABCLAW 4y ago
          >It’s anti-social to not wear a mask when society has decided to do so. Sure, because the efficacity of mask usage increases with adoption. The logic works in one direction, though, not both. >I’m not going to go around wearing a mask all the time to avoid a couple of days of cold symptoms every other year. This is the point I was referring to. Would you wear a mask if you had a cold and doing so could prevent other people from getting your infection? If other people wearing a mask while symptomatic could save you months of healthy time over the course of your life, would you reciprocate in turn? More importantly, if evidence was provided that the risks to mitigate were significantly worse than 'cold symptoms' would your calculus change?
• neilv 4y ago
  I think an additional benefit of the masks is that they signal something about the person's Covid conscientiousness -- which I suspect affects how likely they are to be a carrier, and how likely they are to be careful about spreading it if they are. (Though that signal didn't help me in Trader Joe's the other day, when one of the few employees wearing a mask (only surgical), turned out to have a phlegmy cough. In that case, I imagine the logic might've been, "You're obviously sick and probably spreading something, maybe Covid? We don't pay you to stay home. Strap on the least effective mask you can find, which suddenly we believe in, and get out there and superspread among shoppers!" :( )
  • rajup 4y ago
    An additional way to virtue signal is a benefit? Weird world we live in…
    • neilv 4y ago
      Signalling as communication of information (e.g., "I'm following these practices, which tells you something about what to expect about things that might be important to you"). Not the "virtue signalling" meme talking point to dismiss.
• xkbarkar 4y ago
  The only people I see wearing masks are American tourists in the airports ( last 6 weeks Gardemoen, Kastrup , Keflavik, Arlanda ) Duck bill mask clad Germans generally stay in Germany. And they look insane. Like warning signs of nature insane. Public announcements in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, from epidemiologists and ICU doctors recently is to stay the <f**> home if you are sick. If sick dont go out wearing a mask since it protects no one and, even if immuno compromized, live like you did in 2019 you are not protected wearing a flimsy surgical facemask and you need to socialize and not lock yourself up for the rest of your days. And once you are not sick anymore, go back to work. Don't bother the currently overloaded hospitals unless something is very wrong, you know when your cold/flu is over. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/overlakaren-restriktioner-har-ingen-effekt https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/overlakaren-restriktioner.... https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vasterbotten/smittskyddslakaren-i-vasterbotten-om-snabbtesten-bra-att-folk-tar-ansvar https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vasterbotten/smittskyddsla.... Use common sense. So no , presumably democrat american internet stranger. Dont wear a mask, If sick stay at home. Dont go out, face covered, and think you have saved a life. Mask is pointless. Hand washing still applies though. Don't think handwashing has been controversial since dr. Ignaz Semmelweis in 1865 was declared insane and put in an asylum by the medical establishment for suggesting that hand washing prevented doctors from spreading disease between their patients.
  • quarterdime 4y ago
    Your suggestion of staying home if sick is one I agree with. Unfortunately I cannot make others do this. In fact, where I live in the USA I come across people who are visibly/audibly ill in my daily life: air travel, public transport, grocery store, and so on. I would prefer if these people stayed home, but can I make them? I can wear a mask, and I do (typically N95 in public places). If others think I look crazy, that is a small price to pay to avoid a few weeks of being sick or infecting someone else. Particularly my vulnerable family members.
  • TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    If the other people around me actually followed that guidance you might have a point… except that covid is transmissible even before you get sick and even when you never do get sick. So people can’t stay home if they don’t know they’re contagious. And again, people don’t follow the guidance either. I also don’t wear a surgical mask, I wear a KN95 because I’m not a fool.
• landemva 4y ago
  You got actual covid and recovered, then did you get blood test to check for development of antibodies? Then you later got the shot for what purpose?
  • amalter 4y ago
    Caught a medium severity case of omicron almost exactly a year ago when I was triple vax'd. Took the bivalent booster about 2 months ago then went on a cruise and directly after to re:invent. Since then had multiple exposures with people around me getting week long fevers. So far I had something in my system that made me feel "slightly off" - but nothing worse. Yay antibodies. I'm a big believer in "more antibodies the better" - but I am also on the side of "COVID amnesty". The pandemic was an immensely scary time for everyone, and got co-opted by politics of all stripes. We need to forgive each other and move on. I now support everyone's choice - with the standard exceptions (Childhood vaccines, don't go out when sick, respect others).
    • landemva 4y ago
      > The pandemic was an immensely scary time for everyone I was in a truck fixing heavy equipment at mines, construction sites, oil & gas pads, and the only thing that changed was I could calculate drive time based on mileage because most everyone was at home. I didn't get fake safety gear or a big bonus check for sitting at home. Not everyone was scared. Mine sites were great because behind the gate everyone was normal. Unlike the OSHA scaremongers, MSHA eventually released guidance which said roughly, "Policies to stay home when sick are always in effect and miners are always safe and keep being safe. And safety." One mine site had their yearly pig roast with tables under a tent that Spring, and everyone was shoulder to shoulder, no masks, no gloves, no gel stations. It was awesome.
• deleted 4y ago
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