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Hey everybody! Lets all return to the office! Quick! Commercial real-estate landlords aren’t rich enough. We need to fill those buildings ASAP!
Office buildings are either test tubes or petri dishes depending on the height to width ratio.
Office buildings are test tubes, schools are petri dishes.
Where does that leave nursing homes?
Morgues.
I’m in Europe and it’s anecdotal but there are SO many acquaintances that are sick with corona right now. Also not particularly mild, some are in bed since 1+ week with bad symptoms. Fuck this virus and fuck the people who don’t care about the well-being of the person next to them.
Japan here. Both wife and I have many sick coworkers. Nearly all of them were corona positive.
I have the first friend that has really bad long-covid now, too. She’s visibly weaker and exhausted. Ouff.
I worry that long covid is going to be one of the things that breaks the global economy long-term (likely leading to accelerated automation), if we can’t sort out a therapy for it.
Oh, the global economy is going to break regardless. China is physically and economically collapsing right now, and it’s going to have huge knock-on effects
Meanwhile, we still don’t even have a consensus that long COVID is a thing. I definitely feel slightly foggier long after the fact, it seems to me that it might be less about COVID doing something special - maybe all illnesses chip away at long-term health, and COVID put a lot of people in a state much worse than the flu and got us thinking about it.
Or maybe COVID has unique mechanisms, but it seems to me there’s an assumption - why do we assume that once we recover, we get all the way better? If anything, I think it might be the opposite - there’s plenty of people in my life who never felt the same after getting an illness, but no one talks about it in a unified enough way to give it a name
Also in Europe (Germany) and there have been a lot of people OOO due to illness. So far my family has stayed free of it.
there have been a lot of people OOO due to illness
They died and became ghosts?
I’m in Finland. Haven’t heard a thing about corona from anywhere other than news for the longest time. It’s like it vanished
It blows my mind how upset people get about masking. During the two primary years of Covid where I isolated and masked religiously, I didn’t get sick once or even have allergies (despite visiting parks often).
Now companies have RTO and try to get everyone in on the same days so illness spreads like wildfire. People sitting right beside me hacking their lungs out.
It blows my mind how upset people get about masking
The pandemic is when I gave up on the notion that diehard conservatives had even a shred of intelligence or morals. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing from them.
I used masks, got the vaccine and boosters, washed my hands religiously and so on. Still got sick. With something as transmissible as corona a lot of it is just luck, good or bad
Right, but that doesn’t mean your precautions were worthless. Even if you are eventually going to catch it, delaying the infection reduces how much it can spread and means fewer people get it at the same time (reducing the impact). Some of these precautions will also reduce the severity of the illness, which is a huge win for you personally! Of course none of these precautions are perfect, but they’re still helpful and limit the damage caused by the pandemic.
You’re probably already well aware of this, of course! I’ve just seen a bunch of people saying things like “well I did X and I still got sick, so we shouldn’t do X”, which I don’t think is the right conclusion for something that impacts the entire population. There’s billions of dice rolls in this equation, and you got some bad luck (I’m sorry you got sick :( ), but I think you still gave yourself better odds and improved the odds for everybody else as well, which is great!
I think we should do those things but just that doing all of the stuff isn’t a guarantee. It just betters your odds. I did all we were recommended and got hit with it, meanwhile a friend of mine did none of the recommended things (almost the opposite) and hasn’t got it so far. Lucy bastard.
I wear masks but I absolutely hate it. Maybe if you work from home you don’t notice, but wearing that thing for 9-10 hours can be a real pain. On top of that you miss a lot of a person’s face, I had to meet a lot of new people during that time and it was hard.
I’m not saying it’s enjoyable. It’s especially awful when it’s hot & humid, if you wear glasses, or when wearing for a long period of time. But when the alternative is increasing the chances of catching/spreading a dangerous virus… well there isn’t much of an argument against.
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The mask helped against my allergies too!
It was a bit of a disappointed when I noticed the world wanted to kill me of allergies and a simple mask would help me out.
It was easy before having a child. After having a kid it’s impossible.
People do not want to be told what to do. They do not want to be inconvenienced.
Personally I hated wearing a mask. it was a huge pain in my ass, and mostly unnecessary most of the time except on public transit or in like a very crowded place like a grocery store.
If wearing a mask is a pain in your ass then you’re wearing it wrong.
Depends, a lot of people talk out their ass. :P
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Where exactly were you wearing a mask other than crowded public places? Nobody ever told you to wear it at home.
In my country, there was a mask mandate in all enclosed areas except private residences, even when you were the only person there.
In what non private residence enclosed places are you alone? I can’t think of any. Are you talking about hotels or… Because yea that would be ridiculous. But also, since you’re alone it’s not like anyone can enforce the mandate or even know you’re not following it.
In my case, it was a hackerspace. It has windows to the street, so if the police would have happened to go along the street and see that, they could have intervened.
There was one report in the newspapers where they fined a small card playing organization due to that, but of course they were a group of people.
Nice anecdotal story. I know many people that masked and still do and got multiple brands of vaccines and multiple boosters and still got sick multiple times. So which one of us is correct? Neither. There are far more variables that matter.
So which one of us is correct?
Spoiler alert, it’s the other guy, the one who was following the advice of medical professionals and reducing spread.
What a twist!
Do you not understand what “reduction” means?
Nice anecdotal story. I know many people…
Love when people follow up calling someone elses arguments anecdotal by providing their own anecdotal arguments.
👐 You don’t understand, oh kaaay? 👐 This person knows many people who washed hand, very often, very clean, and they still got sick. Many people are saying that masks is a very bad thing 👐 and not at all a way to prevent China virus which is a Democratic hoax…instead we’re looking very hard at cleaning in the lungs 👐 isn’t that right doctor? 🫲
Antivaxxers and antimaskers are a shitplague.
How sick did they get? Consider that people who get vaccinated aren’t just less likely to get it, they’re also less likely to have serious cases.
IMO people should wear masks if they have to go out with any cold/flu type illness. Stops them spreading their germs to other people.
I’m recovering from my first bout with Covid after dodging it for 3.5 years. Pretty mild, a couple shitty days of fever and congestion etc nbd. Wore a mask to the grocery store today in a red state and got stares. I seriously considered not wearing it at all because none of these mouth breathers would do the same for me during peak Covid pre vaccine, but ultimately decided to do the right thing. If only that were as contagious as the virus.
You wear a cheap mask to protect the community, but if no one is wearing then you should wear a n95 to protect yourself
“Pre vaccine” lol
Covid spreads easily because people who have it are often asymptomatic.
For god’s, sake, it’s been 3.5 years. How do people still not know this?
Sure, but still, if you’re visibly sick you should wear a mask. It’s respectful. I mean shit the Japanese have been doing that shit since forever and you don’t see their asses complaining.
To be fair, they also don’t complain about all sorts of stuff they probably should complain more about
When I feel ill I wear a mask at work or when I have to get food but otherwise I try to stay home.
Why would you go to work if you’re feeling ill??
In the US a lot of workers don’t get paid if they don’t show up to work because they have no paid time off.
In the US they often combine sick days and vacation days, so if you miss work while sick, you are using your vacation days, which are very limited.
I would presume because their work insisted?
No, if your sick you stay home. If you might spread of dangerous disease of which people and their immune systems are largely unused to dealing with and you otherwise cannot tell if your sick, then you wear a mask.
While I understand your sentiment life is not as black and white as that and some people cannot just stop everything they are doing because they are sick. I believe there should be more protection for people who are sick so they can recover.
Why hear mask? Dont leave the house. But the police should make sure this happens!
Physician here. Masks absolutely reduce transmission and the chance of contracting COVID.
Here is the definitive study on the subject.
Here is a video of a presentation by one of the authors along with some demonstrations and explanations.
TLDR: Here is the Abstract:
There is ample evidence that masking and social distancing are effective in reducing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission. However, due to the complexity of airborne disease transmission, it is difficult to quantify their effectiveness, especially in the case of one-to-one exposure. Here, we introduce the concept of an upper bound for one-to-one exposure to infectious human respiratory particles and apply it to SARS-CoV-2. To calculate exposure and infection risk, we use a comprehensive database on respiratory particle size distribution; exhalation flow physics; leakage from face masks of various types and fits measured on human subjects; consideration of ambient particle shrinkage due to evaporation; and rehydration, inhalability, and deposition in the susceptible airways. We find, for a typical SARS-CoV-2 viral load and infectious dose, that social distancing alone, even at 3.0 m between two speaking individuals, leads to an upper bound of 90% for risk of infection after a few minutes. If only the susceptible wears a face mask with infectious speaking at a distance of 1.5 m, the upper bound drops very significantly; that is, with a surgical mask, the upper bound reaches 90% after 30 min, and, with an FFP2 mask, it remains at about 20% even after 1 h. When both wear a surgical mask, while the infectious is speaking, the very conservative upper bound remains below 30% after 1 h, but, when both wear a well-fitting FFP2 mask, it is 0.4%. We conclude that wearing appropriate masks in the community provides excellent protection for others and oneself, and makes social distancing less important.reduce
Sadly, a huge portion of the American public don’t have this word in their vocabulary. Masks and vaccines either eliminate all risk, and “work” or don’t completely eliminate all risk and therefore “don’t work.”
This lower ape thinking inflicted so much unnecessary death and suffering here.
It’s an intentional thing, pushed by propagandists. Thinking in absolutes reduces the need for critical thinking skills as whole. When you can make people boil everything in the world down to a binary, its very easy to tell them how to think, and equally easy to define the “out” group you all hate.
To wit, when masks “work or don’t work”, you can look at the people telling you to wear masks, and because masks “don’t work” they’re wrong, and if they’re wrong, then the people we aren’t telling you to wear a mask are right. You should always follow people who are right… right?
There are definitely people who pushed this thinking and benefitted from it. But it takes root because it has essential appeal. The brain is an expensive organ and people go out of their way to eliminate complex thought, because it’s hard work. Humans instinctively look to other humans because that provides a shortcut: why spend those 200 calories figuring something out when your neighbor already has and you’d just be reinventing the wheel.
I think something like 30% of the US have an IQ below 80. This is a very real issue with the public itself. It is preyed upon, but it isn’t totally imposed by a shadow conspiracy. It’s the way people are.
Was following you until you brought up IQ. IQ tests were invented by racists to do racism. I.e., the tests were geared towards white people purposely to skew results when POC took them. Look up the history. It is equal parts horrible and fascinating.
I just learned all about the IQ test from Veritassium, a source I trust.
There’s definitely more to it now than racism. I recommend watching the video. Not to deny what you are saying as history but if you are still entirely dismissing the IQ test because it’s racist, then you don’t know what’s in it.
Make one that black people will do better on to test the theory.
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It’s the forced tyranny that is a problem. Why Covid is such a big deal. The sheep need to go hide in their bubble and stop imposing their will on others. Do as I say or suffer is their way of operating.
That’s a little problematic when one person can infect everyone else. People, including you apparently, need to understand that personal freedom ends where it starts causing consequences for others. It’s an interconnected society more than ever, not just a collection of separate, independent heros, like some enjoy believing. If you think asking people to cover their cough is tyranny instead of just good sense and manners, then you are the problem. If folks could behave responsibly, we wouldn’t need mandates. But you can’t, and routinely think your freedom entitles you to put others at risk, so mandates you get.
TY! Also a physician. So tired of this discussion. Everyone is masked in my clinic. Anecdotal, and my partner and I are still covid free, and hope to continue. Masking, distancing, hand washing, and isolation when sick, these simple, time tested, behavioral changes can significantly reduce risk of infection.
Just took care of my 80 year old dad with the new CoV-SARS variant in NJ. Despite being out if date for boosters, I managed to not catch it by following the recommended protocols. Social distancing, regular cleaning, and masks inside do work to reduce the spread.
⭐ <– my lemmy gold for you, excellent writeup
You know, even before COVID-19, there would be flu, rsv, etc. outbreaks and there would barely be a blerb about it. People would send kids to school sick, literally everyone would catch it, and it sucked. Maybe less lethal, but it still sucked. And I always caught whatever was going around cause we just didn’t have the culture here.
At least now there’s more recognition, some people might wear masks, and there’s a fighting chance I don’t catch the thing everyone gets that season (at least in California where it’s still ok to wear a mask without ridicule).
Except my sister gave me COVID two months ago since I let her stay here to avoid homelessness. Can’t fix bad habit family members, and getting a false negative on a test gave her confidence to get me and my baby sick. Ugh, bad times.
where it’s still ok to wear a mask without ridicule
Serious question, why are people being ridiculed for wearing masks in the US? Is this generally how it goes in all of the US?
I’m from Asia and most countries here have been wearing masks even before the pandemic for multiple reasons - pollution, not wanting to spread sickness including the basic cough and cold not just flu or COVID, when at a clinic or hospital, etc. I wear a mask even when I just have allergic rhinitis just so that I don’t accidentally blow snot all over somebody else. No one would bat an eye here if you wore a mask.
I don’t understand the negative connotation to wearing masks and why anyone would care if you’re wearing one.
US culture is founded on individualism at the expense of everyone else. A lot of people buy into the idea that any kind of government imposed action, even as minor as wearing a face covering that even helps the wearer, is a horrible tragedy and assault on their ability to make bad decisions. Those people are belligerent and numerous.
The US government were also months late to handling COVID, and the conservative leadership in power was actively demonizing safety protocols such as masks, vaccines, social distancing, etc not to mention their own Center for Disease Control, to the point that a fair percentage of the population is distrustful of medical science and unwilling to consider those safety protocols.
A lot of the news media (left and right) focused on things like getting people back to work in spite of the ongoing pandemic so it really forced the narrative away from collective safety and survival into economic prioritization and the illusion of normalcy.
The news media also focused on the demonizing by conservatives for more advertising clicks instead of promoting the safety measures by the CDC as reasonable and worth listening to.
But abortions must be banned, because 'murica.
There is no logic, just very bad people.
You either seem to have people who just care about themselves and their comfort and beliefs only, or people who pretend to care about others, only to satisfy their ego and beliefs in the process, sometimes at the expense of the group they pretend to care about.
Or just people who want to control other people for their own feeling of power.
Politics, the party in charge decided that the best response was to pretend the problem didn’t exist and maybe it’ll go away. Wearing a mask is a very public sign that there is a problem.
Yeah. In Malaysia before covid, every flu season i could see some people(not a lot) start wearing mask, and people masked up as well in hazy season. Just before Covid become the pandemic i can see people already started to wear one before the mandate. Of course, nowadays some butthurt netizen will still jab at those wear mask here and there, but other than that, i still see people wear mask everywhere i go, which is a great thing. Sanitary and personal health shouldn’t be something that get ridiculed.
But then again, it’s Asia, and SARS is pretty big back then.
And notably they’re not really two entirely unrelated things. “SARS” is SARS-CoV-1 and “COVID” is SARS-CoV-2.
Maybe before the pandemic someone somewhere might have said something but not now. Even living in a rural area people don’t say anything at all. I don’t know where that user got the idea that you’d be ridiculed.
I still frequently wear a mask in busy/crowded areas and have probably received a dozen comments about it in the last week alone. So it definitely happens.
I don’t wear a mask anymore, but people glare at people that do. I also got a lot of harassing comments when I was wearing a mask last year.
That’s interesting, guess it’s different around here. No one says shit and I’m in the rural south.
because wearing a mask is for pussies.
it’s really as simple as that. it’s seen as weak and pathetic and makes you an object of ridicule.
Is this you saying that or are you quoting some other people?
Comment history is looking like they are serious lol
Protecting others is weak and pathetic? Alrighty then. Bet you’re a “Christian” too.
Those outbreaks didn’t kill a million people Ina year, and did not strain the hospital system to the point of breaking.
Well, there was the Spanish flu which also lead to mask mandates and other social safety measures as covid.
It’s certainly more deadly, yes. That’s why it got more attention. But I’m young and the risk to me is about the same, plus that’s not really my point. I’m mostly saying that I’m grateful people actually care about hygiene for once, 2020 the first time in my life I didn’t catch “the thing going around” since I didn’t have a jackass coughing on everything at work or school.
Mask mandates are not about protecting you, they are about limiting the spread throughout the population. You may have even had it with no symptoms and gave it to someone else, and the spread in the population as a whole is the threat.
I haven’t seen a trend towards people caring about hygiene around the midwest.
I am mostly referring to the shift here in voluntary masking, but yes, Midwest would be a bit different. When the mandate ended here, people continued to mask up if they (1) are at risk, (2) feel a little ill, (3) just felt like it. If I tried to mask up in 2018, I’d get weird looks!
And yeah, hand washing picked up, too, although not sure if it kept up. One perk of living in a blue area of a blue state in any case.
I’m not sure if there will be any more mandates because of masking fatigue, but the science does say that one way masking is still effective.
Flu absolutely killed a grip of people when it was new.
It eventually became endemic and what we live with now. More or less what we have with covid. It will rear its ugly head every year as it mutates. Some will get it and have a rough time, some people’s immunity or vaccine will help make it less deadly contagious as it was in 2020.
Life goes on. Wear a mask or don’t, but we are way past the point of putting the genie back in the bottle
If half the population wears a mask during a pandemic, it won’t slow the spread very much.
Leaving safety measures as a personal choice for contagious diseases is like letting everyone decide whether or not they want to stop at red lights based on personal preference. Sure, you can be in a rural area and pretty much ignore most stoplights without a collision, but in a city the negative effects will be rapid and deadly.
Sure but I don’t think we are in the pandemic anymore.
Again wear a mask or don’t. I don’t give a shit. I’m personally done with them until rates start to spike again, or for when I travel on an airplane.
Hmm I mean thousands of people (mostly the old) still died of flu every year. So kinda lethal.
Some 40 to 70 thousand people in the US die every year from the flu. I think the big thing is most people don’t care until it affects them personally. It’s been weird seeing covid coverage be all, “THINK OF THE DEATHS” as if that meaningfully would change much
1 million+ vs 70k… hard to compare COVID to flu
40k to 70k isn’t even correct. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/past-seasons.html
Meth is hard.
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you can’t say that in that provided any context to what you disagreeing with. I simply repeated numbers from other people a million plus people have died from covid flu number apparently doesn’t line up with reality but I didn’t research it before I responded
Honestly I’m sad for everyone that works manual labor. Wearing a mask absolutely lowers the chance of both transmitting covid and getting covid, but working in 90+ degree weather lifting heavy shit for 8 hours a day wearing a mask sucks. It gets moist as all hell and fogs your glasses.
Source: I unloaded trucks outside all day 5 days a week for the entire summer of 2020 and 2021.
A lot of people are doing manual labour in a mask even without COVID, but simply to protect their lungs from excessive pollution in a workplace. Don’t be sad, working in a mask is a norm.
I mean I understand why people do it, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck and doesn’t make work just a little less tolerable for those having to deal with it.
Have you worked manual labor in a mask in the summer?
I have. The one time I got COVID, it felt like 40-50C all week plus humidity, I was masking with an N95 the whole time when I was around people, but because I was working an outdoor music festival, 95% of the people I was around wasn’t.
I especially could barely get out of bed, had to use my inhaler about 5-10 times a day cuz it kept triggering asthma attacks, my limbs hurt so fucking much, I was nauseous and light-headed and had insane brain fog. It got better after 2 weeks but I was only really ok for about 4 hours a day and could only be vertical for about 2 or I would get really sick.
I had long COVID for about 2-3 months after that, which included severe brain fog, struggling to breathe, and easily got tired all the time.
I also get COVID-like symptoms when I get the vaccine for 2 weeks all 3 times I got it.
I really wish people would understand that masking is to protect other people by not spreading it to them, not yourself from getting sick.
I was a cement truck driver during COVID. They do not wear masks. I also drove long haul and no wearhouse workers wear them either.
Id rather be sick for a week than wear a mask doing physical labour.
That’s a dumb take.
What do you do for a living? For many, wearing a mask while working is a recipe for guaranteed heat exhaustion. I’m not subjecting myself to that, and if the illness is anything at all like the last time I had it, it was a goddamn cold.
Wearing a mask in a hospital full of people with compromised health and all sorts of contagions floating around is a really good idea.
Wearing a mask outdoors in the summer time on a construction site full of other able-bodied people is just fucking silly.
What kind of construction work are you talking about if you’re not wearing a mask? Anything that produces fine dust or requires working with volatile chemicals like paints and aerosols requires you to work in a mask at all times. Do you have any work safety regulations in your country?
Who says you won’t be one of the 15 percent who get long covid?
What did they say like 76 percent of the population has had one strain or another of covid?
Even if masks are totally effective, all you’re going to effectively do is delay the inevitable. You will catch this; it’s only a matter of time. I choose to get it over with.
I’ve never stopped wearing a mask in public transport/while grocery shopping etc. and I don’t think I will =/
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Fuck I am so sorry. Gonna continue wearing the mask for people like you especially.
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I still do, though nearly zero of that is due to virus stuff. I’d say for me it’s 95% I’m too lazy to retrain myself to keeping a neutral expression, 4% because hiding my ugly mug seems polite, and 1% sickness reduction ( combination of allergies, flu, covid. Etc)
Valid
+Help mask my Bad Breath.
Also I don’t smell others’ bad Breath/BO as much. Heavy perfume still gets through …“silent deadly” farts…not sure…
Me neither. I’m also in a part of the United States where people seem to give a damn at least a little more. I’m never the only person wearing a mask in the stores I shop at. And shockingly (not really), we have a lot less COVID-19 than the national average.
So, not planning to stop any time soon.
I stopped, but only because the active infections went down to a negligible number in my area.
Are you sure they weren’t just being recorded anymore? How many people continued to test themselves and informed the responsible people? I know at least in Germany we don’t have any accurate numbers anymore.
I saw a major drop in cases coming into my hospital as well. People just weren’t coming in with COVID symptoms. Not nearly the amount of airborne precautions on rooms. They were shutting down entire floors during delta.
For me that would just be anecdotal data and I would not base my actions on that.
Right, I based it on the opinions of our infectious disease doctors who made the recommendation to stop masking except on certain patients. That decision was based on infectious cases in our community. You can use your feelings, I’m following that data interpreted by medical doctors.
Bit defensive there eh? It was also medically licensed doctors that recommended ivermectin as a cure for covid. Hope you didn’t follow that advise:)
Same. Never got it and I love not having long Covid. It takes me zero effort whatsoever.
I’m in Australia and half my kids class was sick last week. Me and the kid both tested positive today. It is pretty rough.
Nobody here cares at all any more. This is my first but most people are on their 2nd or more go around. Its not even discussed, there are zero masks, and people are sending their kids to school sick.
All our care and caution just in the bin because people just don’t give a shit
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Yeah and dickheads without a clue or a sense of morality will continue to take other peoples lives to save themselves a minor inconvenience. Murica!
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There are 7 million dead people who I’m sure would argue that point if they could. Do you think a respiratory disease spreads through some other means? Or do you just not understand anything about the situation?
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“yall should accept covid killing people cause I want the freedom to unmask” is quite the shit take
Americans are a fucking shitstain on our society man. Douchebag
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It might have to do with the fact that by far most of the population has some degree of immunity now due to infection or vaccination, making the disease much less lethal than it was, and now completely comparable to other flu viruses. I don’t want everyone to freak out every time some mild disease is in season. Yes, it sucks to get a cold, and it sucks to get the flu, but if nobody ever catches them we will have very low levels of immunity in the population, making it far worse when people do eventually catch them.
After covid I was bedridden a couple weeks because of common colds. Thats never happened before. The amount of people hospitalised due to other diseases than covid also spiked (we have statistics for this). The reason was that very few people had gotten sick for two years, so nobody had any immunity agains anything they weren’t vaccinated against (which is most cold- or flu viruses).
So your standpoint is that you want people to walk around making each other sick regardless of the consequences? And your reason for this is that you spent two weeks in bed? That’s whacky man
So your standpoint is that you want people to walk around making each other sick regardless of the consequences?
I never said that. I said that if nobody ever gets sick, the consequences are much larger when disease does spread. Just check the statistics for any country post-covid lockdowns, and you will se a spike in non-covid related respiratory disease. Plenty of doctors and researchers have pointed out that the reason was very little respiratory disease during lockdowns/quarantining periods leading to low immunity in the population. I want to minimise the consequences long-term, and I’m saying that I prefer to get mildly sick once or twice a year over getting extremely sick every other year.
And your reason for this is that you spent two weeks in bed?
It seems like you didn’t even read the whole paragraph. As I said, what I experienced wasn’t unique, but something we could also see in statistics over hospitalisations. I’m lucky enough to only have been in bed, but for people with preexisting conditions, the same infections could have been much worse. Again: If most people get mildly sick every now and then (as we always have) we prevent outbreaks from wreaking havoc and hospitalising a bunch of people when the do happen.
No, most people don’t have some degree of immunity. They found out very early during the pandemic that Covid damages the immune system and that you can basically assume you won’t gain immunity. Stop pretending it’s the flu.
Fun fact: if you got sick during the first wave, getting it again will not result in any immunity.
I’m not pretending coronavirus is literally a type of flu virus. It just happens to be a novel flu virus that we don’t have as much exposure and immunity to yet. There are plenty of historical examples of what happens when a population is hit by a virus that it has little or no immunity against, even though that virus is relatively harmless to those with immunity.
That is not an argument against vaccines, and it is not an argument against all the precautions that were taken when Covid-19 first hit. Those were both necessary for the population to build as much immunity as possible, with as few as possible deaths and as little as possible sickness.
It is an argument for the fact that Covid-19 must be treated differently now and in the future vs. how it was initially treated. It is now a virus that most of the population as some degree of immunity against (due to both infections and vaccines). If you doubt that that’s the case, just look at the reproduction numbers for Covid-19 outbreaks, which are still ongoing. In the initial waves, just a handfull of infections were capable of spreading to entire countries, killing thousands, within just weeks. If a handfull of people get Covid-19 now, that is no longer the case, even though we aren’t quarantining people. This is a direct result of herd immunity. Just like we have flu season, where different flu viruses spread in local epidemics, Covid-19 will continue to spread in local, seasonal epidemics in the foreseeable future (likely “forever”), but it is no longer the same threat as it was when nobody had any immunity to it.
That is not how the immune system works. There is lots of info about it and it is very complicated, but stuff that has been around for literally ages, that coincided with humans evolutionary path, have been basically added to a permanent watch list and so our immune system goes haywire at the slightest hint of one of those invaders presence. Covid is still considered a novel virus, regardless of it being a few years since it’s existence, and our immune systems haven’t had time to find a good defense against it. This is a simplification, but think of covid or other viruses like a key, but a rapidly changing (mutating) key and the immune system as a really elaborate lock, that also changes (but incredibly slowly, comparatively) and yeah that’s all I’ve got. Source: I’m in undergrad studying to be a microbiologist.
Yes, Covid-19 is still considered novel, but saying that we are dependent on evolutionary-scale changes to develop immunity is just wrong. The immune system learns to recognise infections relatively quickly, which is literally why vaccines work. It’s also why people typically only get infected by seasonal epidemics once in a season, because we quickly build a short-lasting “immunity” to the virus that is in season. Source: Masters degree in chemistry/biotechnology.
because wearing masks did shit. that’s why.
vaccines did.
wearing masks did shit
Citation needed.
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it’s not about science. it’s about public perception. masks didn’t stop covid. vaccines did.
people will not wear masks again. they would probably get another vaccine though.
ending covid = getting rid of mask mandates, in the publics viewpoint.
Ok, in this context you are right in spiritt. Masks are stoping tje spread, but in the grand scheme of things it is mostly about slowing it down.
However I don’t think saying the masks do nothing is right at all. Masks are still useful.
Except he’s not right in any sense with that logic. “masks didn’t work because people feel like they didn’t work” is not a valid argument.
He is right in sense that vaccines “stopped” covid, while masks were mostly just slowing it down but not enough to “stop” it. That’s what I meant by being right in spirit. Otherwise I agree he is wrong.
No, vaccines slowed covid even more than masks, but covid is still around. “Stop the spread” is a more catchy slogan than “Slow the spread” would have been.
It’s funny, I didn’t get COVID while I was wearing a mask, but caught it after we were vaccinated and I stopped wearing them.
I’m not just going to downvote you here, because I think this is an information problem.
Here’s a cool video about mask efficacy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GndKYJ4uBI
And a study on the topic: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm
The tl:dr is that masks are ac5ually extremely effective at reducing infection by respiratory diseases if both the infected and uninfected parties wear them.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=3GndKYJ4uBI
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Fuck, I’m pro mask and all, but… that’s gonna be a hard sell. And tbh I fucking enjoy not wearing one anymore (unless I’m sick or something).
In the US, it’s extremely unlikely we’ll see more masks being required unless we see the Healthcare system getting overwhelmed with sick Covid patients again.
Politically it will be suicide for the democrats.
I don’t know, the people who threw hissy fits about masking were Republicans, who, historically, don’t vote for Democrats.
You’d be surprised, a lot of democrats (so called anyway) were pissed off about wearing them too. Especially in the inner city.
Did you form that opinion from social media? Because there are certainly plenty of Democrats who were upset over masks, but you would never see it on Reddit. Though Republicans are probably more likely than Democrats to be against masking, as I vaguely recall from some polls on covid.
Polling generally showed Democrats supporting masking by a massive margin. The most recent poll I could find (April 2022) had support for mandatory masking on public transportation among Democrats as 80-5.
From social media, media, and my personal experience.
Looks like I’ll be masking for 8 hours straight on my flight home. It’s a bastard (my glasses fog up constantly), but that’s life.
I just hope it gets tamed before term starts since I’d rather not be forced to teach hybrid again (the style of lesson where every student loses)!
Look into mask tape, it’s double-sided tape that goes along the inside bridge of the mask. I buy a pack of 100 strips on amazon and it lasts me a couple months. Cheap and easy and completely solves that issue.
Thanks for this! I will definitely be getting some 😊
Will try this out - thanks for the tip!
The fog means it’s not fit properly. Air should not be escaping over the bridge of the nose it should diffuse out of the entire mask. Either the strips across the top are not being bent correctly to contour the nose or the mask just can’t be made to fit your face shape and you need to try something else.
No, it doesn’t. Exhaled breath emitted through the filtration material can still cause glasses to fog.
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My wife and I are going to the US from Japan in roughly a month. Our first flight is something like 12 hours. Not going to be a fun one. I’m hoping her first time in the US and mine in 5 or 6 years isn’t spent with corona. We’re also visiting my elderly grandparents for what may be the last time, but I’d certainly rather not MAKE it the last time by bringing disease with.
Get a piece of tissue paper and fold it into a thin lengthwise strip. Put it on top of the bridge of your nose and underneath the mask. No more fog.
I don’t wear glasses full time, just sunglasses and reading glasses, but they’re really hard to make compatible with masks. Fogging up sounds like an inconvenience but you basically can’t see within seconds. I wonder if a lot of people opted for contacts or lasik during this period to help compensate. Regardless, yes, masks on flights just make sense. It’s a huge number of strangers in a very close space and not something you need to do every day. You’re not exercising or socializing or moving about in public so why not just mask up and sit tight.
You could use a bandaid to seal the top of the mask across the bridge of your nose. This will prevent air from escaping up and fogging up your glasses.
Buy a few good reusable masks (that you can run through the washer) that have a metal strip inside to conform to your nose. Have the top of the mask up high on the bridge of your nose and push down on it so the metal strip conforms to your nose shape. Rest the plastic feet of your glasses on top of the metal strip, so that they’re resting on the mask and not on your nose. That’s what I figured out keeps my breath from escaping the top of the mask so it eliminates fogging.
Don’t do this. Any mask that you can wash is useless for protection. You need an N95/FFP2 or better.
Good luck getting the ignorant masses to mask up these days.
At least locally there’s a clear anti-mask attitude. There is no way you can get a middle aged man, who listens right wing media, to wear a mask again. They reminisce the last time like a lost unjust war and because covid didn’t hit bad here, they think it was just a hoax of the pharmaceutical industry.
Yeah, I think that ship has sailed. When the covid wasn’t as bad as originally thought and with the reports that masks weren’t all that effective even the people who were gung ho aren’t likely to mask up anymore. And I’m not trying to downplay covid or mask effectiveness, but rather talking about the feeling people have right now.
Covid WAS as bad as originally thought!
The whole point of the precautions was to reduce the spread enough to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed and more time to release a vaccine before everyone got it. Hospitals were very close to collapsing in a lot of areas, and if it had not been slowed it would have been far worse.
Don’t confuse successful mitigation with the disease not being as bad as originally thought.
Covid WAS as bad as originally thought!
It was feared as something that would kill people left and right with almost biblical proportions, as the modern day black death or something. You can blame media for overhyping it to sell the news I guess but a lot of people got the idea that it would be a lot more than it actually was.
Don’t confuse successful mitigation with the disease not being as bad as originally thought.
It wasn’t as bad as we thought at first and we managed to make it another season flu almost, so of course people are going to regard the thing as no big deal now. And it would be a really hard job to convince them otherwise
It absolutely was not just another seasonal flu. Do you have any idea how many people died?
It’s now so diminished and most people had sore throat or little fever, that’s what I mean. Seasonal flu kills a shitload of people but nobody really cares about that either.
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It’s just that people don’t consider it that bad to get it and are under the impression that masks don’t do anything. Of course with a sentiment like that people moved on, in a way and stopped masking or caring.
As an avid mask wearer I’m here to say that the critics are right, masks don’t do anything. They don’t make it harder to breathe, think, feel, or exist out in public…oh and they don’t do anything to your lungs, liver, kidneys, heart, or brain…unlike COVID…that shit can fuck you up.
We’re used to viruses that have narrow cell types they can infect. Rhinoviruses can infect mucus membranes in the head and maybe throat. Influenza can infect the same plus lung tissue.
These coronaviruses can infect so many cell types. Because it’s spread via the air, it almost always infects mucus membranes of the head first, then moves to lungs (or maybe it infects lungs first in some people). So we think of it as a respiratory virus at first.
Now we know it can infect tissues of the gut, fat, T cells, and the testes. There was a wave of orchitis/epididymitis that was discovered to be coronavirus caused. I’m not sure if it’s considered COVID, I think COVID is the respiratory disease caused by coronavirus, but not sure about other diseases. Similar to how the varicella virus causes two diseases: chicken pox and shingles.
I’ve worn one since Covid when in public and my life isn’t impacted negatively in any way whatsoever.
Do you think the severity of infection is important? Meaning, if previous variants were wiped out and the only variants still spreading were less severe than a common cold, would you keep wearing masks?
What’s the point of this hypothetical? It’s both not remotely close to where we are currently and has redefined the consequences to absurdity.
“Would you still wear a mask if the consequence of infection was a single light sneeze?”
“Would you wear a seat belt if the only consequence of car crashes was a small bruise?”
Yes because I don’t want car crashes to spread to those are driving safely
The point of my hypothetical is that communicable diseases have a tendency to evolve to be less pathogenic over time. So it’s likely that each new covid strain is less harmful than the last. I’m wondering where you draw the line?
Personally, preventing a light sneeze isn’t a big enough reason to wear a mask.
The point of my hypothetical is that communicable diseases have a tendency to evolve to be less pathogenic over time.
That’s not actually a real thing. It was a theory by a guy in the 1800s that’s been soundly debunked but spread because people want to believe it’s true.
And it never will. It’s just one of those things people get in the cold part of the year now.
Never stopped wearing them. COVID never went away.
