9 ms·
Man, I live in the Bay Area, and my neighbors still do this shit.
by floren 3y ago
Man, I live in the Bay Area, and my neighbors still do this shit.
- wincy 3y agoI saw someone driving alone in their car wearing a mask two days ago. I live in Kansas.
- floren 3y agoOh that's daily around here still. Absolutely baffling to me, I could handle wearing a mask when I needed to but you bet your ass I was removing it as soon as I got outside because it's really quite unpleasant. I've got a neighbor who wears a mask to move his trash can the 20 feet from the inside of his garage to the pavement just outside. He also wears the mask when driving alone in his car. COVID definitely broke some brains.
- MyHypatia 3y agoSometimes I wear a mask to keep the sun off my face or if there is a lot of pollen or dust outside.
- RC_ITR 3y agoUsually that person is an Uber driver between fares.
- wincy 3y agoMaybe! I haven’t driven with an Uber driver in the last year that was wearing a mask. Then again the only places I’ve been to in the last year are Florida and Kansas so it’s for sure not representative of the nation as a whole.
- gumby 3y agoThey could be an uber driver, or someone moving their car a short distance while shopping. Otherwise, I do find that weird and I am an ardent masker. Actually, come to think of it, the other day I drove home that way because I just forgot to take it off when I left the supermarket. So there are non-weird explanations. I doubt they account for all the cases.
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago[flagged]
- fredsmith219 3y agoNot the poster, but I am immunocompromised. So I mask.
- ianai 3y agoI just plum read too much about immunology and pathogens during the pandemic. Plus being able to opt out of pollen and flu season is just a duh, why not. Yes our bodies are good at fighting off stuff. Doesn’t mean I need to roll the dice with everything all the time.
- gumby 3y agoI’m fully vaccinated but Covid cases are still widespread (I’ve never had it). There’s no need to risk the ans yet not understood sequelae. Plus I don’t get colds any more
- irrational 3y agoProbably either forgot or it wasn’t worth the trouble since they were on a short drive between locations.
- dwringer 3y agoI would regularly leave my mask on in the car just from being too lazy to take it off and put it back on again in the span of 15 minutes. I definitely had a couple of instances where people who saw me drive by yelled something at me in anger about how I had it on. I am kinda surprised to see a similar complaint crop up in a thread on HN. I'd usually forget I had it on anyway. I guess some people count down the seconds until they can rip it off and have what they perceive as "freedom"?
- wincy 3y agoI’m not yelling at people. I’m just pointing out something that seems abnormal. I personally think normalizing voluntarily wearing masks is great as it makes it acceptable to wear them on airplanes, and service workers who want are free to mask up where you would have been seen as a crazy person pre pandemic. It makes sense to wear a mask when you’re on an airplane or if you’re a service worker in constant contact with the general public. Now for me personally wearing a mask was almost impossible to ignore because I wear glasses, so my glasses were constantly fogging up and it was a huge hassle and nearly unbearable over the course of a day, so in my mind it’s extra surprising to see people wearing masks when they’re alone and in my mind it doesn’t make much logical sense to do so.
- drdec 3y agoI used to do that when I masked because when I took the mask off, my facial hair would get activated and itchy. So if I weren't at a place where I could wash my hands, I just kept the mask on as it was easier to keep my hands off my face that way.
- netcraft 3y agoThey could be thinking ahead so they dont forget it when they get to their destination. They could have forgotten it when they got in the vehicle from their last destination. There may be a kid in the back seat you couldn't see that they are trying to protect (or protect themselves from). I personally don't understand why this is remarkable. In no way are they hurting or affecting you. Why does it matter to you if they mask?
- gumby 3y agoNot sure what the Bay Area has to do with this. I never considered doing that kind of thing but I am still masking when around other people. I'm currently traveling and still see plenty of others doing the same.
- buildsjets 3y agoWhat amazes me is that some people choose to continue 100% masking for various reasons, but wear ineffective or poor fitting cloth masks or generic flat surgical masks with huge gaps, when comfortable and effective N95s from name brands are readily and inexpensively available. Or they just chin-diaper.
- revelio 3y agoWhy is that amazing? Masking is a social phenomenon at this point. It's about showing other people what sort of person you are, not about the mask itself.
- lisasays 3y agoIt may make you feel comfortable to believe that's why they mask. But (knowing many people who still mask, under varying circumstances) -- that's not why they mask.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoWhy do they mask then? It seems a little hard to psychologically disentangle what one does for social approval vs for other reasons. For example, maybe it feels emotionally uncomfortable to not mask. Is it because the subconscious is worried about disease, or because the subconscious is worried about social approval? Probably some of both, but if we removed one perhaps the external behavior would change, hard to tell. Also IME it seems to cluster with other appearance related traits (e.g. type of dress, mannerisms, etc).
- lisasays 3y agoI think you're overthinking this, especially as to hidden psychological motivations. The primary reason some people still mask is very simple: For anyone who follows basic science, not what the crowd is doing -- N95 masks in enclosed / crowded situations are still a good idea, especially for those of a certain age. Many people continue to wear useless (or only marginally) useful masks, and in non-crowded situations (even way out in the open). Which of course ranges from silly to, at best, only marginally useful. However it seems safe to suppose that they're doing so primarily out of strictly rational concerns (however faulty their understanding of better masking practices may be). Some partially, or entirely out of fear (an understandable reaction, if they've experienced a heavy bout of Covid, or have seen its effects in others). Also, some may remember the temporary shortage of N95s, and still think they're being good, self-sacrificing citizens by wearing less effective (or even basically useless) masks. Or they just don't like wearing N95s because they're too constricting (meaning, "too effective"). However, that is at best a secondary factory, and not the main reason why they choose to mask in the first place. But to recap: For the vast majority of folks who mask, it's mostly out of a (perhaps flawed) sense of pragmatism -- not because they are superstitious idiots, or primarily motivated by some subconscious desire to make a social statement about "who they are".