Are you still Masking?

I rarely see anyone masking anymore in the UK

i don't even see scolding posts about masking on tumblr anymore so it's truly over imo

In an airport/on a plane and that’s it.

I wouldn't say "covid is over" as a blanket statement but in the region of the globe I'm in and within the social circles I frequent it pretty much is.

I've given up the ritual masking and unveiling preamble for indoor dining but if it's picking up a togo order, it still seems rude to whomever hands it to you not to mask up, especially if they're masked.

I chose "COVID is over" even though I know it isn't strictly true. Infection and hospitalization rates where I live have been low enough since early this year to where I don't think it's necessary anymore. The rule I've followed all along is to go by the local guidelines, and those have not encouraged masking for quite a while.

Have not been masking at all and it's been fine, but I'm going to be immuno-compromised and have to start doing it seriously, which sucks.

face diaper

Only when shifting large piles of dusty objects.

I might wear one today because of the smog

pretty much just at the doctor's office/hospital at this point. voted "if someone sick is nearby".

My doc's office stopped masking sometime in the past couple months.

I still always mask on public transportation and at the grocery store, though I've given up most other places, including at work. A few months ago, I was masking by default in any indoor space other than private homes and restaurants, but have become lax and admittedly inconsistent about it.

Basically, I decided that I no longer wanted my anxieties about COVID to stop me from doing fun things, and though there are a lot of things I could do while wearing a mask (for instance, I regularly masked at the movie theater for over a year), at this point I'd rather just not think about it when I'm trying to enjoy myself.

Masking on the bus and at the grocery store doesn't bother me, and I sort of even like the anonymity it provides, so I imagine I'll keep doing that for a while.

I was in Sweden in June and I think I saw one person wearing a mask

Still sorta common here in the Bay Area, and I think there's a subset of Asian residents who will be wearing them from here on out

How many of y'all have got/know someone who has got COVID in the past year? I do know a few. Many of them lived in households where others did not get it, and often they cannot figure out where they contracted it.

weirdly a lot of high school kids here are still masking, even when by themselves

xp I have a few friends/acquaintances that have had it within the last couple months

I was also in sweden in june! agree, masking seemed essentially nonexistent

I mask when seeing patients at work, even though it’s no longer required…but otherwise I’ve mainly stopped. local transmission is low enough that it’s probably not worth it. when the seasons change, that may change

although I go frequent a lot of hippie locations (thrift stores, record/book stores) where masking is still very common, so I’m happy to put one on so as not to ruin the vibes

all of those "no" options are loaded

I picked the only non-loaded one: ngl I have a pretty face

I was on a flight yesterday, the only person I saw masked was a woman probably in her late 70s-early 80s. She was behind me on the jetway, and she said, "Oh, I'm supposed to wear this," and put it on.

picked "Yes, even outdoors if a lot of people are around." they say the odds of getting long covid is 15% if you get covid. even if it's really 5%, that is a *gigantic* risk of potentially lifelong neurological problems. people in general are bad at statistics.

all of those "no" options are loaded

― But his face would not turn into hot Kirby (Evan), Tuesday, July 18, 2023 2:18 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Should have added: No, because I'm a logical person who uses logic

I put "because of social pressure," even though I have never once felt DIRECT social pressure not to wear a mask. My reasoning is -- I am really one of those people who never found wearing a mask particularly difficult or unpleasant. But now that no one around me is wearing one I feel weird doing it, even though it is no different of a physical sensation than it ever was. That's "social pressure," right?

I could also have put "because COVID is over" because that is (at least to my eye) clearly a social rather than epidemiological assertion.

I do always carry one with me, because I think it's important to be able to throw on on if it seems called for.

I mostly still mask because my son caught Covid in Feb. and all his friends have had it 3 or 4 times. I'm pretty sure future generations are going to be sick as fuck.

I see more people still masking in Miami than when I visited Dublin last month.

I'm in a library now, masked. I mask when I teach, in theaters, on public transportation (planes, etc.), doctor's offices. But I started eating indoors about a year ago and unless the weather's balmy (November to April) I eat indoors.

No one in my intimate circle has gotten COVID since October 2022.

I think I would wear one if I got on a plane, but I was recently in a very crowded museum in Houston where zero people were masked, I felt somewhat anxious about it, but rolled with no mask anyway.

I picked the only non-loaded one: ngl I have a pretty face

― rob, Tuesday, July 18, 2023 2:19 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

nah that one is the "no because I'm self-centered" option. You can't vote no without consenting to wrongheadedness or naivete.

but I am pretty ;_;

Should have added: No, because I'm a logical person who uses logic

― hardcore technician gimmicks are also another popular choice f (President Keyes), Tuesday, July 18, 2023 2:25 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ah, confirming you are indeed mad at everyone not wearing a mask still! No wonder.

FWIW I'm generally not wearing one because the stakes are relatively low these days... Happy to wear one in establishments if asked though.

I wasn't pushing back against your undeniable beauty, rob

Not mad at you guys, because you aren't in the room with me afaik

I'm actually reading this over your shoulder

ty, Evan

for me:
1 - never going on a nasty ass airplane again without wearing a mask

2 - I wfh and don't really use mass transit but if I did the same would apply

3 - any business that has a sign (for me, the only good bagel place in Minneapolis makes a big deal about it and provides masks at the door), but yeah basically happy to mask anywhere that requests it

4 - some large crowds, Yo La Tengo a while back felt a bit oversold and I was feeling hinky about it, so I put one on

5 - obviously if anyone is immunocompromised etc, or at the doctor's office, or if for some reason I was sick and had to go shopping


otherwise in general, no

The only aspect of my face I like is my eyes, so I actually think a mask improves my looks.

ski mask then imho

Haven't really masked since leaving urban NJ (the most densely populated state in the US) for rural Montana (not the most densely populated area of... anywhere) in March. Wore them a few times to the grocery store and no one looked at us oddly or anything, but we gave up after looking up the Covid rates for our county, which are basically zero. I wore one when I went to the doctor's office last week, and I'll wear one in August when I have to get on a plane, but other than that I'm raw-facing it everywhere I go and just maintaining social distance (easy enough in the mountain west, where leave-me-alone is the law).

My brother got covid in June after missing it for three years, even when in the same household with people who got it. He may have gotten it at my wedding, but no one else at my wedding got it (we contacted everybody)!

i masked all this year at school, plan to continue next year as one of my co-workers has a medically fragile child at home. i still mask at restaurants even though it's off when i'm eating, figuring some mitigation is better than none. i dont go out to eat much anymore, though. still doing curbside for groceries. probably the only place i dont mask is at outdoor events.

obv the number of hospitalizations and deaths from covid have come way down and thats a big relief, but the threat of long covid being exacerbated by multiple infections is still a huge driver for me to keep masking. my wife caught the alpha wave 3 years ago, and the 3 of us all got omicron in january '22. i think my brother has gotten it 4 times which freaks me out for him.

I got into a Twitter PM exchange with an acquaintance who slipped down a perilous rabbit hole last Sunday after reading about the person at the Beyonce show two weeks ago who boasted about attending sick with COVID but was taken out on a stretcher after a vomiting spell. My acquaintance was all "COVID hasn't gone away," which, yes, I agree. Then she followed it up with THIS IS WHY EVERYONE SHOULD BE STAYING HOME: NO CONCERTS, MOVIES, RESTAURANTS. I realized I couldn't argue with her and I stopped responding. After three and a half years, boosters, including one I lied to get in March, I'm just not where I was in July 2020, and it's insane to think a person can maintain that level of inhibition without some damage to their mental health.

otm Alfred

I wore one in the airport and on a plane for a recent trip to Colorado, and when I have to ride public transportation, but otherwise not.

How many of y'all have got/know someone who has got COVID in the past year?

Five people in my office had it last month. (Over a third of the total who work some kind of regular in-office hours, but only three of them work the same schedule and same part of the building). Three different households in my apartment building have had it in the last 3-4 months to my knowledge, including someone who lives alone in a studio. I have friends on two other continents who have had it in the last six weeks. I know one person who was hospitalised earlier this year.

it's insane to think a person can maintain that level of inhibition without some damage to their mental health.

I actually have a different take on this. I think there are lots of people for whom it's no big deal to not go to concerts, movies, or restaurants! Lots of people don't do that very much anyway! And so for those people, "that level of inhibition" is not a very high level, and it doesn't damage their mental health. What does sometimes happen though is that people like that don't have a good mental model of others and mistakenly think it would be harmless for most people to go no-restaurant.

xpost - I've known five people that have gotten it in the last four months or so, taking them at their word, each of them was the person in their household who somehow avoided it when it went through the family in 2021 or 2022.

Sure! I should've noted how some people loved 2020-2021 because they no longer felt pressure to socialize; I know a couple of them. But, as you point out, they expect everyone else to follow suit. xpost

voted "Yes, but just indoors in public spaces (work, stores, theaters, etc.)"

the jury is out on the long-term effects of this, and what do i really gain by showing my face to the random people around me? i also don't want to have it, not know it, and give it to someone else, and who knows what could happen to them. lots of folks out there are more vulnerable than i am. afaic wearing a mask is NBD, i don't really care if i'm in a grocery store and the only one doing it. if i'm going to get it eventually (have yet to, same deal for my wife), it'll be because something slipped thru the cracks.

it's been nice to not catch anything since 2019, my only "illness" was iirc after my first vaccination.

i've known a bunch of people who have caught covid in recent months. lots of them are kids.

i haven't felt like i've missed out on anything, i just adjust my social plans to incorporate outdoor spaces.

i mask if i feel sick. voted pretty face obv

I got it last December (after attending an oversold indoor concert of a local singer/songwriter) and it wasn’t really a big deal. Had major surgery in February, haven’t worn a mask since. I work in a bar 10 hours a week. Would wear one if I had to go back to a doctor’s office but otherwise I just never even think about masks anymore.

there's awkward moments in conversations now and again these days where someone is like "i wish we could go back to covid! you never had to leave the house haha!" and i'm like "yeah.................. ummm..."

but on the flip side my bf & i got covid one day before we were supposed to see sza at MSG back in march and i was shocked by how many ppl straight up told me w/ no irony that we should've just gone anyway, with or without a mask, who cares. there is a lot of people who are taking the lack of masking & easing of restrictions to mean that you also no longer have any personal responsibility when it comes to managing risk for others.

i was still masking on the subway but as it got hotter and the subway became less tolerable i stopped. i flew cross country recently and didn't mask either bcuz you're also sitting an extra 2.5 hours on the runway now and an 8 straight hour mask is a no go for me at this point. i figure there's no real logic to masking in the subway but not a movie theater or bar so idk i've just given up on the whole thing.

i've had it three times since it started, the last time in march, as i mentioned. my symptoms were nonexistent tho it hit my boyfriend harder. i feel like every few weeks someone i know of is testing positive but i have a pretty large social circle here. and it doesn't seem like there's nearly as much clustering of cases as we used to have. i'd really love to not get it a fourth time but i don't know how to live anything resembling a normal life in nyc that doesn't include shirking pretty much every restriction/precaution one would wanna take. i doubt that masking like 10-20% of the time you're around strangers is very effective these days

thinking that people who mask are secretly (or not secretly) mad at people who don't mask is a straw man. some people may think that way. i don't. i think that humans are not good at risk calculations in general, but i don't get upset about it.

No, because of Societal pressure

I can't even remember the last time I saw someone wearing a mask, not the n95 ones at least.

I probably mainly wore in the first place because of societal pressure and the same goes for not wearing one. I just went along with everyone else in both cases without really thinking about it. I definitely paid attention to making sure I was doing it properly up until probably the second vaccine, after that it probably faded gradually. I did what I was supposed to do because why not but I outsourced my thinking about it entirely

thinking that people who mask are secretly (or not secretly) mad at people who don't mask is a straw man. some people may think that way. i don't. i think that humans are not good at risk calculations in general, but i don't get upset about it.

― Thus Sang Freud, Tuesday, July 18, 2023 3:37 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I only said that because all the “no” options ask majority non-mask wearers to choose which flawed belief they subscribe to. So assumed resentment was somewhere under the surface. I don’t think all masked people in general are secretly upset at everyone necessarily.

I wore one on the métro just now in honour of this thread (j/k, it was more the aforementioned air quality issue, which messed me up yesterday). On a decently full train I saw 1 other person wearing one. I wonder if in places where people more readily wore masks in the first instance, like Montreal, they are more readily discarding them now that there aren't govt mandates and it's an individual choice

What sort of option would you prefer Evan? No, but for my own reasons?

Feel free to use the pretty face option for that. Everyone knows it's not serious.

i think that humans are not good at risk calculations in general, but i don't get upset about it.

this kind of goes both ways though, right?

Could've given an option for those of us who think it's pretty safe not to mask in our current circumstances. "Covid is over" is obv not that because categorical and basically demonstrably false.

No. I haven’t in well over a year or whenever the last restrictions were lifted here with the exception of when I am an in clinical areas in the hospital where I work. Thats’s only mandatory in the ORs now though.

xpost well, it would also mean that you refuse to mask in all the situations mentioned (crowds, public transit, around sick people) Maybe you never encounter these at all.

Actually I forgot that the last time I wore a mask was actually outdoors a few weeks ago when Chicago was getting hit with the terrible wildfire smoke. I had to be outside most of the day and about halfway through, my throat was getting sore so I threw a mask on.

Around my second or third booster I started limiting my mask-wearing to the grocery store, pharmacy, and doctor’s office/hospital. When the hospital I go to for infusions stopped enforcing masks for their staff, I decided it was all clear so I stopped masking altogether (except for when I caught a cold a few months ago).

think that humans are not good at risk calculations in general, but i don't get upset about it

absolutely true, it might be a nice good faith assumption to assume this is how most people on one side of the mask issue see ppl on the other, and to remember risk analysis is a very personal thing, because it’s totally reasonable to weigh outcomes differently

yes but only my autism and bpd

Hospitals are the only places I wish still required masks tbh; they're filthier than planes.

it would also mean that you refuse to mask in all the situations mentioned (crowds, public transit, around sick people)

The majority of people in crowds and on public transit aren't wearing masks though? Or maybe they are depending on the city? If people aren't generally wearing masks in a scenario is it right to characterize also not wearing a mask as refusing to wear one?

I don’t think it is. I don’t wear one in any of those situations but it’s not a refusal.

similar experience here to curtis and enbb, since i work in the same corner of campus w the university hospital (even though i am academic staff) i was under the tighest general restrictions. we were the last school to drop the mandatory requirement so i was excited to take advantage of that (esp given tge daily email blasts from the chancellor’s office reminding us that virtually everyone being treated for covid at the hospital was unvaccinated)

xp

right, I don't think anyone here is saying they absolutely refuse to wear one

Reread that - if “sick people” immunocompromised or otherwise vulnerable people, I absolutely would one.

But yes - nobody has said that.

(Lol I somehow missed a couple words but you get my point)

xxxxpost But if you knew you were in a room with a covid positive person, or worked next to an immuno-compromised person (as I do) and did not wear a mask--perhaps that's not a "refusal" but it is a bit incautious or in the latter case rude.

yes, where is anyone saying they would necessarily do that?

I'm saying there's an option that mentions masking around a sick person.

wow what a spiteful little set of options! kudos

I think I've misunderstood or misread a post somewhere, that's on me if so

I think "crowds, public transport" is a very different category to "around a sick person". I probably would characterise the latter as a refusal, especially as it would be likely someone would actually ask in that scenario

Yeah, I suppose that's a fairly reasonable option, but grouping crowded spaces (how crowded?) with sick people kind of confuses it. I'm in plenty of crowded places, restaurants and bars for example, and pretty much never mask, but I'm rarely knowingly around sick people. I'd say my basic attitude is more in lines with COVID is over, but I wouldn't ever refuse in a more specific situation that called for it.

or what anvil said

sorry about the wording. trying to fit too many things into the options.

I no longer opt to wear one but would do so without hesitation if asked.

That would have been a better option. If anyone asked me to I would whether that be because they were immunocompromised or otherwise worried. I have not, however, found myself in that situation yet.

In 2021 choosing a no option would definitely align better with the portrayals in the poll, not so much now.

still wear a mask at work mostly because it means I don't have to smile at customers and people in general seem less likely to want to engage in conversation if I am masked. only time I take it off indoors at work is in the spacious delivery area when I am lifting and sorting totes of boxes which is quite strenuous work when masked.

don't go to restaurants or cinemas but still wear a mask at the supermarket. I like the psychological distance it provides.

No, praying for death

xp
totes of books, not totes of boxes

anecdotally there's an explosion of COVID cases in my metro area but if I peek at the wastewater data (which lags -3d) it seems like it's mere coincidence.

may have to dig into my drawer of boxes.

concerning.

drawer of mask boxes*

Covid aside, maybe wearing a mask on public transport is not a bad idea in general.. the grimy masses and all that

i felt a lot better about riding the subway in general w/ a mask on. until it hit 85 degrees. then the calculus started to change...

I won't say it's over, but no, not for a year probably.

Only while getting my haircut, cause my stylist requires it. Otherwise Covid is over (for me).

I still mask indoors (stores, movie theaters, concerts, pilates classes), on planes (I travel weekly for work), and in large outdoor crowds. It's not a big whoop. I really only eat outdoors unless the place is empty and ventilated. I've never had COVID and I test every day that I'm on the road (I work in medical facilities) and before I see my parents (my dad has had COVID-related cardiac problems after he got it from my mom who picked it up in the Europe last year).

I could list probably about a dozen people I know who've had it in the last 6 months-most recently a friend in LA two weeks ago-and many more who've had a "really bad cold that feels like the time I had covid." But I'm a nurse so it might be because everyone always tells me their medical business.

I have just jinxed myself havent I

Our focus on masking had solidified my view that science communication has failed.

My reaction to the pandemic was pained for obvious reasons but also because I watched us (Americans) simultaneously over-and-under-react.

I still can’t believe we did lockdowns instead of contact tracing. My epidemiologist colleagues (I was at the Broad Institute during the pandemic) were adamant that contact tracing, not lockdowns was the best solution. In fact, many, if provided the choice between doing nothing (i.e., Sweden) and lockdowns, the best solution was do nothing. It took Massachusetts a year to have sufficient contact tracing. Most states still don’t do any meaningful tracing. Meanwhile, Australia, of all the fucking places, smells like roses compared to us. The fact we pulled kids out of school is criminal. Not only did we keep kids from their right to an education (and somehow making us even dumber) it recklessly resulted in the death of an untold number people.

Needless to say, the entire pandemic made me incredibly cynical about our culture and politics!

The debate about the origin of COVID-19 is also dreadful!

Not only did we keep kids from their right to an education (and somehow making us even dumber) it recklessly resulted in the death of an untold number people.

what?

I still can’t believe we did lockdowns instead of contact tracing

It's not a binary. In 2020 and some of 2021 the lockdowns were needed to give us time before the vaccine debut. You can criticize the ridiculous stuff in retrospect (closing beaches, playgrounds, parks, outdoor spaces), but no one knew!

It's not a binary. In 2020 and some of 2021 the lockdowns were needed to give us time before the vaccine debut. You can criticize the ridiculous stuff in retrospect (closing beaches, playgrounds, parks, outdoor spaces), but no one knew!

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 18, 2023 7:17 PM (forty-five seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

Contact tracing, not lockdowns was the solution to hospitalizations. Literature has repeatedly confirmed that the capacity issues were the result of our inability to prioritize patients.

Yeah, how did school closings cause countless deaths?

Not only did we keep kids from their right to an education (and somehow making us even dumber) it recklessly resulted in the death of an untold number people.

what?

― slai gorgeous-alexander (m bison), Tuesday, July 18, 2023 7:15 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Children are vulnerable to the disease but they have a far lower risk of severe outcomes. We also knew that schools are not significant hotspots for transmission, especially with mitigating measures like distancing and adequate ventilation.

Bullshit. Their lives are going to be cut short by these repeated infections.

And my son caught it at school even though he was masking

"we"

"literature"

We fought for years to get adequate ventilation in our school, but everyone wants to move the fuck on and spend money on computer learning programs

And my son caught it at school even though he was masking

So did mine. He brought it home, and that was the only time, afaik, that my wife and I got it.

Yeah, how did school closings cause countless deaths?

― hardcore technician gimmicks are also another popular choice f (President Keyes), Tuesday, July 18, 2023 7:24 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

When the schools closed, many working parents had no choice but to send their children to alternative childcare settings, such as daycares or community centers, which could potentially expose them to a wider range of contacts than they would have had in a controlled school environment (e.g., distancing and ventilation). Likewise, children-grandparent transmission increased because of additional child-grandparent contact. Likewise, it’s silly, but, we took away a controlled space from teenagers.

We fought for years to get adequate ventilation in our school, but everyone wants to move the fuck on and spend money on computer learning programs

― hardcore technician gimmicks are also another popular choice f (President Keyes), Tuesday, July 18, 2023 7:29 PM (fifty-three seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

Woof.

What the fuck?

Bullshit. Their lives are going to be cut short by these repeated infections.

― hardcore technician gimmicks are also another popular choice f (President Keyes), Tuesday, July 18, 2023 7:27 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I appreciate the frustration. Just to be clear, I’m speaking about what we should’ve done. Months into the pandemic all of this was moot and repeated lockdowns made sense.

What the fuck?

― hardcore technician gimmicks are also another popular choice f (President Keyes), Tuesday, July 18, 2023 7:32 PM (nineteen seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was saying “this sucks.” Ventilation saves lives.

We also knew that schools are not significant hotspots for transmission, especially with mitigating measures like distancing and adequate ventilation.

― Allen (etaeoe), Tuesday, July 18, 2023 6:25 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/more-70-us-household-covid-spread-started-child-study-suggests

"More than 70% of transmissions in households with adults and children were from a pediatric index case, but this percentage fluctuated weekly," the study authors wrote. "Once US schools reopened in fall 2020, children contributed more to inferred within-household transmission when they were in school, and less during summer and winter breaks, a pattern consistent for 2 consecutive school years."

It seems to me that contact tracing requires a great amount of honesty and compliance

Mistakes were made, as they say, but I'm not sure this was any kind of silver bullet

Like, I don't really answer my cellphone anymore, how the hell were they gonna contact me?

I vaguely remember early flurry about apple, google, etc... developing contact tracing infrastructure, but the way it fizzled out makes me skeptical about a counterfactual America could ever have reasonably deployed a sufficiently robust system -- I mean basically, we ought to have one now for the currently circulating variants and monkey poxes or whatever, right?

I still wear a mask when I go to town and usually put it on outdoors when I get to a busy area, and any time I get on public transport. It's no big deal and I feel a bit safer; I'd prefer to get Covid as little as possible, especially as my father is still pretty high risk.

The ongoing obsessive washing and cleaning procedures are a real drag though. I understand why they advised it when the pandemic began, but it really brought my OCD cleaning habits out in full force, and I know I'm not the only one.

And even if they (contact tracers) did somehow get through: "Sir, you were in a bar last tuesday that maybe had some corona floating around, can you please stay home for ten days just in case?"

Yeah, no

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/more-70-us-household-covid-spread-started-child-study-suggests

"More than 70% of transmissions in households with adults and children were from a pediatric index case, but this percentage fluctuated weekly," the study authors wrote. "Once US schools reopened in fall 2020, children contributed more to inferred within-household transmission when they were in school, and less during summer and winter breaks, a pattern consistent for 2 consecutive school years."

― slai gorgeous-alexander (m bison), Tuesday, July 18, 2023 7:34 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is a fantastic paper and I love the authors (I’ve worked with Karen) but I want to emphasize “once US schools reopened.” My point is counterfactual. After our response to the first outbreak and second period, my argument is meaningless.

I mean...you've been here a while. You could've collated these comments into a longer post that would've have incited the snapping.

*may not have

It seems to me that contact tracing requires a great amount of honesty and compliance

Mistakes were made, as they say, but I'm not sure this was any kind of silver bullet

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, July 18, 2023 7:34 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yet Australia and Senegal managed. A nice article about what we could’ve done:

https://www.vox.com/22397842/senegal-covid-19-pandemic-playbook

Actually, all of the articles in that Vox series are great.

I mean...you've been here a while. You could've collated these comments into a longer post that would've have incited the snapping.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 18, 2023 7:44 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol fair

During the pandemic, I swore I would keep masking afterwards. I wore a mask in public for months after the restrictions were lifted ans most people stopped. But it's been over a year since I've worn one on a daily basis. I will still wear one if I'm feeling sick, which isn't often. On the other hand, my sister (who lives elsewhere in America) just caught it for the 3rd time in a year and she still masks daily.

Contact tracing, not lockdowns was the solution to hospitalizations

― Allen (etaeoe), Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Contact tracing in an epidemic like this was not in any way ever going to be reasonable or useful

Our focus on masking had solidified my view that science communication has failed.

― Allen (etaeoe), Tuesday, July 18, 2023

umm, am I misunderstanding you? We didn't come to it initially, we were worried about fomites - washing our grocery store items - which didn't matter at all, but our eventual focus on masking was what saved us

I think contact tracing is absolutely essential in things like an ebola outbreak, where you want to nip it at the bud as quickly as possible.. but with Covid, it was already floating around in the U.S. for months before they even knew what the hell was going on

contact tracing *was* attempted in the US, but got off the ground slowly, and when you have denialist Governors, it'll never go well. DeSantis was denying the presence of community spread the moment it started in FL.

not to mention one of the big reasons contact tracing got off to a slow start was the CDC foregoing the existing COVID test, attempting to design its own, and failing, leading for reduced capacity to perform them in the first place. that and a lot of people having no idea what the symptoms were early on, or the volume of asymptomatic cases.

which isn't to say contact tracing isn't useful because it is important, but the US started behind the eight ball from the very beginning because of Trump laughing it off for a month or so.

umm, am I misunderstanding you? We didn't come to it initially, we were worried about fomites - washing our grocery store items - which didn't matter at all, but our eventual focus on masking was what saved us

― Dan S, Tuesday, July 18, 2023 7:51 PM bookmarkflaglink

yes, the original public messaging when COVID reached the US was "don't want to get COVID? just wash your hands!", and focus on not shaking people's hands. I went to a Women's National Soccer Team match in February of that year and they made a point of saying the players wouldn't be signing autographs like usual because of the presumed fomite spread. we even have a thread on ILX called "POST HERE WHEN YOU INADVERTENTLY TOUCH YOUR FACE" which somewhat reflects that the early thoughts of spread.

the thought was very much droplet spread plus fomite, and that it was not airborne

I feel like contact tracing seemed like it was actually useful and well-deployed in places that seemed to be on the ball like Taiwan, or at least it seemed to from reports at the time, but I distinctly remember feeling, "yeah, the US could probably airlift the Taipei 101 tower over into Times Square before it could import that kind of non-dysfunction."

I don’t know if “masking was what saved us.” More than a million people have died from COVID-19 in the United States. Many felt needless. Vaccination, self-testing (and quarantining), and, to a certain extent, social distancing had far more impact than masking.

contact tracing *was* attempted in the US, but got off the ground slowly, and when you have denialist Governors, it'll never go well. DeSantis was denying the presence of community spread the moment it started in FL.

not to mention one of the big reasons contact tracing got off to a slow start was the CDC foregoing the existing COVID test, attempting to design its own, and failing, leading for reduced capacity to perform them in the first place. that and a lot of people having no idea what the symptoms were early on, or the volume of asymptomatic cases.

which isn't to say contact tracing isn't useful because it is important, but the US started behind the eight ball from the very beginning because of Trump laughing it off for a month or so.

― linoleum gallagher (Neanderthal), Tuesday, July 18, 2023 7:53 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

OTM. Especially since we were relying on assays whose reagents were sourced from Wuhan. 😳

xpost vaccination wasn't available until 2021 (unless you were a healthcare worker that got them in Dec of 2020 or in a trial like I was). almost half a million people died in the US alone before the first needles showed up.

are you suggesting that there was a realistic possibility that we would have identified enough of the cases and successfully quarantined the infected to a level that would have curbed the spread and put a significant dent in that death toll? Because I don't. look at how many people wouldn't comply with the measures that existed. and tests were VERY difficult to come by. there were no home tests until mid-to-late 2021! and in the earliest stages of the pandemic, when it got out of hand, some states would only let specific people get tested due to the scarcity. for example, my best friend couldn't get tested because she was under 65. Testing back then was often drive-thru and results often took 5 or more days to come back (in some cases, mine never arrived).

exponential growth is very hard to keep up with from a contact trace standpoint.

I don’t know if “masking was what saved us.” More than a million people have died from COVID-19 in the United States. Many felt needless. Vaccination, self-testing (and quarantining), and, to a certain extent, social distancing had far more impact than masking.

― Allen (etaeoe), Tuesday, July 18, 2023

completely disagree

What is the state-of-the-art in consumer masks now? Besides the garbage dyson one.

xpost like I just don't see how you can say "more than a million have died" and then list a bunch of solutions that literally weren't possible until almost half a million were already dead.

Yeah, kids have absolutely been the primary drivers of the pandemic since schools reopened.

We did contact tracing where I live (a lot of places did) but there were simply too many people testing positive during the Delta and Omicron waves to keep up. Once home tests came into widespread use, most people weren't calling those results in anywhere for tracing. My state used an app for a while and you would get a ding if you were in recent proximity to someone who had reported a positive test.

I do think, however, we did operate under an illusion of control for a long time, that we had the ability to eradicate or get close to eradicating COVID through our actions alone. hence why the Zero COVID movement existed, which was a bit of a pipe dream once Delta became the global dominant. the rate of spread was often too high for most public measures to curb it enough to avoid major waves. however, more could have and should have been done...way more. it's the whole starfish story - just because you can't save literally everybody doesn't mean you don't try to save as many as you can

xpost kate78 otm. also very interesting about that app!

I was a bandana guy for the first year at least, I liked the bandito look.. god knows if it did any good

most people weren't calling those results in anywhere for tracing

yeah, must've been a wild under-count the last couple years

There was a similar app here in the uk but you had to download it and opt in. I think I got pinged three times. It told you when you were near the person and gave advice on testing and isolating etc. The info about who was positive also presumably had to be reported into the app by the person. I have no idea if it was effective but I do t think it was for those reasons. They did try though.

we got some fun stories during the pandemic

https://thosenerdygirls.org/can-farts-spread-covid/

Also got a notification once after a flight that one of the passengers had tested positive so that was contact tracing through the flight because we had to test two days after landing iirc. It was a masked flight. I didn’t get it.

If you're wondering just what the states were up to wrt pandemic precautions and mitigation efforts (including contact tracing), this is a project I worked on:

https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2021-05/BSG-WP-2020-034-v3.pdf

And also:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230628190651/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/28/opinion/covid-pandemic-2020-or-covid-pandemic-politics.html

thank you!

yeah, must've been a wild under-count the last couple years

And now we're pretty much just running on wastewater and vibes

Sad lol at vibes

the wastewater vibe is off

yeah it stinks

Hospitals are the only places I wish still required masks tbh; they're filthier than planes.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 18, 2023 4:45 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

hey now

lol

kate, thanks for this! I have to keep explaining to non-Floridians that at least where I lived we were excellent at the municipal level on masks, social distancing, school closures, and outdoor vs indoor. The most vigorous observers of these rules? Older Cuban voters who voted for Trump in November.

Yes, I still wear a KN95 most of the time, particularly when I’m indoors. I never take it off at the school I teach at, and I wear them while attending film screenings, museums, grocery stores, etc.

Never tested positive for COVID! Wow, what a coincidence. I have had all 3 booster shots as well despite being under 40

I apologize for about being so grumpy. The pandemic was not kind. I hope everyone is healthy.

I ditched masking as soon as it was socially acceptable to do so and have also never tested positive for covid; coincidences are a funny thing

I mask up when I go to my primary care doc because she has a toddler-age granddaughter going through cancer treatment and has asked her patients to keep masking, otherwise no. Not many people masking in NE MS.

I forgot, there is one person in my town who masks — the cashier at the gas station convenience store near me. She, too, is going through cancer treatment.

I guess about a year or so ago I stopped masking but I still wear a mask if I have to go out in public when sick (which doesn't really happen much since I work from home anyway)

Masks started dropping away slowly, then more rapidly, and now I will only wear one if I’m on the subway (rare) or airplane (even more rare)

tl;dr: no

in february i asked my manager if our office could go mask-optional instead of it being mandatory (my team is eight ppl and we’re the only team in the entire company who work in a physical office space); it got put to a vote and everyone unanimously agreed to go optional. half my team continues to mask, everyone else has either stopped completely or wears them from time to time. many of us eat lunch together in the office (and did so well before this).

since we went optional at work, i think i’ve worn a mask twice (once at an urgent care facility that required it, the other at a religious service which still had a mandate in place). i eat indoors, have gone on a couple plane trips, frequently take public transit, and go to ~4-5 concerts/screenings a month. i tested positive for covid in winter ‘22, have not had it (or any other major illness, just the occasional minor head cold) since.

Dave Anthony was on Qanon Anonymous talking about that Sound of Freedom movie. He said he walked into the theater wearing a mask and a guy in the audience told him “You’re in the wrong movie.”

I'll admit there was some indirect social pressure in my decision to stop masking at work earlier this year. My team of about 10 people goes into the office once or twice a week. For a while, I was one of three people who was masking at all times, even in my cube. But when I noticed the other two had stopped doing so, I quickly followed suit. As long as at least one of my coworkers was wearing a mask, not wearing one felt irresponsible, but if no one else was, I didn't want to be the only one.

We all still mask during meetings in the conference room, though. When we first came back last year, that was the company policy (when more than half of seats are occupied), and I don't think it's officially been rescinded, though I know that other teams routinely flout it.

Ha, that reminds me of an article I saw about a year ago that looked at predictive factors of continued mask wearing. After filtering out those who had a medical condition, or took care of someone with one, or were older, etc the main productive factor in continued mask wearing was not giving a fuck about what other people think about you.

of all the fucking places

a) uh what the fuck?

b) oh yeah Australia, the “place” that famously never had any lockdowns

c) the hospital system in the capital territory just had to Spinal Tap their emergency ranking levels a month ago because they were so close to collapse that they needed to add an “eleven” to keep in reserve for a future pandemic

Alfred (and others), here's the final report for the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker:

https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-06/BSG-WP-2020-032-v15.pdf

Main website here if anyone wants to pull data or look at visualizations: https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/covid-19-government-response-tracker

Combination of "it's over / freedom".
The point of masking was to relieve hospitals, not to stop contagion. I had it twice and received three doses of vaccination, so the risks are as low as they get. At some point you have to move on.
As a unique prevention method, I do a ninja move and block my breath anytime someone coughs next to me lol.

I just hold my breath any time I go anywhere.

Honestly, can't recall the last time I wore a mask, which was also probably the last time anyone required me to wear one. Shuttle to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles in July 2022, maybe? Everywhere I go (locally to internationally) there is a small handful of people still masking, but not many. I think I know one or two people that (knowingly) caught (very mild) cases of covid the past year and a half or so, but I don't know anyone among my friends or family or general community cohort that still masks. The broader philosophy seems to be that things are back to "normal," except covid is now counted among the common illnesses we may potentially catch while out and about, and everyone I know is also very conscious/aware that should they ever feel under the weather they should, whenever possible, at the very least keep to themselves until they feel better.

Which is why the poll choices feel so vintage

the odds of covid's leading to long covid are said to be 15%. let's say it's even only 5% for severe long covid, which can include likely permanent brain damage.

hell yeah i'm still masking.

Out of curiosity: what's your social life consist of?

haha. you know, there are admittedly limitations. but i get by fine.

i wear seat belts too, where the risk of a catastrophic car accident is much, much less.

does any modern car give you a choice about that anymore?

Which is why the poll choices feel so vintage

― But his face would not turn into hot Kirby (Evan), Wednesday, July 19, 2023 8:11 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

You live in a different information world than I do.

This is like the 5th time you've complained about the poll options. Why not start a different poll with options skewed toward your preferences.

does any modern car give you a choice about that anymore?

― rob, Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Modern cars after 2021 will also wrap a KN95 around your face.

yeah but that's just to collect your breath data

I'll admit I'm a little fascinated by it, but it would be more interesting to hear you respond to Josh and all the others chiming in with similar sentiments vs. pretending I'm the only one living in an alternate reality.

xps

still wear one on the subway/bus if it's crowded. pretty sure when i got covid it was from the subway one of the few times i didn't mask

i don't really go anywhere else that's crowded and/or poorly ventilated enough to feel like a hazard

xpost I don't see Josh asking for a response. But this is the kind of thing I'm talking about: long covid, immunity degradation from multiple infections, protection of my kids from a lifetime of poor health.

Three years ago I warned that Covid was reducing naive T cells

Now, Pfizer acknowledges immune dysregulation and gives the same warning I made:

that it could affect immunity in the future
1/https://t.co/JjxWlz9wzi https://t.co/QisOrJo6Gj pic.twitter.com/VMhGaClBeQ

— AJ Leonardi, MBBS, PhD (@fitterhappierAJ) July 17, 2023

I just keep masking when I'm out and about, I don't feel like I gain much/lose anything from wearing one. I don't feel much of an effect on my life, I mix and mingle w friends and they come in our place and we go in theirs. I know enough people who have had it post vaccination and didn't have a good time of it, including some who have had long-term effects, for me just to do the easy thing. Also a number of kids who have had it who had a disproportionately high number of colds and flu in the ensuing couple of years makes me really and truly not to want to bring it home to my kid, and he really doesn't want it a second time. But I guess I could probably be filed under that category of "dgaf what people think about me wearing one."

Used to be super-hardcore about it (N95 indoors in public at all times), but I've started to relax a little bit and we will eat indoors occasionally or sometimes run quick errands without one. We recently went on a little vacation where me and my partner didn't really mask at all for a couple of days and it was fine.

I do work in a public facing job at a public library, where people semi-regularly cough in my face, so I always mask there even though most of my co-workers don't any longer. At least at my current job, I don't think I will ever remove it as I don't want to have to deal with all the comments from regulars who haven't seen me without one. I still get some anyway from people who see me outside the library without one (ex: "Saw you outside without your mask on. You have a nice face." uh OK, thanks??).

My partner and I haven't gotten it yet as far as we know though and neither of us want to risk getting long Covid since we know a couple of people having a hard time with that so I think we will continue to mask at work and crowded indoor spaces for the foreseeable future, even if the risk is low at this point. I don't really mind it and it seems to function as a bit of a barrier from randos chatting you up which I appreciate.

i am rarely indoors in communal spaces long enough to risk transmission, if i am there for an extended period of time i'm usually doing something like eating or drinking that reduces mask efficacy considerably, so i'm not doing much masking rn unless i'm sick or someone else is. afaict masking did not prevent me from catching covid at the movie theater, but who knows, maybe it's why i didn't really give it to anyone else. i also don't have kids (the really horrible bout of covid i had in january was likely from going to see puss in boots, there were so many coughing children and parents in that theater)

i know two people with long covid and boy does it seem like it sucks, i am however already dealing with a weird potential autoimmune disorder and sorta feeling like "jesus christ, whatever" about it. judging me seems fair i guess

i abandoned masking outdoors in pretty much every situation in 2021 when i read a study that said transmission was extremely low outdoors. still doing most of my hanging out outdoors in the summer. but i def fearlessly go to karaoke bars now

Karaoke bars seem like they could be one of the worst places to go for the covid-averse. Crowded, closed space, people singing/spraying, shared mics, drinking, etc.

I should stress, I'd happily mask up if requested, for any reason. And I have no problem with people masking around me, or at all. Masks clearly provide protection for more than covid. Just my experience of the past year+ is that the vast majority I encounter, like 95%+, are not wearing masks.

AJ Leonardi is a crank who has been discredited by a humongous number of his peers, and he is also an incredibly toxic person who commits targeted harassment against primarily female scientists.

Almost none of what he predicted has come to pass

I do not mask outdoors at all and haven't since spring '21 unless it's Pitchfork Festival and have felt hemmed in (which happened last summer).

I've returned to karaoke bars repeatedly in the last four weeks, disgusting places. But again ymmv. I needed them.

So what does the evidence now say?

One of the first hints that COVID could severely mess with the immune system, particularly in severe cases, came in a small study that autopsied 11 people who died of the infection in the summer of 2020. The dead didn’t have so-called germinal centres or places in the spleen and lymph glands where immune cells learn how to mount a long-lasting attack against a biological invader.

In other words the immune system didn’t do what it is supposed to do: successfully defeat the infection.

In 2021 the Journal of Clinical Investigation confirmed that changes in T-cell activation and exhaustion were notable in non-hospitalized patients. Moreover the evidence suggested “a prolonged period of immune dysregulation” after infection.

In November 2021 a group of Italian researchers studied the immunological character of patients recovering from acute disease after hospitalization. They, too, found what Leonardi predicted in 2020: exhausted T cells. In fact the immune system of these patients was not only beat up but suffered a number of other abnormalities that the researchers characterized as a “deranged immune profile.” This immune weakness persisted months after infection but could be restored with the administration of a protein called PD-1 Blockade.

Other scientists found that mild COVID infections can damage the immune system. British and U.S. researchers looked at the state of T cells in patients who had mild, severe and no COVID. What they discovered surprised them and appears counterintuitive. Patients with severe disease appeared to have competent T cell memory to fight off reinfection while mild cases suffered from T cell exhaustion. Exhausted T cells lose their ability to fight off viruses or cancer for that matter.

“People who have severe disease are likely to end up with a good number of memory cells,” said Dr. Pandurangan Vijayanand at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. “People with milder disease have memory cells, but they seem exhausted and dysfunctional — so they might not be effective for long enough.”

Australian researchers have reported similar intriguing findings after looking at the blood profiles of patients suffering from long COVID and comparing them to healthy controls. They found that “immunological dysfunction persisted for eight months after mild to moderate” infection including indicators of “chronic T cell activation and potentially exhaustion.” They also found that people with long COVID were missing naive T cells, just as Leonardi had warned.

I can cherry pick articles too.

feel like one could've just updated the outbreak thread but i guess i needed a good scolding

xpost I am no longer living in Twitter doomscrolling like I was in 2020 and 2021 to where I can easily pull examples out and I don't wish to rejoin that toxic discussion, but I will point out that Leonardi's T-cell theory has largely been a fringe theory for 3 years and he's been called out as a lunatic by respected resources like Jasnah Kholin and Angie Rasmussen (who he abused routinely).

he's also advocated for zero COVID meaning he basically thinks we should be living in hermetically sealed huts. and if you look at the people he associates with, they're equally nuts. i.e. Denise Dewald, Miss "I put bleach in the toilet with my poop to prevent my infected feces from killing people"

(Zero COVID made sense in 2020, but advocating for it in 2023?)

The acquaintance I mentioned yesterday is a serious Zero COVID person but also mildly agoraphobic, so the pandemic and her condition joined hands.

A study with 11 subjects? Let's award the Nobel for that one.

dude is an egomaniac who got female scientists bullied off the Twittersphere by highlighting their tweets and siccing his cult on them, easy to control narrative when your opponents are too afraid to talk to you.

Sorry I shared this guy's tweet. I didn't know he was highlighting and siccing.

I still mask on public transport and in grocery stores. I try to mask while teaching but often end up pulling off my mask for a bit as it's easier to teach without it. I go back and forth on whether I mask in smaller stores and very crowded public spaces like concerts.

I got Covid about a year ago and it messed with my heart in a very scary way, and it took until February or March for most of the cardiac symptoms to go away. For a while there I couldn't wear a backpack or carry anything or go up stairs or even get up from my desk and walk down the hallway at work without painful heart palpitations. I don't know what my heart will do if I get covid again, and I don't want to find out.

i keep hearing from people who travel that they never see masks until they get to my neck of the woods. western mass. i talked to one guy who toured the country with his music and he said he didn't see one mask until he got to my town! so, i guess people are, uh, really careful here or something. a lot of young people wear them in my store. i can't tell if they are worried about getting it or just really thoughtful toward the elderly.

I admit that part of my lax masking has to do with what seem like the random elements of transmission— my mom caught it on our way back from a family trip to Hawai’i to visit my husband’s family, but neither my dad nor my husband or I caught it despite being unmasked in the cab back to our respective abodes. The only time I caught it, my husband also caught it, and so did our friend with whom we’d had dinner two nights previous. Her partner didn’t catch it at all!

Of course this is all anecdotal, but at a certain point, I’m not going to keep wearing a mask in all situations if it genuinely seems like there’s an element of it that is completely random— people I know who are assiduous maskers finally gave up after catching it multiple times, because they figure what’s the fucking use.

i'd be curious what kind of masks ppl who catch this (while masked) are wearing, and how they're wearing them. still see a lot of people who apparently don't realize you can breathe thru your nose.

so true. I’m always so puzzled when I see people walking around in places masks aren’t required with it over their chin. I think it’s genuinely a fashion accessory for some people!

I assume most in this thread know this, but if you’re going to wear a mask, particularly for your own protection, don’t use surgical masks. find a cheap kn95

Just my experience of the past year+ is that the vast majority I encounter, like 95%+, are not wearing masks.

In my experience, a majority of people have been unmasked in communal indoor settings for at least the past year, but I wouldn't have said it was over 90% until the last few months. (Maybe Oak Park is different?)

I'll say that going through this past winter without another big spike in cases (like omicron the year before) made me personally feel like it was OK to finally be less cautious, and anecdotally, I think other people made the shift around the same time. Probably the fact that the U.S. dropped the public-health emergency and the news organizations like the NYT stopped collecting and reporting data had something to do with it, too. I'm cynical about the motivation behind those decisions, but they no doubt contributed to a sense among otherwise cautious people that certain mitigating measures were perhaps no longer necessary.

i feel like the stats on covid trends are hard to take at face value, since the way certain data is being reported just seems inconsistent, and i'm sure there are families who don't test at all anymore. when our kid was out for ten days with covid in mid december, we reported the reason to the school, but i don't know that they passed it on. also should say that every single one of his teachers was out at least once w/covid this past year, one of them twice, one of them three times. there were also a lot of sick kids being sent to school. i feel like there are plenty of people who would rather not bother seeing what's up with that slight fever and cough, and share their covid and their kids' covid with the world, than allow it to impact their lives any further.

oh totally

Sad lol I just tested positive (freshly back from traveling). Only a mild sore throat for the time being.

It’s so strange to listen to people talk about it being commonplaces even now when here it hasn’t been for so long. I actually did find wearing them really tough. They made me overheat which causes panic attacks for me. I was in the office through most of the pandemic and there was a point where we had to wear them all day at work even at our desk and it was extremely difficult. I went until Dec last year without getting it and when I did it was very mild. I totally understand people being cautious because of systemic or long term risks and I know it sounds silly for those for whom it’s nbd but wearing one was having a huge impact on my mental health so as soon as I was allowed to give them up I did. I understand the risks but they are ones willing to take I guess.

They are ones I am willing to take - that should have said.

sorry for the positive JiC, but hopefully it's just gonna pass quickly and never get worse.

yeah i can understand that E, that's all a fair point. there are cases where it's probably best to not mask for reasons where the good outweights the chance of bad. the kid has been masking in school for the past two in-person years, and he's at a day camp now with a couple small classes, and he's not masking (only five kids in the class, vaccinations required for all.) hopeful that the numbers will be better in the schools this upcoming year but at the same time, those classes have 30+ kids and i'm wary.

Just arrived at the hair salon, and my stylist who has consistently worn a mask every time I've seen her since 2021, including most recently in May when we were the only two people in the salon at the end of the day, is now barefaced.

i masked all this year at school, plan to continue next year as one of my co-workers has a medically fragile child at home. i still mask at restaurants even though it's off when i'm eating, figuring some mitigation is better than none. i dont go out to eat much anymore, though. still doing curbside for groceries. probably the only place i dont mask is at outdoor events.

this would be an accurate description my protocol during peak 2020-21 periods. although i never did curbside groceries, just wore a mask

can't remember the last time i wore one. maybe 6 months ago? i don't even remember the last person i saw wearing one one tbh. i'm in germany rn and literally no one hear masks. in canada you still see maybe one per day

I assume anyone masking in public today is either high risk, symptomatic or has an anxiety disorder. The only times I do now is if I'm feeling under the weather or if I have something fun coming up like a trip and I don't want it to get ruined.

I have friends who still mask up. Several due to having what they regard as complications putting them at more risk, such as CFS-style illnesses. But theyve all been triple-plus vaxxed.

It feels like almost everyone I know has caught covid at least once now. Several friends suffer from long covid, one quite severely (heart problems since being sick). Oddly, the 2 under-18s in my household are completely unvaccinated (NOT OUR CHOICE) and neither of them have caught it lol. Tho the younger one is obsessive about mask wearing and handwashing to an almost OCD degree.

i still mask indoors in public, and only where there's packed crowds outdoors - in practice that's just outdoor concerts. i have n95s that are fairly breathable and very tolerable for a few hours.

long covid rates do not seem to be at all negligible and i have history with similar medical issues significantly damaging my quality of life and ability to work and really do not want to deal with anything like that again, or worse. cases have ripped through my work's office a few times in the past year, so it doesn't seem like transmission is negligible either.

avoiding restaurants with indoors-only seating is not a huge issue at all. i do not prefer working entirely from home but it is easier than masking in the office all day. i go to indoor concerts and the cinema while masking without issue.

I still can’t believe we did lockdowns instead of contact tracing. My epidemiologist colleagues (I was at the Broad Institute during the pandemic) were adamant that contact tracing, not lockdowns was the best solution. In fact, many, if provided the choice between doing nothing (i.e., Sweden) and lockdowns, the best solution was do nothing. It took Massachusetts a year to have sufficient contact tracing. Most states still don’t do any meaningful tracing. Meanwhile, Australia, of all the fucking places, smells like roses compared to us.

australia had significant lockdowns (more severe than anything in the usa) in the cities (sydney and melbourne) that had significant outbreaks. the experience there was that contact tracing got increasingly more difficult and less effective as outbreaks got worse, it certainly wasn't something that could be used to control major outbreaks on its own. it was effective at keeping low levels of cases under control, but did not scale well at all. here in brisbane, where we successfully maintained zero covid until the end of 2021 when borders were reopened, there was the occasional 'lockdown' but they were fairly minor and short-lived, especially once the initial shock wore off - things were really quite normal for most of 2021 beyond an occasional mandated week of working from home here and there. contract tracing did successfully keep outbreaks completely under control here for nearly two years, but only because we kept covid out from the very start.

YEah as someone who lived through it this is how it went:
- utterly harsh lockdowns for months on end, severla times over 2020-2021. Like, they were fining people out in public without masks/at night/in larger groups. You had to send out one person to get the groceries. That sort of thing.
- subsidies for people so WFH/being off work a while was at least doable. Basically, the Dole went up to a livable amount for the first time in 30 years. Of course they took it all away again afterward.
- sure, we had next to no cases while this was all going on. The minute we stopped? We had one of the biggest per capita surges of any country. Hospitals were REALLY struggling, and a LOT of people, old ppl in nursing homes in particular, died. Then we had a massive flu outbreak as well.
- oh and BTW contact tracing ended up being kind of useless. When covid first came in it was more effectve, and the slightest hint of 5 cases in a nearby street/shopping centre made everyone freak out but at some point I dont know if ppl stopped caring (stopped doing the checkins), or the govt just stopped publishing the figures, or what, but it just went away quietly.

Oddly, the 2 under-18s in my household are completely unvaccinated (NOT OUR CHOICE)

these are your kids you've given the choice to make or some other minors in your house?

The funny part for me was seeing all those weird cooker right wingers in the US claiming we were under some kind of martial law, and there'd be images of something completely unrelated (like, footage from the Iraq war protests from 2002) as proof.

xpost: not my kids. stepkids. Its their mother who refused, and the kids themselves went with her decision, so we didnt force it (tho it came to a head because she also refused to let them go to school but that one was fought and we won).

contact tracing just got completely overwhelmed when restrictions were removed at the end of 2021, which was obviously foreseeable despite insistence from some that it would keep working, and the state governments all pretty quickly gave up on it after that. the sudden way we reopened was pretty far from ideal, hospitals were a disaster for pretty much all of last year, and the health system is still struggling. still though, as bad as that reopening period was, we're still better off than we would have been if it hadn't been kept under control that long.

I assume anyone masking in public today is either high risk, symptomatic or has an anxiety disorder.

Maybe, maybe not

current WHO guidance is that healthy kids & adolescents don't need to be vaccinated in countries with a low burden of disease

by any reasonable imo definition of "covid is over", covid is over so ive not felt need to mask in probably a year

What keeps me masking at school, in addition to the fear of more heart complications, is that since covid is over the school district no longer gives you extra sick days for covid, you have to use your regular sick days, and you're urged to come back to work after five days. So usually people come in after five days looking absolutely miserable and still very sick, and force themselves to teach anyway. When I got covid a year ago, though, I was very sick for ten full days and there is no way I could have taught.

same darra

i readily admit that i dont work in schools, hospitals, public facing context nor do i do a lot of subway-style commuting/travel, in which case i can't say that covid wouldn't have significantly changed my answer here as well as very likely changing my approach to masking during eg flu season, tho

P much only on the subway or on planes

What keeps me masking at school, in addition to the fear of more heart complications, is that since covid is over the school district no longer gives you extra sick days for covid, you have to use your regular sick days, and you're urged to come back to work after five days. So usually people come in after five days looking absolutely miserable and still very sick, and force themselves to teach anyway. When I got covid a year ago, though, I was very sick for ten full days and there is no way I could have taught.

― Lily Dale, Thursday, July 20, 2023 3:15 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah this is huge. considering in tx we get 10 paid days off per year, covid can lay waste to what little time we can take off work.

in LAUSD, whenever a child misses school, they really lay it on thick with the phone calls and slightly scolding air reminding you how many days they're allowed to miss in a semester, it's like Rooney from Ferris Bueller's Day Off saying "NINE TIMES" on the phone w Mrs Bueller. And there aren't caveats for COVID mentioned. Now, the reality is your kid can miss as many days as necessary w/illness, but due to the school's budget being based in part on regular attendance (no mulligans allowed for a COVID outbreak), they're really anxious to get kids back there ASAP. Which puts the pressure on parents, which probably leads to kids being sent to school sick, which leads to more issues. There were a lot of days where the kid would come back from school and mention there were a lot of absences, but there's no testing anymore and like i said i'm sure there are a ton of families (many of whom are probably not covid truthers or anti-vaccine types) who aren't testing at home either. so who really knows what's up.

Still masking at shows and crowded indoor spaces. Otherwise I'm lucky in that I work from home and whatever interactions I have with folks in person is up to me.

I don't have irrational anxiety about getting covid, but well-reasoned anxiety about being denied health insurance in the future because a covid infection could be interpreted as a preexisting condition.

i've popped in a few small airy places without a mask and never thought i'd catch covid, if i go anywhere even masked i kinda keep up a brisk pace to keep any virus guessing. i don't think i have any sort of anxiety about it, just cold risk assessment as the numbers start to creep up here again (maybe people returning from summer travels?), and a desire that if i happen to get it, i'd rather it be for a worthwhile social experience. my plan is to not get it (despite one friend asking me the other day, "don't you just want to get it over with?")

"don't you just want to get it over with?"

oh yeah I can't wait to roll the dice with my long term health! sign me up! jfc this isn't like measles parties!

also "getting it over with" would make more sense if you could only get it once.

another very good point

getting it over with: electric boogaloo

I have noticed that once people get their first infection, they tend to be rather cavalier about taking any precautions thereafter. There's been some evidence that influenza infections tend to make people more social in order to facilitate its spread. Maybe SARS-CoV-2 is doing something similar, altering the way people assess risk, and leading to subsequent infections.

tbf mr little average daily attendance is not only used for budget allotment but is also used as a school performance metric in california

thought masks were a lot more effective protecting others from getting your germs rather than the other way around

the most basic cloth masks yes but actual medical respirators - n95 etc. - do provide good protection if fitted properly

tbf mr little average daily attendance is not only used for budget allotment but is also used as a school performance metric in california

― the late great, Thursday, July 20, 2023 2:46 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

there seems to be a lot of mixed messaging on this from my (mostly) outsider perspective, i'm sure it's only been worse overall during covid. because everything is worse.

Went to the grocery store tonight and wished I'd brought a mask. It was more crowded than some shows I've been to.

I have KF94 and N95 masks in the tote bag I always carry with me when out walking, and just reflexively put one of them on when in a crowded indoor place. I'm happy to suspend that protocol to have friends over or to welcome a cleaning person or to go out to dinner with family, but see no reason to risk my health for a trip to Trader Joe's

I went to Mexico in Feb 2020 and came back through Houston, arriving in SF on March 17th, the day of the initial lockdown. There were no masks available either in Mexico or the US at the time. My seat-mate was an American woman returning from San Salvador, where there were already dead bodies in the streets. Four days later I came down with a scary respiratory illness, with dry cough, chest tightness, sore throat, headache, fatigue, and eventual loss of taste and smell. There were no covid tests to be had at the time, and I was advised not to go to the ER unless I was in respiratory distress. I recovered after a few weeks

My 16 y/o masks every single day at school and, as far as I can tell at pick up, is maybe one of five out of 3000 students who do. I work from home so I don't but I also don't anymore when I go out. The husband and I are the only people I personally know (in both hemispheres) who never caught covid. Well, not yet anyway.

Thats to say we are somehow extraordinarily lucky considering how lackadaisical we became.

Every year of my life up until the pandemic I've had at least one awful respiratory illness each year, usually in March after everyone else was already sick, and all of them were different, so in March 2020 I had no way of knowing if what I had was COVID

I've been wearing a good mask in indoor places since then and for the first time in my life I have not been sick with a virus for more than three years

I know most of you don’t encounter people with masks anymore (when I travel I don’t see them), but a lot of people in SF are still wearing them indoors in public places, at least in my neighborhood, which makes me happy

posted this a month back:

Went into whole foods yesterday and was grabbing some chips adjacent to the only other person in the store who was masked. Asked if if she ever felt like the only one doing it. She said, "on the daily!" and said she still knows people getting COVID but she had yet to get it. I said "same all around" and we told each other to stay safe. It's a small deal and no judgement to those who threw out their masks and breathe the free air but it can be tough feeling like the only one wearing one of these facehuggers indoors while almost everyone has relaxed. So it's good to KIP with others on the same wavelength.

― omar little, Sunday, June 25, 2023 11:44 AM (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I always thank service workers for wearing a mask.

And Dan S, I travel pretty frequently to SF for work from Seattle and have noticed that SF and SEA still have plenty of mask-wearers. I don't think it's a coincidence that west coast cities have had the lowest case and death rates.

I rarely see mask wearers in L.A.

Maskin' in LA
Maskin' in LA
Nobody masks in LA

I have KF94 and N95 masks in the tote bag I always carry with me when out walking, and just reflexively put one of them on when in a crowded indoor place. I'm happy to suspend that protocol to have friends over or to welcome a cleaning person or to go out to dinner with family, but see no reason to risk my health for a trip to Trader Joe's

― Dan S, Friday, July 21, 2023 2:16 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

That's the kind of inconsistency that led me to the conclusion that covid mitigation is an all-or-nothing strategy. You're much more at risk spending 15 minutes talking with a loved one than going through a crowd at the supermarket. Covid will get you at your Achille's heel, it will find any crack in your armor, the only question is when, it can only be slowed down.

I also feel that we have to trust our immunity and fight the survivalist / paranoia reflex. If Covid never goes away, and we get it every odd year, and the chance of getting long covid and organ damage does not go down with subsequent infections, as some still believe, we're collectively doomed and we can already work out the stats of our demise. But fortunately the opposite seems to be true: we become more resistant, the virus weakens because it prefers to be contagious than deadly.

i don't put out a ton of satanic metal these days, but when i do i am absolutely backmasking

Nabozo

You're much more at risk spending 15 minutes talking with a loved one than going through a crowd at the supermarket.

Wasn't that the conclusion that broke through after all the buzz about fomites

...by which I mean, 15+ minutes of close conversation was way more likely to result in infection than grocery shopping or walking through a farmer's market or ailing to bleach your mail?

There was so much messaging and so much of it was off-base; it might be okay to forgive normal humans for forgetting or losing track of exactly which things are/were worst and best

*failing to bleach your mail

Is it weird that this thread is the first time I've ever heard the word fomites? And yeah, I wasn't touching my face at the time either.

God, I miss when going grocery shopping felt like a spacewalk though.

fomite sam

When I think about you I don't touch my face

wait i'm NOT supposed to be bleaching my email?

six months into the pandemic, one of the more recognized aerosol specialists was talking on twitter about how he washed his produce in the bathtub after grocery shopping and several virologists asked him "why the fuck are you doing this"

though maybe he was having sex w/ the produce idk

I'm comfortable with inconsistency because masking some of the time is better than none of the time. People get worked up about the idea of someone wearing a mask on an airplane and then removing it to eat pretzels, as though we believe that the virus simply doesn't exist while we're eating. We know the risk of removing the mask for any amount of time, but not wearing it at all is a greater risk, so why not try to reduce the overall risk to the extent one feels comfortable? It's annoying to wear a mask for 8 hours at work, but doesn't bother me at all to wear one for 30 minutes at the grocery store. It's low-effort but potentially high reward if it means I don't end up sick from someone coughing in the frozen food aisle.

Actual ilxorz posted here about leaving their groceries outside for a few days before bringing them inside, and/or bleaching apples. It was totally a thing.

It's fine to acknowledge that no one knew very much at first, and that there was (and is) wide variance in cautions and reactions. Almost all of it was (and is) well-intentioned.

Saluting and celebrating good intentions is a big part of my personal ethic (even when I fail to live up to my own standards, which happens all too often).

he washed his produce in the bathtub after grocery shopping and several virologists asked him "why the fuck are you doing this"

He had confused his groceries with Lech Wałęsa

Back in 2020 I almost always washed Lech Wałęsa in my bathtub.

(Sorry, TMI)

fuck washing a Lech Wałęsa

He wasn't in the bathtub for washing. He wanted to inspect the Polish Navy.

Lysołęsa

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

options itp aren't up to the task, I mask on public transit, planes, and probably would if I went to movies or shows

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

https://compote.slate.com/images/dd1afe77-0987-459b-9ce2-2fdad81b231e.jpeg?crop=3612%2C2408%2Cx0%2Cy0&width=1440

If you add up the options it's a 62.5 - 37.5% split, that's still a lot of masking.

if you check the most popular yesses its clear that they reference "in limited circumstances" so thats not a lot of masking

There's a whole lot of masking going on, sometimes

thats where im a-masking

I didn't vote bc I was dissatisfied with the options, but I do still mask in some circumstances.

I guess I should've voted for "just indoors in public spaces." It's not all public spaces, or all the time, but that's where I do continue to mask.

"COVID is over" yeah fuck all 53 of you

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-hospitalizations-rise-biggest-weekly-increase-since-december/

People are still dying from covid and more will die in the future because it still is a nasty, ugly disease, but it's not at pandemic levels anymore and is now either below epidemic levels or else pretty close to falling below that threshold.

fuck all 53 of you

rude

Conley said virtually all counties are at "low" COVID-19 hospital admission levels, below the thresholds at which the CDC recommends additional precautions to curb the virus.

two more months til new variant vaccine out, will set my appointment.

xpost yeah, it is worth noting that up until a month or two ago, hospitalizations and deaths were at the lowest levels they had been since the pandemic began, so we were due for an increase at some point, particularly the hot-assed summer which is driving everyone indoors.

sorry crut :(

I just don't get why somebody would think that it's over, again I think the issue here is the way the options were phrased, to me "being with us forever" is not exactly "over" but ymmv

three ppl I know have gotten COVID in the last two weeks, this isn't some normal thing like flu season

I can see how heat/indoors is a driver, good point Neanderthal

not really sure what I should take from this tbh, nobody here even talks or pays attention to it, it is over, basically. nobody has worn a mask round here since spring 2022. I haven't heard of anyone getting it since Christmas.

we haven't been given any vaccine boosters since Christmas 2021 unless in a high risk group.

I guess somebody must be getting sick from it if there's an increase

in the meantime I've lost one of my best friends to cancer and my dad is in hospital with an auto-immune disorder. covid doesn't even register as important

no worries sleeve :) I took "Covid is over" as shorthand for "the pandemic is over" - I stopped believing the virus could ever be fully eradicated a long time ago

I just passed a person sitting alone in a field at the park who was wearing a mask and reading. I admit when I see someone like this I now assume they are sick.

When I told a couple of people that I just had covid, their reactions were generally some variation of "really?!?"

I admit when I see someone like this I now assume they are sick.

I assume it's because of the air quality.

I’ve gotten every booster and am under 40. I do not have any underlying conditions. There is no “booster police”. For god’s sake, just ask for them! I’ll be getting my 5th in October, probably, along with my yearly flu shot.

Depending on where you are, there is also no booster.

I lied to get the second bivalent booster in mid-March; I assume it's what's protected me. As my immunity runs out, the new vaccine in the fall (I hope) should take the baton.

There was a major conference in my field last week in Hawaii. Multiple collaborators that attended tested positive. Woof.

I know several coworkers who got it at a conference in Melbourne a couple of months ago.

How much it isn’t a thing in the uk: my granny is in hospital, on a “frail and acute” elderly ward; not only is nobody wearing one, but people seem a bit weirded out that I do! I had more than one family member asking why I had one on and I was like “…why do you reckon?”

I didn't vote in this because while I'm not masking unless requested, I don't in any way think COVID is over. Hell I just had it a month ago. I'm not masking because incident levels including hospitalizations remain very low where I live. If/when we see a surge, I'll return to cautionary measures as recommended. Literally nobody from my local to federal health advisers are currently calling for masking — and while we can all bemoan the politically compromised state of our public health system, it's also the best guidelines I have to go by. Those guidelines were the reason I continued to mask in public long after the majority of people where I live were — I was at multiple public meetings where I was the only or one of the only masked people there. But the guidelines changed and as before I'm not substituting my own judgment for them.

Also I AM doing what I think is most important, which is COVID testing myself whenever I have even a sniffle — and if it tests positive, as happened last month, isolating until it's negative. At this point I'm much less concerned about getting it myself than spreading it.

I only just starting dispensing with masks in public indoor spaces, less than a month ago. I was being extra cautious to avoid screwing up my annual two week backpacking vacation. No way was I going to jeopardize that by being ill or in recovery. I am looking forward to getting the next iteration of the covid vaccine as soon as it becomes available to me. Long covid is no joke.

How much it isn’t a thing in the uk: my granny is in hospital, on a “frail and acute” elderly ward; not only is nobody wearing one, but people seem a bit weirded out that I do! I had more than one family member asking why I had one on and I was like “…why do you reckon?”

― Grandall Flange (wins), Tuesday, 1 August 2023 19:43 (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

My mom was on a resus ward with a bad chest infection at the end of last year, and they didn't mention that she'd also tested positive for covid until sometime after my no-spleen, 1.5-lung-having dad had been sitting in the room with her

my mom was in the hospital with terminal cancer for chemo for months and didn't wear a mask through all last fall/winter and neither did 3/4 of the people working in the hospital and she did not contract covid. this was in south dakota where people are also minimally vaxxed. but I think covid had kind of run it's course in that city by then.

part of it for me is just the general lack of knowledge about what covid might lead to at a later date, the whole brain fog thing w/some long covid is worrying, and one wonders if those who don't notice brain fog or long covid aren't being affected at a level they simply don't notice. if i was only risking a cold or mild flu, i sort of understand what i'm in for but this...idk do i really want to get something that's still fairly mysterious just because i didn't mask at the grocery store or the record store? it's not "fun" being the only one masking in places, i'd prefer seeing others who do, but i do it anyway. i just want to lower my potential risk, avoid it for as long as i can, and if i'm destined to get it, get it as few times as possible. it's on the rise a bit again -- i know two people here who tested positive last week.

How much it isn’t a thing in the uk: my granny is in hospital, on a “frail and acute” elderly ward; not only is nobody wearing one, but people seem a bit weirded out that I do! I had more than one family member asking why I had one on and I was like “…why do you reckon?”

― Grandall Flange (wins), Tuesday, August 1, 2023 6:43 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This felt strangely important/meaningful to me.

I think there's a time to be wearing a mask and on a "frail and acute" is probably one of those times, at least most of the time (I can think that at the very "end of life" it might not be the biggest concern).

I work in a setting where I sometimes have to support others to attend hospital and would always wear a mask in those settings. I had a bad cold last week and, though testing negative for Covid, wore a mask when going to the shops. I put on a mask at a Stereolab gig a few months back, as I'd started to feel uncomfortable. I think there's a time to wear a mask, for lots of reasons.

part of it for me is just the general lack of knowledge about what covid might lead to at a later date

One of the more interesting things I read recently is that the focus on the long-term effects of COVID (not long COVID, but the impacts on people who don't seem to have post-COVID symptoms) is also leading to more focus on the long-term effects of other viruses like flu etc. Which is to say, if COVID does have long-term impacts on the immune system or tissues or organs or whatever, it may not be the only virus that does — we may have just never paid much attention before to what happens after people get better.

Anyway, it's not that I have zero concerns about that, but I also don't see at the moment any great reason in the data to assume that COVID is uniquely bad in whatever those effects might be. But I guess we'll all get to find out, since most of us have had it at this point.

That's where I'm at too. If I have sex with many men without a condom, I know what diseases I might catch. If I get COVID after the vaccines and every booster I lied to get, there's a chance I might develop Long COVID. I'm more afraid of the former.

It's wildfire season where I am. When I walked to the mailbox this afternoon I couldn't see the mountains and it smelled like I was standing over a barbecue grill, so I'll be wearing a mask when I go out tomorrow. I suspect I won't be the only one.

I was going to ask in another thread how close you were to those recent wildfires. hope yr safe.

There are no fires in my town or the nearby woods, but I keep checking the interactive map. My town, Bigfork, is literally on the shore of Flathead Lake, which is huge, so I figure I'm probably OK, but the air quality is rough.

There was a Covid outbreak at my wife’s workplace last week. We were on vacation luckily.

I have a friend that just got back from Japan, and he was surprised that the only people they consistently saw wearing masks were drivers. Other than that he said it was just the usual handful of people here and there on the street, on the train, etc.

The guy who brought Covid into the office was not masking, and had just returned from a conference where no one was masking. But Covid is over, y’all.

One of the people in my office who had it in June* has since had a heart attack**.

* (one of two who returned to the office before testing clear)
** and also returned to the office five days later, because they got bored at home after being discharged from the hospital

what a resilient spirit

do we need another poll about what ppl mean by "covid is over" because some of the bullshit itt is bullshit

we need more “gotcha” polls like this

what I want to know is why you people weren't masking before covid

General hatred of humanity

When did you stop beating your covid

"under what circumstances would you stop masking?" might actually be an interesting q to ask, but talking about this on ilx seems p pointless now, given how different everyone's personal circs are

You guys are still mad

I think enough people explained why they are no longer masking that the results don’t matter that much.

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/31/1196943567/covid-cases-surge-mask-mandates

do not envy anyone in charge of enforcing those rules in atm

https://abcnews.go.com/US/trumps-former-health-adviser-believes-current-covid-response/story?id=102646852

Were those rules ever enforced? I used to see maskless people all the time in places where masks were required.

The only time I saw someone ask a person to put a mask on was in a comic book store

A buddy that works in a Berkeley record store says they had 11 employees out with the cove

iirc, early on many places of business tried to enforce mask mandates but backed off when irate anti-mask customers initiated physical violence and threats against their employees. trying to use the police for enforcement of masking was always a non-starter because calling them to the scene of an assault at a business generally they arrived too late and the perp had run away. basically, without public cooperation, the 'mandate' was not much more than a suggestion.

hospitals were something of a special case and enforcement was better accepted by the public there, so that "security" forces were mostly adequate to deal with the recalcitrants.

I'm playing a show in a few weeks at a sober DIY venue that has never stopped requiring masks, they're very hardcore about it.

Just got an email from the school--there was a guy with a gun and lots of clips caught at the last football game, so now the new security guidelines include "No face coverings or masks" lol

Were those rules ever enforced? I used to see maskless people all the time in places where masks were required.

― hardcore technician gimmicks are also another popular choice f (President Keyes),

My local bookstore required mask wearing from customers until March 2022 unless they were eating. I'd see the occasional person walk in, an employee would trail them with a mask, and the customer would apologize.

Oh right, the local independent bookstore still requires masks and is also super hardcore about it. I think it's the only place in town that does (aside from that venue).

I have to travel for work in about a month and there's a metal show I wouldn't mind seeing (Cryptopsy/Abysmal Dawn/three crappy openers) the night I arrive. But I haven't been to a show in three years and I'm more than a little anxious about it. I'm absolutely gonna be masked on the plane, and at the show, if I go.

xxp I guess bookstores are not prime territory for mask-related meltdowns.

I haven’t been, but I’m starting to again this week.

same

Am masking now at home because I… may have covid? He a bad cold for a week and thought it was a usual nursery cold from my daughter but I tested positive today - and then tested negative very time, four times after that. The first test i forgot to check for 45 mins so maybe it was a false positive? Annoying.

*has a bad cold

I've never stopped masking when teaching, on planes and airports, and if I hang out at a coffee shop, like I did this afternoon for a couple hours.

Had only just recently started to let my guard down re:masking at bars and now I'm in bed on day 3 of COVID fever (my first bout with it). I know we're all tired of adjusting our lives for this thing but it's definitely surging right now.

I spent all of two weeks or so at the cusp of July and August experimenting with not masking in public enclosed spaces, then friends began coming down with it right and left and I'm back to masking again.

Just noticed my neighbor going for a walk outside wearing a mask

I went to a cinema that still requires masking last night, and on Sunday to one that still requires it for screenings that start before 6pm

(on Monday and Tuesday I went to one that still has signs requesting it, but does not require it.)

Wife came home with covid after attending a conference in Denver last week. Miraculously, kid and I are still fine eight days later. This is her first time contracting it (I succumbed back in February and our 14-year-old remains unscathed).

Novavax was just approved FYI

woohoo

Roxor.

I did get vaxed exactly two weeks ago, however: too early for the new-variant-combating Novavax.

What is Novavax?

Oh, it's a more traditional protein-based vaccine? Is that a good thing, or just another option?

The research is out there!

Its specificity to the latest dominant omicron variant seems more likely to be its primary benefit. Plus, it sidesteps the scare-mongering about mRNA vaccines, so there could be a few vaccine holdouts who decide it's OK to get it because of that.

Wait, was the mRNA vaccine rolled out a couple of weeks ago *not* specific to the new strain?

Are you aware of how many strains there have been since January

6?

No, seriously, I have no idea, I thought the most recent mRNA one from a couple of weeks ago was more up to date than January 2023.

that's what I was led to believe. I think the new moderna one is a 'monovalent' vaxx targeted at some new variant. wtf do I know. all I know is I got it on friday and felt like shit for 8 hours.

I got my Novavax shot on Saturday. The side effects were very small. More like flu shot effects.

In reference to the thread question, I began masking again last week because I got my first cold since the 2010s (contracted probably like a day or two after getting my most recent COVID booster) and it knocked me on my absolute ass and I'd prefer to avoid knocking others on their asses if possible. I don't know if it's just that it's been a while or that I'm getting older or what, but I don't recall colds being such completely disabling afflictions. Only just starting to feel like I'm shaking it off after > a week of feeling like trash.

I am masked in a large, relatively unpopulated public library but I went briefly to a bar late yesterday afternoon. Go figure.

Last week I went on a weeklong road-trip vacation, and it was probably the longest stretch since 2020 that I did not put on a mask at all. These days when I'm at home, I mask only on public transportation and at the grocery store, but there was no public transportation where I went, and even though I did go to a couple of grocery stores, I decided to throw caution to the wind because I was on vacation. The only time I sort of regretted it was when on the way home, when we stopped at a Buc-ee's in Kentucky that was absolutely swarming with people.

Is there any general consensus on whether filter masks (FFP/NR) do actually reduce the risk of the wearer of catching anything? I've assumed so, and have been masking on public transport (30 min journeys) and the odd other crowded place, because everyone has been moaning about being knocked for six with some cold and/or covid.

Think I had the cold and got off quite lightly actually. I was mildly shakey/hot/cold etc for 3 days but not too bad. My other half had it for over a week, and similarly to OL has never been low-level ill for that long. Still coughing a couple of weeks later.

i've worn strictly KN95s for years now, i think i caught the slightest runny nose once but otherwise nothing, beyond the 24 hours after my useless J&J shot #1.

i was at Amoeba Hollywood this past Saturday afternoon and it was packed to the gills. I was one of three people wearing a mask (the other two looked to be a mom and a daughter.)

My friend sort of raised an eyebrow and said 'well I think there's been loads of evidence that masks don't actually do anything' but I do recall now reading a load of articles which say FFP2/3 ones do, which is what I order, although are hard to find in Boots etc.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57636360
https://inews.co.uk/news/health/ffp3-face-masks-buy-uk-nhs-research-better-protection-covid-1076486

it's mostly that cloth/surgical masks are pretty ineffective, though still probably a little better than nothing. n95/ffp2 etc. masks worn properly (with a proper seal achieved) do provide good protection

I don’t understand people who are still masking but are wearing home made cloth masks.

I counted seven masked folks total at the Slowdive show last night (me and Ms. T were two of them)

Covid isn't over, because I tested positive (along with several people I'd just been with) two and a half months ago. Symptoms were almost non-existent (allergy/cold-like for a day), helped by being fully vaxxed before then (the infection means I'll have to wait another few weeks for my sixth covid jab that fights more recent variants). I spend lots of time in an elderly care home whose residents are more susceptible to Covid than I am, so I still wear a mask in crowded indoor areas or healthcare facilities. Meanwhile, about 250 people continue to die of covid-19 every day, so it's not quite over yet.

I don’t understand people who are still masking but are wearing home made cloth masks.

saw a guy in target the other day who had his shirt pulled up over his mouth+nose, which when i saw it in the days of actual mask policies i always assumed was deliberately contemptuous, complying as minimally and grossly as possible w the letter of the law. but nope, this guy i guess got to the door of target in 2023 and thought, o shit kind of a crowd in there, better pull my shirt over my face.

i used a shirt as a mask once in the early, early days of the pandemic because i didn't have a proper mask yet. i got laughed at.

I used a Speedo as a mask, before actual ones were readily available.

the last few times this thread has popped up I initially think it's was about autism

I may have some undiagnosed language issue judging from what I just typed, there

It's a little disappointing after all this time we still haven't gotten much better than the N95s.
Is there anything like this but more modern/comfortable?
https://lauraschoenfeldrd.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/1663252350260_CA126889_TheAllergyChef-hr.jpg

I'd been using a hybrid fabric/filter mask with no credible studies attached way past responsible number of reuses...

I've been throwing this on when I swing into the store.

https://i.etsystatic.com/31830549/r/il/90e363/3910202278/il_fullxfull.3910202278_qfif.jpg

i dont know what people are kicking back against when they make some statement like "covid isnt over"

covid exists, but it's over

not for the numerous people I personally know who are immuno-compromised, I can tell you that

My sister, who is not immuno-compromised, got it this week, she is really sick. She says "everything hurts."

So, it's still very much around, if not at pandemic levels.

I am masked in a large, relatively unpopulated public library but I went briefly to a bar late yesterday afternoon. Go figure.

― hat trick of trashiness (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, October 16, 2023 3:24 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Examples like this make sense to me, though, aside from the unpopulated bit maybe ... When I was more frequently masking I didn't really mind wearing face coverings in eg shops (aside from the odd time I felt a bit flustered) and then the "nice" things - going to a pub, seeing friends etc - were a kind of gamble.

It's as if I save myself up for the nice things.

Definitely have more friends/colleagues catching Covid, including one for the first time ever. Mix of people describing it as "cold-like" and others experiencing something grimmer and weirder and lingering after negative tests (UK).

xxp Exactly, I always feel like if I'm going to get it I'd rather it be from something I enjoy (and consider worth the risk) than in line to buy toothpaste or whatever.

yeah, this is why I always mask at work and have been not really masking at all on trips/vacation.

I'm in Iceland now, pretty much no masks on anyone.

I was in a room full of high school students yesterday, unmasked, and was a little nervous, but was able to maintain what felt like a safe distance from everybody and I feel fine today. We'll see.

Yeah, covid in 2023 is still causing chemo patients to not see their family. and have long covid genuinely fuck up their lives.

I hate the consistency gotcha game, every time you mask in a certain situation is good, you've reduced your chances of getting covid, just like you're better off smoking 5 cigarettes a week rather than 5 packs, it's just harm reduction no one should feel bad about being inconsistent

fwiw i'm immunocompromised and i think covid is over

"covid is over" is a nonsensical statement because it conflates the virus/disease with its status as a public health concern. the virus is still out there, and likely will be for a very long time, and it is still technically classified as a pandemic, but no longer as a global (or u.s. national) emergency.

In the week ending Oct 7, the CDC data shows that covid accounts for 2.5% of total US deaths from all causes. That's not a national health emergency, but it ain't chicken feed either.

Not masking except on planes/in airports, but just got my latest covid shot this morning.

I need to remove this bookmark before I start actually flying around the country to punch the "covid is over" voters in the face

PS I have COVID, fuck you, it isn't over u ignorant assholes

Feel better!

But as jaymc mentioned, what does "covid is over" actually mean when someone says it these days?

we need a sitewide definition to be agreed such that mod action can be enforced either side of the line obv

It means 'it's over for me fuiud'

Alfred otm

In my experience people take the six-feet-apart rule more seriously than covering their mouths when they wheeze all over you.

lads

it was a multi year global shutdown event that affected every person on the planet

if you are pretending not to acknowledge any nuance between that having ended and "nobody can get covid now" then frankly i think you are acting the prick and deserve to have that pointed out

thats with genuine best wishes to anyone currently with it, in fear of getting it, with people vulnerable to it- sincerely

but the understanding goes both ways imo

My nuanced position: "COVID is NOT over as a disease, therefore I mask in high CO2 scenarios but have returned to life as I knew it in February 2020."

alfred otm!

The social-politics-signaling that somehow became interwoven seems to me to be the underlying reason there is still an intensity on either end of the spectrum, from my experience.

I have one very close friend in Virginia who has not eaten indoors since June '21 at the peak of the Vaccine Honeymoon, and I respect his decision, but it has led to some quite awkward moments when he visits. Miami...is not a town where outdoor seating at a bar/restaurant in June is uh optimal.

I hear that's when the guys from Philly roll through

https://i.discogs.com/LY-qh1WamVsQRdHWl-U7a99EV5goob3uU0lavGR3edU/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:597/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTIxNTcx/NC0xNjQzOTg2NzM5/LTUxMDIuanBlZw.jpeg

My nuanced position: "COVID is NOT over as a disease, therefore I mask in high CO2 scenarios but have returned to life as I knew it in February 2020."

This is my position too. I have eaten indoors a few times since moving to Montana, but I don't make a regular habit of it, and when a room is too crowded I get antsy and start inching toward the door/farthest wall. I am still not willing to go back to seeing live music (crowded room full of people shouting? No Fucking Thank You). I briefly considered going to a show about a month ago, but backed down. Couldn't get myself there, even with a mask.

Was just in Japan and even there, where regular masking is more culturally assumed and common, it felt like 60% unmasked even in crowded trains or shopping malls etc. (referring to locals not tourists).

My coworker got covid in Japan! Luckily it was the last few days of his vacation.

I think he just masked up and was buying food from the 7-11 next to the hotel for that time

I actually think the SARS-COV-2 virus has literally been eradicated

In my experience people take the six-feet-apart rule more seriously than covering their mouths when they wheeze all over you.

Exactly.

I’m going to a kids party full of strangers tomorrow, but I only had Covid six weeks ago so I’m still in “pretend it’s 2019” mode. I will mask on the train in the way there though.

Meanwhile my new job is at a drop in clinic with no windows so heigh-ho.

I kind of get cognitive dissonance reading these threads. Nobody is masking or distancing or anything here. it's like 2019. we can't even get boosters unless we're over 65 or compromised, and that's been the case since 2021.

sorry to sleeve and anyone else with covid. I'm sure I'll get it again at some point, but have been to loads of gigs in packed crowds where nobody is masking and haven't ever caught it at a gig.

ironically the most damage covid has done to anyone I know is via a vaccine. my dad has been lying in hospital partially paralysed for 3 months because of the fucking AstraZeneca vaccine. I'm not anti-vaxx obviously but maybe they had a point that they rushed that fucker out. obviously other people might not have been so lucky.

Yes. It's bizarre to read this living in the UK. Hasn't occured to me to wear a mask since we last had to. I had it a month ago. Was I happy about it no but I'm not doing to start masking again unless forced to. For me it was extremely anxiety provoking and uncomfortable and this isn't going anywhere now. If I lived with someone or came into contact with immunocompromised ppl regularly I would but otherwise no way. Anywhere.

sorry realised there was an inaccuracy in my post, you could get boosters if you were over 50 last year.

Have been wearing masks indoors in public settings and on transit except during rare indoor dining (maybe a half dozen total times) since 2020 and I see no reason to stop this decade offhand

Pretty easy to do and I don’t want to get covid. Or a cold for that matter.

Colds are. Part of life and COVID is too now. It is not easy at all for everyone. The distress I experience having to mask is not worth it does me. So, no, for sone of us it's not easy to do

Not worth it "for" me rather

So it really pisses me off to hear things like that because for some people wearing a mask isn't easy it's actually really fucking hard.

What do you think is the source of your anxiety/distress w/r/t wearing a mask? Really curious about this because...well, because I believe you, whereas most of the people who say things like this on social media are just right-wing anti-vax chuds to whom I am 100% unwilling to extend the benefit of any doubt at all. So what's the problem, for you?

I overheat extremely easily in general And it can be extrme. In a mask it's way way worse. For me that often leads to an anxiety attack. So it got to a point where I got anxious even putting one on. I did find some that lessened that with time but it basically means that I wil never willingly to it without reason going forward.

And I mean I could think about it more and wonder if there's a deep thing about having something over my mouth and I'd it's related to a sexual attack I experienced but I haven't thought too much about that because it's too difficult. I honestly think being really overheated sparks the anxiety which them spirals etc

Yeah, that would do it.

I know it sounds like bs and for people who it doesn't cause distress I get home it might seem like it but I cannot emphasize enough that it's not actually easy for everyone.

I have posted previously about how fascinating i find the difference between masking in the United States and UK/Europe, which over time has only got more marked.

I am generally in a packed gig / club situation 2 - 4 times a week and it is extremely rare to see anyone masked. in wider society mask wearing almost completely vanished here but has had a very slight (with the emphasis on very) resurgence in the last few weeks. I'm very curious as to why attitudes are so different here compared with the United States. In 2020/21 i was at the extreme end (compared to most people i knew) of adhering to mask wearing / only eating or drinking outside / opening windows constantly etc. but it has all faded away. last time I wore a mask was about a year ago and that was on a flight in the United States where the woman sat next to me was masked so I wore one to make her feel more comfortable. I can't help feeling if I lived in the United States i'd be more likely to still adhere to a lot of this stuff a lot more.

Amazingly I have still only had it once. My luck must surely run out soon.

In Ireland in June no-one wore a mask anywhere; my parents and I were the only ones. I chalk it up to Eire being on serious lockdown several times, unlike the US.

im currently in the us and masking across my travels has been at less than 1% tbh

i've hosted karaoke in a crowded bar twice a week since we've been allowed to reopen in july 2021 and in the last year i've maybe seen two masks

In my experience (in Chicago), there was a big drop in mask-wearing about 6 months ago. Before that, I'd usually see at least 20% of people in a store masked, and now it's 5% or less. I don't know if it's coincidental that that's about when the U.S. and WHO declared the public health emergency over and the CDC scaled back its data collection. I do know that I became less anxious about COVID when the NYT stopped putting a big graph of cases on the front page.

I live on the edge of North Beach/Chinatown in San Francisco and I still see a lot of masks. I wear one in crowded indoor places, but at this point I don’t even notice whether or not anyone who I’m interacting with wears one. It feels like it has just become a personal preference not to be commented on, which seems ok to me

I still wear a mask here and there, but I've stopped feeling annoyed at non-maskers, and that helps a lot. If I see a cougher on the bus I just move seats. Reducing the amount of small freakouts I have every week is a benefit to me and the public at large. I think the only people I get annoyed at now are those inveterate maskers who still wear cloth masks.

I’m not sure if you Europeans are getting an accurate impression of masking in the USA. Hardly anyone here does it, plus there are weirdo who will make sheep noises at you if you do. At this point the people I see wearing masks are mostly black.

I've never once gotten a comment or look (I've noticed) for wearing a mask, but then I live surrounded by viejos.

Just got the new booster (& senior flu) last week, then US Gov said that only 3 % of eligibles have followed suit. Most of the masked that I notice are Black, female and/or senior. Always have one on my chin in case suddenly crowded, but usually stay six feet away. Stayed several days and nights w somebody in hospital recently; about half or so of workers, def incl. doctors were masked, but I got something that's lingered in a greenish, slightly nauseating undercurrent way for several weeks. I never miss a booster, but so far it's always Pfizer, and feel very fortunate about that.

Most of the world is quite vulnerable now, whatever the chances of a significant uptick or more. Anti-vax is more organized or vocal now, enough to cause more turmoil (and the "Spanish" flu pandemic of 1918 was forcibly played down by many public officials and related media in the US)(also thinking of Typhoid Mary)

To clarify, I should have more often pulled the masks (two matching three-ply) up from my damn chin while in hospital.

but usually stay six feet away

Since SARS-CoV-2 is spread via airborne particles and not droplets, 6 feet of social distancing is one old pandemic chestnut we can put to bed. Interesting article from Wired on its origin: The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill

it was a multi year global shutdown event that affected every person on the planet

Another old pandemic chestnut to take out back and shoot.

Huh? You’re saying a common misconception about the global pandemic is that it was a global pandemic?

I think she's saying the shutdowns, especially in the U.S., weren't global.

Ah.

It is interesting how political radicalization due to anti-maskers and the equal but opposite anti anti-masker reaction has made it so some progressive art spaces still have stricter masking policies than medical facilities.

The idea that anyone would go on public transit or a plane without a mask on is bewildering to me. I will never get on a plane without a mask again in my life.

Shit, I had a CT-scan the other day and there were people who clearly had cancer, not wearing masks. The denial that people are still getting sick and dying from this is insane, but of course, the old and the immunocompromised have lives that aren’t valued by society.

but of course, the old and the immunocompromised have lives that aren’t valued by society.

this is not why people aren't masking.

we masked and isolated ourselves when there wasn't a vaccine yet and our hospital system was overwhelmed. that is no longer the case.

you can’t be serious.

i mean, i still follow the covid rates in my area. they are very, very, very low.

as I mentioned upthread, the hospital where I get my infusions (for my autoimmune condition) no longer enforces mask-wearing for their staff and the majority of them do not wear masks. I feel like it's OK for me to chill out about it.

I don’t know how long masking or not masking will last, but at least we’ll have this argument forever.

The denial that people are still getting sick and dying from this is insane,

the what?

where?

why does one side of this discussion need to strawman like this?

or is this another example of "oh i meant out in the world?" because i think ppl probably object to being set up as conveniently representing"whatever viewpoint i found thats idiotic" when we are discussing this stuff on ilx and nobody here has said any such thing

covid not having been a global shutdown event is news to me tbh while we're at it

I think it was obvious you weren’t saying literally everywhere in the globe shut down completely for multiple years, assuming the discussion is about to plummet into a technicality debate...

then may we all agree on a wish that we never live to see the event that would qualify as fitting the description sufficiently for the argument

It just feels like this debate always winds up being people trying hard to mold each other into the people they wish they were arguing with instead

New board description.

Speaking of mold, just another reason to mask!

It just feels like this debate always winds up being people trying hard to mold each other into the people they wish they were arguing with instead

tbf, this describes a very high percentage of the discussions I've had on the internet when they involve politics or larger social issues. otoh, the internet excels at facilitating gripe sessions.

"I like griping."

Six feet may or may not be the optimum or any degree of effective distance, but some distance and open space, six feet or more, especially when no masks are being worn, seems wise, even if it's a matter of xpost airborne particles and not droplets.
Continuing the vintage rehash that is this thread:it's easy to forget that one may be a carrier, even while feeling no ill effects.

Just my own vintage thought particles or droplets, not trying to mold anybody (ew)

The idea that anyone would go on public transit or a plane without a mask on is bewildering to me. I will never get on a plane without a mask again in my life.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Saturday, October 28, 2023 7:38 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

planes are actually one of the most well-ventilated places people regularly go. cabin air is completely replaced every ~3 minutes, much faster than in say a grocery store. totally coincidental due to the propeller system sucking in mass amounts of air that needs to be pressurized to be breathable. obviously it's still a lot of people to cram into a small confined space, but if everywhere was as well-ventilated there would be a lot less spread of germs. i read that the ventilation on planes reduces transmission by like 99%

i feel like a lot of ppl still haven't internalized the implications of airborne v.s. droplet distinction. i sympathize cause it's counterintuitive. proximity is m/l meaningless when it's airborne, it's really all about air circulation/ventilation. which are also more abstract than things like hand washing, distancing, that we can exert some degree of control over

It is interesting how political radicalization due to anti-maskers and the equal but opposite anti anti-masker reaction has made it so some progressive art spaces still have stricter masking policies than medical facilities.

ya art galleries and humanities dept seminars are the only places i'm aware of that still enforce masks

When a shop has most of their staff masked, I get this frisson of "is this a place where people get infected a lot, or just a place with a better work culture?" and if it's a place where employees are obviously miserable, my instinct is to be Homer Simpson backing away into the hedge.

I think there have been studies showing that, indoors, Covid weakens quickly over distance and time, and therefore proximity still plays a part alongside ventilation

Last weekend I went to a bookstore that required masks, and I think it was the first place I'd been to with a mask requirement since early 2022. Unusually, I didn't have one on hand but there was a box outside the door.

My regular doctor is an internist whom I consider to be a very careful, thoughtful doctor. Her office required masks until about 9 months ago. I figured that was the end of the mask stage of the pandemic.

On the other hand I’m sure I believe a lot of bullshit rules about how Covid works just to save myself from going insane with worry all the time.

my dentist requires masks (she's immunocompromised) and that's one of two places i know of where masks are required. the other is a record store where one of the owners is immunocompromised as well.

on planes, the more problematic area iirc is actually the tunnel going into the plane.

I presume you mean while waiting, while walking around the office, etc.

I admit my first thoughts was: How can one not breathe on a dentist?

My dentist is, I'm sure, MAGA (based on Obama-era comments), but he and his staff have worn masks + face shields since 2006 and enforced masks on the rest of us well into 2022.

flopson OTM about ventilation on planes, but, as my dad the AOG guy has said, a 100% occupancy flight will tax the system and won't save you from the person sneezing and coughing beside you.

yeah iirc the circulation system on a plane makes it so that you're breathing air from a ~3 row diameter. so if someone sneezes like 6 rows behind you, you're basically good as it'll get vacuumed up before it reaches you. but if someone sneezes within your bubble, it'll be around ~3mins until its cycled out. which is fast in relative terms, but obviously still a risk

tbc my comment wasn't meant to imply that people shouldn't mask on planes, just that if your personal risk calculus makes you a plane-masker u should probably also mask in many other public spaces that are more spacious but less well ventilated. (i personally don't mask anywhere)

planes are actually one of the most well-ventilated places people regularly go. cabin air is completely replaced every ~3 minutes, much faster than in say a grocery store. totally coincidental due to the propeller system sucking in mass amounts of air that needs to be pressurized to be breathable. obviously it's still a lot of people to cram into a small confined space, but if everywhere was as well-ventilated there would be a lot less spread of germs. i read that the ventilation on planes reduces transmission by like 99%

Yes ... but only when it is flying. All that idling time on the runway doesn't hit the same quality standards at all. I believe I posted on this thread, or another, about my friend's CO2 reading on his recent flight while he was waiting to takeoff, and it was super elevated.

i love planes
jet aircraft

experimental aircraft

Here's the CO2 level from a recent flight I took, while the plane was boarding and the ventilation system was off.

https://flic.kr/p/2pcemaw

Ideally, it would be lower than 800ppm. A reading of 3600ppm indicates that 8% of the air was previously in somebody else's lungs.

How toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes
https://www.latimes.com/projects/toxic-chemicals-planes-covid-19-travel-woes/

Indeed, fume events have continued throughout the pandemic. One week in August, for example, JetBlue Airways had fume events on flights into Boston and Orlando, Fla., federal aviation records show. On a March 26 American Airlines flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., all flight attendants used oxygen after cabin fumes left them dizzy and nauseated.

Passengers are often unaware that their air supply has been contaminated. Fume events can be odorless, and some of the most common symptoms of exposure — headaches and fatigue — are indistinguishable from jet lag, experts say. Airlines have no obligation to notify passengers of fume events and have sometimes provided misleading information.

In the era before the coronavirus, about five flights a day in the U.S. experienced a fume event, according to an academic study of aviation records. But no government agency tracks fume events or how often people become sick or impaired.

Pilots and flight attendants have reported an array of health problems, including eye irritation and coughing, as well as more serious long-term conditions: tremors, memory problems, brain damage and other illnesses that have kept them out of work for months and sometimes ended their careers, according to airport and aviation records, workers’ compensation filings, court papers and other documents.

That didn't work, try again:
https://i.ibb.co/GF4CqM5/Aranet.jpg

My wife, Jen, caught it in April, and she's still fucked. Not as much as she was for the first month, or even the first few months, but she's up at the level she she'll usually be up for a day's work, and then see whether there's anything left in the tank. There's a couple of other things to check out (she's on iron tablets, though the anaemia was borderline the first time they tested, and missing the second). But it's possible that this is just it, now, forever. Or, anecdotally, until she gets a booster - which as Colonel Poo mentioned above isn't all that available in the UK these days.

And still I ticked 'covid is over', taking that (as darraghmac has it) as the shorthand for "the global event has ended, and is unlikely to flare up again without a sharp change in the situation".

We had been very careful, we only stopping masking pretty much everywhere some time last year (before I went to London in July, and brought it back for both of us) - but there's no banked carefulness, the dice don't care how lucky you've been. We stopped because it was starting to affect us - or rather, it had probably been affecting us for a while, slowly becoming the only people we saw all day who were masking.

We wore again on the train today, up to Perth to see an old friends of hers, as healthy as an ox 3 months ago, but he has brain cancer and so his immune system's pretty wrecked. We'd been talking about wearing them a bit more, with the new variant (which caught two of her colleagues when the whole company had a get-together at the start of the month).

I can understand why some people don't like the feeling of them. They annoy me after a while but I have started to like the idea of an extra layer between my face and the world.
TBH I think we'd have had way more uptake if they were marketed as Premium VIP Area For Your Nose! You deserve platinum-level filtration For The Best Air!

I don't wear one at work because it would be too annoying, and because we have a decent home-working setup and from what I know of my colleagues, they're largely sensible enough to stay home if they're symptomatic of anything catching.

me and my girlfriend went to the portland zine symposium yesterday and it was amazing, _everybody_ there was masking (COVID masking, not autism masking, none of us were autism masking)

it was really cool to be there, even though we couldn't stay long (overstimulation). i've been aware in the overall shift in zine culture... when i was younger it was mostly punk rock, but now it's nearly _all_ intersectional queer. i've never seen so many queer people in one place, and i live in _portland_. i've been a regular at events where 50+ transfemmes show up.

there's lots of different sorts of queer culture... the event i was at was, in general, queer/POC/neurodiversity/disability. masking is _particulary_ big among the disability community. that means a bunch of different things to different people, i've found. i'm in the disability support ERG at my job and a lot of it is "my child is autistic". it's the difference between a trans support group and a "my child is trans" support group. i mean, it makes sense that there aren't going to be a lot of disabled people at my corporate job.

my disability advocacy is more along the lines of "disability is when you are no longer able to meet the unreasonable demands of capitalism and capitalism, as a result, decides your life is of negative net worth to them". i am disabled and have been for most of my life but i work really hard to hang on to capitalism, for as long as i can. people around me fall off all the time. i've fallen off before. i didn't work for five years after i had my nervous breakdown in 2003, but i was able to climb back on. i don't know if i could do it again.

---

digression (not about masking)

anyway i've seen what happens to people who get sick. i was immediately fired after i got sick. the doctors at the free clinic got me addicted to benzos and used me as a guinea pig, while not telling me about benzo withdrawal syndrome. if i'd died nobody would have cared. in 2016, after becoming unemployed and uninsured again, i had tremendous anxiety for some reason and went to see a doctor with cash. he turned out to be very obviously a eugene landy type and the first thing he tried to do was get me back on benzos, despite my being repeatedly clear that i did not want to get on benzos. i _am_ paranoid sometimes, but sometimes being slow to trust works to my benefit.

all the insurance companies have private suicide hotlines. if you don't have private insurance there's no point calling. either they won't answer or they'll just call the fucking cops on you. in order to get into my current DBT treatment, i had to go to the mental health ER, be told i "showed insight" into my condition and sent home, self-harm and go to the ER _again_ so they'd take me seriously, get referred to the same damn IOP i'd been through twice before, sign up for a DBT program with a two-year waitlist, and only _then_ be told that i had access to a DBT program through my insurance. again, if i wasn't insured, i don't think i'd have access to it.

end digression

---

the impression i get, as someone with severe mental illness, is not just that capitalism is _indifferent_ to my existence, but that it sees me as _inefficient_ and would very much like me off its balance sheet. not masking is a more _direct_ form of this against immunocompromised people.

i know all this, i have masks, i carry them around in my purse, and you know what? i don't mask, usually. when nobody else is masking, i forget. masking is an inconvenience. it fogs up my glasses and makes it more difficult for other people to hear me. nobody else is masking, even though i spend a lot of my time in queer spaces. it was pretty amazing to be in an environment where masking was the _norm_.

shit didn't complete my thought

which is to say that not masking _is_ hostility towards immunocompromised people, but i think very often it gets turned into an individual responsibility, individual people get shamed for not masking in situations where _nobody else is masking either_... and this isn't the intent, it wasn't my intent in making that post. it's not an individual thing. if i mask in a situation where nobody else is masking, well, there's on person masking at an event. it's honestly, to me, really emblematic of liberal politics. during covid-19, anti-vaxxers were engaging in pretty direct hostility against disabled people and liberals mandated masking, but did nothing to enforce masking mandates. they've now decided covid is "over", repealed the masking mandate, and joined the conservative side. that's what "covid is over" means, to me. and that, honestly, is about what a lot of us in the margins expect from liberalism. saying all of the right things while hurting us in the same ways conservatives do.

that's, again, not about _people_ but about an _ideology_. liberalism has taken its mask off, in this case literally.

if nobody else is masking, to some extent i feel like masking is like worrying about your personal carbon footprint. i mean it's nice but that's not the issue. whether or not you water your lawn isn't the issue. that's kind of how i feel, going after individuals for not masking is kind of like going after people for watering their lawns. the water crisis isn't being caused by people watering their lawns, even though the people who are _causing_ the crisis would like us to _think_ that.

Actually that is another reason I don't love them. I am partially deaf in one ear and I had an incredibly hard time understanding people when they were wearing masks. It made me realize that at least to some degree I rely on lip reading which was kind of interesting to realize.

yeah i think that's a good point, for some of it's more than an inconvenience to mask. which is another reason i don't like individual judgement - like one of the things about disability politics is recognizing that people have a lot of invisible disabilities, like, you know, partial deafness in one ear. in my case, i am trying to be better at eye contact... it's part of the thing that makes it difficult for me to have conversations, i tend to look away from people when talking to them. people can't hear me, i can't hear them.

it was actually good going to that symposium because it's given me a lot of opportunity to think about my feelings about masking. i feel a lot of guilt and shame about not being "good enough" at masking. what's that? another opportunity to feel imposter syndrome about being a bad queer? why, thank you!

but it's an unexamined assumption on my part. i never really thought about where or when i should be masking. indoor public events where i'm not eating. i just don't spend a lot of time in those environments! in functional terms, most of what i'd need to do is mask every couple of weeks when i go to the grocery store, and mask in doctors' offices, which i do anyway. shit, nobody was even putting a burden on _me_, i was putting a burden on myself that nobody was asking of me. yeah, i do that a lot actually, haha.

I hardly ever wear a mask except when I go to a medical center. I did mask up to go to the DC protest on Saturday though, and sure enough, on my way into the metro some old Q-Anon hippie was muttering about "stupid people wearing masks" behind my back. I turned around, flipped him off and said "fuck you," and we started yelling at each other from there. You can guess exactly what he said and you'd be right.

I am partially deaf in one ear and I had an incredibly hard time understanding people when they were wearing masks. It made me realize that at least to some degree I rely on lip reading which was kind of interesting to realize.

Me too!!! I really struggle esp in a noisy shop/mall.

Oh ugh I thought this thread was still current ha.

I had gotten to where I was only masking on flights, and things were going fine for months and months. I finally decided about a month ago to try a flight without masking, and sure enough I got sick. And got my wife and daughter sick too. I don’t think it was Covid (got the latest booster, tested negative 3x). It started as a sinus infection for me and turned into a 3-week cough, no fever or anything but it was hard to sleep for a few days due to the coughing. Still have some lingering minor symptoms. Needless to say, I’m back to masking on flights, even if I’m the only one most of the time.

Just went on a two-week excursion back to the UK, didn't wear a mask anywhere, am now ill with v. similar symptoms as those described by epistantophus. London must be Europe's disease capital, a veritable petri dish of novel bacteria. Hopefully I can sleep lying down by next week, not propped upright like John Merrick which is what I'm doing now to stave off the night-time coughing fits.

The problem with masking though is that you only know if they work when you don't wear one and then get ill, by which point it's too late to rectify your mistake. Hope I haven't introduced some new disease to the Midwest! Sorry lads.

I have been very cautiously and selectively unmasking in public indoor places, but it's still rare for me. I'm not worried about surviving covid. I've kept current with the vaccines. I worry about long covid. I love wilderness trekking too much and I know I'll eventually lose my ability to pursue it just from advancing age. Long covid would assuredly hasten that day and I just don't want to chance it.

My in-laws came back from vacation this week with Covid. Their first time.

I travelled for 13 hours last week, on a plane, a bus, and two trains - and saw a grand total of two masks

I made a similar journey in September, and while there weren't many there was way more than this, like in an airport probably at least some masks in view most of the time. I hadn't seen any masks outside that journey then though

Numbers are way up now, kinda wild that I'm hardly seeing more masks out there, and when I went to a vv crowded amoeba records a few days back I think I was maybe the only masker except for the security dude at the front entrance.

especially in an amoeba records store

I think it's just that the stakes are so much lower overall these days

our lives are worth less

I don't know that they're low enough, there are still a lot of unknowns, at least based on some of the after effects a number of people I know are still suffering from, even tho everyone I'm thinking of caught covid after getting vaccinated. Anyway, I ain't mad, it would require me being mad at almost everyone I know as well. just a bit of observational commentary.

FTR I'm not hiding out at home, I just mask when I'm out shopping and dine out on patios or in window seats.

I basically created a balance where I feel like I'm living my life as safely as possible without losing my mind in solitary confinement. I hope to make it 4 years without catching it.

The state of the pandemic, now in its 2nd biggest wave of infections since it began
In the new Ground Truths (link in profile)
Thanks @luckytran @JPWeiland @dfocosi @LongDesertTrain for their great work incorporated in the summary pic.twitter.com/QWSyvfnVqP

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 6, 2024

Stay frosty

The amnesia with which many of my lib/leftist friends are afflicted fascinates me. I can't tell you how many times in the last month someone has said, "Yeah, I think I caught the flu/cold/a bug" and when I say, "You think it might be COVID?" I get blank expressions -- it simply isn't on people's radars anymore, it's wiped.

As for me, I'm in a public library masked because why not.

I've gotten tired of people I know looking at me like I'm a crazy person for mildly suggesting there's still so much we don't know about the long-term effects multiple infections might have on people, considering how much of our systems it targets, so I've mostly stopped talking about all that IRL. I'd like the people I care about to take better precautions, especially my older relatives, but I guess covid is over for them.

Separately, we invited some friends over a few weeks ago for a visit right before thanksgiving, and on the way out the door two of them said "we just gotten over something" (it was a dad and his kid) and the wife couldn't make it because she was knocked out with that same thing. At which point the kid started in on a hacking cough.

My wife and I didn't get sick after that, but two days later my son was down for 8 or 9 days and it wrecked his Thanksgiving break and our travel plans. Among our three other friends who visited, two of them got sick from that as well. None of them ever tested positive for covid, it was likely something else, but can I really be sure? It's a tricky virus. Anyway some people I guess really really don't care about being cautious even when it comes to other people, even considering... (*gestures at world*)

I am pretty sympathetic to what you, Alfred, and sleeve are saying, obviously, but *do* want to note that colds and respiratory ailments that are *not* Covid do continue to exist...and that the gung-ho Covid-cautious position that "every illness you ever get is Covid and we're all going to die because of your evil!!!!!!!" is not really constructive in building up the sort of solidarity that many of us would like to see around masking and being cautious around Covid and illness in general.

Case in point: a few weeks ago, right before Christmas, I got knocked flat by nasal discharge, throbbing sinus pressure, headache, tiredness, etc. I tested two times per day for four days. Went and got a swab done on the fourth day, when i was feeling somewhat up to it. By the fifth day, after sleeping a lot and doing nothing for half a week, I was fine. No Covid tests ever came back positive. It was a cold!

None of that anecdote is to say that Covid isn't going bonkers right now, because it is, but to say that the whole environment around illness has changed so much as a result of Covid that a lot of people on all sides are acting irrationally. No, not all colds or influenza occurrences are Covid. Yes, we should all be given ample time to recover when we are sick instead of being forced to work, whether what we have is a head cold or Covid. No, we shouldn't go out and infect other people if we're sick or recovering...with *anything,* whether that be a cold or flu or Covid or whatever. Just stay home!!

Anyway, sorry to be scattered, I am just over a lot of the tone of the rhetoric going on, because the "sky is falling" people are correct to be alarmed but aren't doing anyone any favors in their tone, and the "nothing to see people" are incorrect to be so complacent and passive, but it's also hard to blame them when hegemonic forces demand fealty to mammon.

the gung-ho Covid-cautious position that "every illness you ever get is Covid and we're all going to die because of your evil!!!!!!!" is not really constructive

where are you encountering people taking this position? it doesn't seem all that prevalent - or even noticable - to me. I can sympathize with your impatience with anyone whose rhetoric approached that level of panic, but I'm just not seeing it here or elsewhere.

i think most people are in between and getting feverishly attacked by the fringes, as is usually the way tbf

lol no one who is ignoring Covid is getting feverishly attacked by anyone.

down for 8 or 9 days

JFC

I am pretty sympathetic to what you, Alfred, and sleeve are saying, obviously, but *do* want to note that colds and respiratory ailments that are *not* Covid do continue to exist...and that the gung-ho Covid-cautious position that "every illness you ever get is Covid and we're all going to die because of your evil!!!!!!!" is not really constructive in building up the sort of solidarity that many of us would like to see around masking and being cautious around Covid and illness in general.

I don't think I've ever once taken this position, sez the guy who went to a crowded karaoke bar on Thursday.

Like jaymc posted earlier, I mask when I need to (for example: a small theater full of wheezing coughing seniors last week) but no longer curb my desire to hit a bar or restaurant indoors.

I was just agreeing to what you all were saying, as a prefaratory note so that my saying that not everything is Covid wouldn’t be read as denialism.

Fwiw a number of people I know are on the extremes of the Covid cautious, and regularly post stuff that basically denies the existence of colds, flu, and other non-Covid respectively illnesses .

and yes, deems otm

some autocorrect issues in that post— should read non-Covid respiratory illnesses, obv.

FTR I'm not hiding out at home, I just mask when I'm out shopping and dine out on patios or in window seats.

Where I'm at. But for 'shopping' also include going to concerts, being on the bus/transit, etc. I am extremely fortunate in that I walk to work and back, and that where I do work usually has very few people and I have a large window right behind me that provides excellent constant ventilation, so I'm comfortable not masking there until/unless someone comes in and we need to chat beyond a quick question or two. (This building is not the main hospital building in general, where masking is still and has constantly been required, and where, yes, we now have more patients with COVID than we've had for a while.)

I have, briefly, done a bit of indoor gathering with others this holiday season for a couple of largeish birthday parties where there was food/drink/dinner and in those cases I mixed masking with noshing as I could, but that's about it. Meantime, before Project N95 closed down, I stocked up on a massive number of masks and will use them as needed going forward still.

i'd add in all those too except I've only been to outdoor concerts since early 2020, and no public transit. I look forward to going to the UK this summer and wearing my N95 en route for what I'm sure will feel like a week.

Covid testing does seem a bit of an alien concept here as well. However I've a small number of friends who have been ill at least once if not twice with a really bad cold/flu-type thing (testing negative for covid), while those with actual covid are getting it very mildly. So the sensible thing is whether it's covid or not maybe don't go snotting on people.

I kinda thought following the pandemic there'd be a low level of people just using readily available masks when virussy in enclosed public spaces/ wfh where possible if you have a virus rather than bravely battling it into the office/ informing people you're visiting. Some people are (usually if they're aware you've got vulnerable family members), but not many ime.

Plus the amount of people telling me 'I think it's been established that masks don't really do anything' ummmm any mask will reduce risk to others if you're shedding and filter masks have been constantly shown to offer a worthwhile level of protection to the wearer as well.

FWIW, having just come back from Europe:

Amsterdam: next to no masking.
Berlin: next to no masking.
Prague: next to no masking.
Train and plain and tram: next to no masking.
Back home in Chicago: a surprising uptick in masking! But still relatively few masks. I do know more people taking it cautiously, even if they tested negative. Feeling bad is feeling bad, and being sick is being sick, so if you have the choice/luxury it of course makes sense to take cover and recover.

I suppose the 2020-2021 lockdowns -- real ones, not the bullshit we got in the States -- is responsible for the no masking anywhere anytime I noticed in Dublin last June.

Maybe the way forward is to have masking be a more integrated, multiuse apparel, e.g.
"It's cold"
"I didn't want to apply makeup/shave this morning"
"This bar is kind of smelly"
"I kinda want people to keep their distance right now"
etc...

Masks are awesome at blocking the wind in the winter and keeping your snot from freezing. Though that may be a thing of the past, along with cold winters.

FTR I'm not hiding out at home, I just mask when I'm out shopping and dine out on patios or in window seats.

I'm glad that you have the option of dining and drinking on patios year-round, but those of us back in Chicago don't. I don't really go out that much, but it's something that brings joy to my life, and I don't want to put it on hold all winter.

I kinda thought following the pandemic

yeah I'm an editor and I fix that whenever I see it in copy. "after the *onset* of the pandemic" is often what ppl mean.

what would it take for you to change that position

(not at all being arch btw im curious)

I mean there is a scientific answer to that: a pandemic is over when the virus is either eradicated or has become endemic I think

C19 obv on the way to becoming “just” a seasonal endemic virus but not there yet

I am waiting for the World Health Organization to declare it over. it has not yet.

As far as usage goes I have no problem with ppl using the term to refer to the “Covid era” as understood but I’m not an editor

WHO did declare last May that it is no longer a "public health emergency," but it's still a pandemic.

I know about those Chicago winters believe me, I don't know how I'd handle all that, after almost four years of this shit, but out here even with the milder climate i do find myself frequently the only one wanting to eat outside. Even in summer. I don't necessarily regard this as having been socially a benefit to me obviously.

fair enough xps id only noted the declaration of end of the emergency officially i think

As you might expect in Florida everyone wants to eat outside in the winter.

C19 obv on the way to becoming “just” a seasonal endemic virus but not there yet

considering that we are currently in the second-biggest wave to date, with a dominant variant that is especially good at evading antibodies and causing reinfection, "obv" is doing some beast-mode lifting there

LAUSD sent covid test kits home with students right before winter break, for them to test themselves before returning to school. But there's no requirement to submit any kind of test result, any messaging regarding the necessity to test, so I can guarantee with the massive increase in numbers that's going on now, there are plenty of kids who are going to be going to school tomorrow sick with covid, and of course LAUSD's gently firm suggestion that if your kid is only a little sick they should come to school still holds steady.

considering that we are currently in the second-biggest wave to date, with a dominant variant that is especially good at evading antibodies and causing reinfection, "obv" is doing some beast-mode lifting there

― bae (sic), Sunday, January 7, 2024 3:17 PM bookmarkflaglink

The statement was based on epidemiologists and virologists knowledge that most all pandemics do become endemic at some point and this one has mutated at a clip nobody saw coming. Doesn't change the fact that it will probably happen at some point, most likely with a second generation vaccine in several years.

Should also note hospitalizations right now are significantly lower than they were at this time last year and during BA.1 and BA.2. they'll get higher but Jetelina thinks the peak is around the corner for this wave.

There's still too much hospitalization and death and too little booster uptake to suggest it's not a significant public health issue but outcomes have definitely improved

completely agree wu Table; I was using "the pandemic" as a shorthand for the period of time in which measures like masking and distancing were required or at least expected. I'm very much in the minority here for even thinking about Covid more than once in a while.

totally, i get it— i just wanted to mention it as something i have been thinking about, particularly given current infection rates

it's a bit defeatist but I like the idea of calling it a permademic, to join the pantheon of other ecological permacrises, but my local health provider is already treating it like the flu -- "when's the next booster?" "ah, you'll just get one yearly, and we won't be stamping your 'i got a booster' card anymore"

Tbh my primary care doc has been talking about it that way since April 2020 (eventually treating it like the flu, I mean.)

I forgot all about stamping my vaccination record card when I got my booster jab a few months ago. I do have it electronically stored in myIRmobile.com though which puts verified records and a scannable QR code into my Apple Wallet vaccination card.

I mask a lot more most people I know (transport, shops, cinema, etc.). But colds, flus and covids have still found their way to me with regularity, and I don't feel like I get sick much more or less than I did in 2019, although obviously 2019 did not include the considerable spectre of long covid.

I do have a toddler in preschool, a partner who works in a school, and I'm a trainee counsellor which means no mask when we're meeting in person. Annoyingly all the counselling training courses on demand that 70% of your training sessions need to be in-person -- otherwise I'd be very comfortable going all online. Aside from having to shoulder the covid risk, I think it's unacceptably able-ist -- it's like saying sessions with people who are well enough to attend in person are more important than sessions with people for whom disabilities and health issues might prevent it. Not to mention the fact that almost every therapist works up a flight of stairs in an elevator-less office.

Speaking of COVID policies, here's a good article on why the right lionized Sweden in 2020-2021:

https://jacobin.com/2023/11/swedish-left-covid-pandemic-neoliberal-failures-public-health

Going to the doctor tomorrow so I'll be masking for the first time in quite a while. (There just aren't enough people around where I live for it to be worthwhile. I mean, I can't remember the last time I was in a room where there were more than 5 people within 20 feet of me. And when I am, it's for as long as it takes to pay for my purchase and leave.)

this one has mutated at a clip nobody saw coming

When it didn’t exist, nobody knew how fast it would mutate, but that’s not much of a metric. Once it became apparent how fast it both replicated and adapted, a larger number of people than that set saw clearly that it would mutate at a clip, absent mitigation.

that's....not so.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/two-years-into-the-pandemic-covid-19-still-surprises-experts

it's also hard to quantify this wave as the 'second biggest wave', per Caitlin Rivers (one of the best epis during this pandemic):

We no longer have reliable data on the number of cases (vs hospitalizations), so wastewater is our only real measure of how much virus is circulating.

However, I don’t like to consider wastewater concentration as a quantitative metric. It’s not clear to me that its relationship to infections is stable over time, or comparable between regions. Instead, I rely on it as a qualitative indicator. This is where I may depart from some of my epidemiology colleagues—I’d say the science is not quite settled about how best to incorporate wastewater.

Which is to say - yes, it is completely useful and instructive because when wastewater goes up, so does cases, when it goes down, that means a wave is ending. But that you can't extrapolate a specific of volume cases from national wastewater data because it is collected and measured differently at different locations, and there are some secondary factors that could cause two locations with very similar caseloads to have different wastewater measurement.

in other words - yes, we are in the midst of a wave, and yes, infections have risen sharply, per wastewater, and uptick in hospitalizations, but not really possible to say "second biggest wave" based on wastewater alone.

hospitalizations and deaths in the US are still at remarkably low levels (https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklydeaths_select_00, covidactnow.org), which isn't to say it isn't important to try and mitigate or lower things, or wear masks at all, but that in terms of the impacts, prior immunity via vaccine or infection is blunting some of the hit.

it's also just a really hard disease to fight. they've found that deer spread the virus to humans, and vice versa, a large number of times, and that it's mutated in some of the deer. the animal reservoirs are a bitch.

Definitely in the news a lot more in the UK, over the last few weeks, with a noticeable but not massive increase in face coverings in my local supermarket. Have read reports that masks have been re-introduced in parts of holiday destinations (bits of Spain etc).

I was strict about covering for a long time (particularly in situations where I thought "I don't want to gamble on getting Covid for *this*" (mundane things like travel) but only now really cover in very specific situations and/or health care settings.

Strangely weirded out by the death of Derek Draper (political lobbyist about whom I know almost nothing), husband of Kate Garraway (GMB TV Presenter, about whom I also know almost nothing) ... sort of "the famous face of long Covid" ... who has died after contracting Covid in 2020 and spent, I think, most of the intervening years in hospital.

i'm wearing a mask today for the first time in maybe 6 months. anecdotally it's everywhere.

The amount of coughing I heard dropping my kid off at school yesterday morning after 3 weeks of winter break was a bit disconcerting. As mentioned before, LAUSD is not exactly giving parents the message that their kids should stay home when they're under the weather. In fact it's the opposite.

IIUC LAUSD (where we were last year) and NYC DOE (where we are now) school funding is contingent on daily attendance now, which is not helping the incentives.

That's exactly it, so when the new superintendent replaced Buetner (who did a very good job with the pandemic I thought), he introduced the new policy of no more testing and pushing for students to come back to school. I think what you've missed during the new school year was that mandate that went out telling parents that if they thought it was something minor, their kids could come to school. Of course, every parent's definition of minor is different.

The creepiest thing that happened this year was apparently someone from LAUSD came into my son's homeroom class and talked to them about coming into school if they were feeling under the weather and how that was okay. I thought that was absolutely disgusting to be honest, it just puts so much on these kids.

The hospital I work at doesn't even test patients routinely anymore, only if they're exhibiting respiratory symptoms. I was in the OR today and masks aren't even mandatory in there so, while I understand the caution in light of an increase in numbers, it feels surreal to read people talk about masking. I see it so seldom here that when I do I assume person must be immunocompromised to have something similar that requires them to be extra cautious.

The creepiest thing that happened this year was apparently someone from LAUSD came into my son's homeroom class and talked to them about coming into school if they were feeling under the weather and how that was okay. I thought that was absolutely disgusting to be honest, it just puts so much on these kids.

Holy shit, that is disgusting and you are absolutely correct to feel that way. Part of what we are tying to teach our kid is to listen to his body and to know when he needs to slow down to take care of himself (obviously a tricky balance, but still) and having an "authority" from school come in to tell him to come in even when he feels sick? I would be livid.

What it felt like to me was an end around against the parents. To instill in the kids the feeling that if they're not feeling 100%, they shouldn't push the issue with their parents but should push through and go to school. To me, it almost felt like the sort of thing that was intended to plant the seed of deception, because there are definitely many parents who do want to keep their kids home if they're feeling a little bit under the weather, but if the kids don't say anything they might not know.

My son came back from school telling me that in a tone that suggested he thought it was really really weird and off-putting as well. I told him it was totally improper for that to have happened, and we were going to keep him home if he was under the weather, and to not be afraid to tell us if he wasn't feeling great.

Good lord. Of course there's the argument that "they" are already working to instill the good little worker mentality in their future workforce, getting them used to the expectation that they should still work no matter how bad they feel.

Totally.

Every single person, kids or adults, should stay home if they feel sick. That we have a society and economy arranged to encourage the opposite (and penalize people who miss work but don't have paid sick days) is pathological in the medical sense.

"they" are already working to instill the good little worker mentality in their future workforce

More likely than that in my view is the fact that school districts generally receive funding from their state governments that is directly calculated on total student-days of attendance. A second factor would be that high rates of student absence are used to 'grade' districts on their efforts to prevent truancy and support at-risk students. These considerations hit home with school administrators more directly than how students might behave at their future places of employment.

Of course telling kids to come to school sick is very irresponsible and the administrator behind it needs to be fired and never work in schools again.

States use different methods to count students for funding. Some (including California) do use average daily attendance, so yeah, there's financial incentive to have students in school. Others use enrollment (a better measure imo) or single-day counts.

https://blog.allovue.com/how-states-count-students-to-determine-funding-a-call-for-change

Yeah, Aimless, without a doubt. I was just staring down the cynical path of the long game.

Went to my doctor's appointment today and the only people masking were me and two old ladies (75+ at minimum), one of whom was coughing a lot inside her mask. I stayed on the other side of the room from her.

Improving attendance is my number one priority, so I’m glad that there are 380,000 fewer children persistently absent or not attending school than last year.

But we know we need to go further.

So today, we're taking action to improve attendance.

Here's how 👇 https://t.co/nSHWCahoqw pic.twitter.com/lsYpvKcByR

— Gillian Keegan MP (@GillianKeegan) January 8, 2024

That's the priority now, normalcy.

My wife suddenly today knows half a dozen people who now have COVID.

A friend of mine wrote recently about how long covid has her in a wheelchair (post vaccination)

i had a routine internal medicine appointment yesterday that happened to be in the outpatient unit for liver transplants. waiting room full of people who are in . four receptionists, none wearing masks.

*waiting room full of extremely old people who are on immunosuppresants and would probably die if got a stubbed toe

were they wearing boots

open toe sandals if you can imagine,,,,

Sure why not

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/california-adjusts-covid-19-guidance-reduces-18611008.php

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/coronavirus/in-a-break-with-cdc-california-quietly-changed-its-covid-isolation-guidelines/3317286/

I guess it's over now 😶

Just a reminder that the new vaccines are available. Getting my jab on Friday.

!!

Just made a Friday appointment too.

Sadly I have to hold off a bit given my July bout but will probably get mine end of October. (Especially if there's a half chance the Novavax one will be approved by then.)

I walked into a CVS Monday and got the new one (and a flu vax as well) in anticipation of upcoming travel.

As noted in other thread, approval for Novavax (substantially more effective against dominant strains, fewer side effects) is likely to follow in the next month or so.

(And was only available for seven-ish months last time, it seems - I got booster for travel reasons in July, and they'd sent the Nova stock all back weeks before. You don't have to wait until six months after an mRNA to get it, though, as long as your pharmacy will administer. (Six months still advised before re-upping on Nova though.))

I will mask in the airport and on the plane, but otherwise, no.

thanks Prez Keyes! didn't know that

Yes I still mask btw! Situationally, on public transit, in airports, if I'm going to see anyone vulnerable in the coming days/weeks. When I saw my parents, I masked in the airports and planes the whole time.

Good reminder to also get the new jab.

Never stopped masking on public transit and have gone back to masking in grocery stores and at crowded shows.

Mentioned it on the other thread - I'm still N95'ing it in indoor public spaces: transit, shows, grocery stores, any place situational awareness kicks off. So far, so good. I'm still no-vid

Where I live, only well-off older folx mask. I really don't want to be seen with one on.

because you think it’ll make you look old?

I'm pretty much the only person I know who still masks, although even I don't do it very often. I think I had Covid last month but I didn't test positive, so (hopefully!) I have a window for a couple months. I guess I'll find out!

I continue to mask on long train rides but not on short bus hops. I mask if I'm at a large shop or or shopping mall but I don't at coffee shops or if I'm just doing a quick visit to the grocery.

If I'm with my 4-year-old it's a pain in the butt to mask so I don't always. She's still too wriggly to mask herself but that might change.

A biologist I know tells me the chance of catching Covid outdoors is still miniscule, so I don't mask outdoors.

These aren't necessarily logical rules but it's better than nothing, I guess.

My impression (via what I remember from an old Katelyn Jetelina blog) is that popping in and out of a shop is not a 0% risk, but not a high risk either.

(I think she said something like, "If I've got my mask, I'll mask, but if I've forgotten it I'll just go to the store anyway")

Got the new C jab on Friday (plus a flu shot).

I was masking in whole foods yesterday and a guy looked at me several times and shook his head, then came over to me so I prepared to get into a showdown with a chud, but he only wanted to give me a little friendly trash talk about my Clippers hat and tell me some Clippers trivia.

The woman who sits next to me at work went home early last Friday, then emailed to say she has Covid. We were both wearing masks at work. Now it’s a week later and I haven’t tested positive. Masks rule.

Do you normally mask at work?

I do. Mostly because my co-worker is immuno compromised and I'm afraid of passing on the bugs my kid brings home from school.

Wore a mask at the doctor's office yesterday. I was the only one except for one other old guy I saw on the way out, and his was just a cloth mask; mine was a KN95.

Still masking, still feel pretty alone doing so in grocery stores etc that’s no judgment on others but—barring real reasons one might not wear one—I think it’s at least a little odd more people don’t wear them on airplanes.

I mask on public transportation. This week, four weeks after getting the latest vax, I stopped masking in classrooms for the first time.

and, yeah, I mask when I go to the doctor.

I don't mask, tbh, but what boggles my mind is that the vast majority of people I see who *are* masking - typically in grocery stores - are *still* doing it incorrectly. Under the nose, or ill-fitted, etc.

My wife just got back from a trip where she was sat on a plane next to a guy coughing so much and with so little concern for others that some other passenger apologized on that guy's behalf when they landed. She said she's going to resume wearing masks on flights. I had read that the most important time to don one is during that idle time before takeoff before the in-flight circulation takes over.

I have a friend with a CO2 monitor he takes with him places and he just posted a reading of the Boston MTBA train:

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bsbvq2c7hwhtghswphhot3hq/bafkreiefj73uy5sdlmi5jvz7mx52sdabgom7a6vxzisi35zwcnv7l7ke4q@jpeg

yeah, according to my dad, whose business is airplane parts, once the plane's airborne it does an excellent job recycling the air. Idling on the runway is the problem.

i mask in movie theaters still, it's the only place i've knowingly gotten covid from

everywhere else... ehhh

I ran out of N95s and keep forgetting to re-order (because I need to find a new/regular supplier and a mask design that I like--the last ones were awful) and consequently I stopped masking on the MTA and now I have some low level garbage cold. Bah.

CO2 monitors are not wrong, but they will drive you insane, do not recommend

https://archive.is/d4KaE

That's sadly sort of been my response to lots of stuff lately: not wrong, but per Ivy ... ehhh.

My closest rep/arthouse cinema, which used to get 450-550ppm readings has closed indefinitely for repairs, and a lot of programming has moved to another venue across town. The first screening there was hot, stuffy, and at 2200 and climbing ten minutes into the movie, higher than an idling jetliner. Strongly recommend taking notice of levels like that.

Still would recommend masking on planes, seems fairly easy, and I don’t know that I trust that the air would circulate Covid away from me if someone who’s sitting behind me is coughing up their viral load at the back of my head

There's no way I'd get on any kind of mass transit without a mask.

I mask at cinemas, libraries, airports, etc. I wish I could more as an educator, but it’s just not as feasible anymore

I'll mask at an arthouse theater but I'm often the only person in one of those AMC screening rooms at 10:30 a.m.

I still mask if I'm going to be in close proximity with others for an extended period. Currently that's mostly just when using library computers. A short bus ride or going to the grocery store I won't bother unless there is substantial crowding.

The only times I got Covid was after a trip to New York. I always mask on Amtrak (or planes), but now when I go to NY I mask everywhere.

Back home in the DMV, ehhhhhhhhh

When I saw "Avengers Endgame" - the last fully packed theatre I was in, and possibly will be in ever - there was a guy that got up to smoke three times, each time watching the movie while blowing smoke out of the propped open (by him) side door that exited into the cold alley, letting in all that chilly fresh air (and smoke). People eventually got pissed, but maybe now they would thank him for the extra circulation.

My daughter had to get the flu shot for a hospital-based nursing class she is taking, but weirdly enough they did not require a covid vaccine. She has not gotten the most recent covid vaccine (for reasons), but flu shot or no she did catch the flu a few weeks ago, and her symptoms were magnitudes worse than any case of covid any of us ever had. Mask, no mask, vax, no vax: getting sick sucks.

Last autumn I transitioned to a default of not masking in stores or the public library (the two places I am most often exposed to strangers indoors). During the usual crowded madness that defines grocery stores in the few days leading up to Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve, I masked.

I've never yet had covid, which I credit to being retired, introverted, and generally cautious about avoiding clear and present dangers. When I next get on an airplane (in June), you can be sure I will mask every minute.

Not masking on an airplane or airport or any form of transit seems insane to me.

Still masking in stores, on the train, at work, etc. basically in shared interior settings. Other than my wife and I, no one else we know here masks anymore (nyc).
io- I order ours from Safety Emporium in NJ. they sell them in boxes of 20. That’s where I’ve been ordering from since the first year of the pandemic.
We are in the usual post-holidays period of elevated metrics right now in case anyone cares. Especially in the Midwest.

Looks like flu is the real villain here these days:

https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/cdph/supp_info/infectious/respiratory-illness/respiratory-illness-data.html

makes sense when you think back and remember that covid restrictions suppressed several consecutive flu seasons, limiting low level exposures in addition to fully emergent illnesses. our immune systems are all just a little less experienced with flu than usual.

Thanks, Jon! I’ll try those. I bought a box of 50 from Indiana Face Mask (lol) and unfortunately they weren’t stiff enough and they sucked in and plastered against my face with every breath.

These do move in and out somewhat with breaths when you have a good seal.

Ms T and I ended our run of masking at shows - we had floor tickets for Charli xcx at Barclays Center and simply concluded: ok, this is the time. Great show!

i was just given secure badge access to our company's basement and it's basically broken down cubicles and boxes of COVID-era supplies.

Only my true feelings.

Strangely, there were more people masking than usual in my local (UK) supermarket yesterday (Though I mean four rather than the usual one).

Yes (to thread question)