Where are you wearing a mask?

Feels like a pertinent question right now.

out of the house until i'm away from people (say, in a secluded spot)

when the cricket season hopefully resumes this weekend i'll wear it to and from the venue but probably not on the field

I've had one for a couple of months now but haven't felt much need to wear it as I haven't been in a building that isn't my own for maybe three months now? I've been in a (big, widely dispersed) park virtually every day without feeling the need for a mask at all, but I wouldn't be comfortable without one in a busy street or in a shop of any description. Am I doing this wrong?

Usual caveats about it being more about protecting other people than protecting yourself etc.

nowhere, until they become compulsory then in shops I guess

I think in Scotland it's now compulsory to wear a mask in shops and on public transport - they've been handing out masks to people on Glasgow Central Station - though I don't know how strictly it's enforced.

Only on public transport, which I don't use. If there's an occasion where I'd have to wear it, I will probably not put myself in that situation.

I wear one when I'm in a shop, a rare occurrence right now. Don't wear one when otherwise out & about, which is usually in a park, but wonder if I should to normalise it in others' eyes. 60% of people wearing masks that stop 60% of virus transmissions would be enough to end the pandemic, allegedly.

Every time I step out of the house and have been since a microbiologist mate recommended it in March. At worst it does no harm. Almost no one is wearing one here, givermen ‘tis not recommending it, and yet we are back in lock down.

Every news bulletin right now has an interview with a public health expert or doctor saying wear a mask. It seems obvious.

I also sanitise my hands every time I enter or exit a new space. Seems a bit OCD but as habits go, again, it does no harm.

not compulsory in shops until friday. been compulsory for a while on public transport but from a glance inside busses yesterday doesn't look like it is being enforced

xxps

When I'm indoors someplace that's not my house.

I don't have busy streets around me, but if I did I'd probably wear one there too.

I think in Scotland it's now compulsory to wear a mask in shops and on public transport - they've been handing out masks to people on Glasgow Central Station - though I don't know how strictly it's enforced.

Just checked my calendar and I believe it's July.

I also sanitise my hands every time I enter or exit a new space. Seems a bit OCD but as habits go, again, it does no harm.

I've been going with plastic bag over the hand when using the communal door to our building, but that was partly due to a nationwide shortage of hand sanitiser that seemed to last months. Would definitely do it after shopping or touching any kind of public door, ticket machine etc.

Compulsory in shops. Wearing 100% of time. Hand sanitiser on entrance/exit

On street or park I have it on some of the time

I went to collect something last week and forgot to put my mask back on, was in my hand the whole time. Mortified

When picking up something curbside (i.e. food). When going into any building other than my house. Even if I'm sitting outdoors where there are people. When I'm at my folks'.

After my last test, they gave me 50 free masks

Also to trigger conservatives

Shops, buses, any time I have to be in an office with another person

In shops and also at the outdoor market. And actually on the way to those places because putting it on involves hands to face obviously.

The one I have doesn't fit so well so I have to not move my jaw too much or the mask slips (off my nose.)

I thought there might be a bit of a cycle helmet effe t with some wearers feeling a false sense of immunity but I think that's outweighed by the good effect of.signalling that you're conscientious.

Washing it daily in it water and soap.

Masks are required in the common areas of my condo building (never mind that I've seen the association president going maskless more than once).

I don't wear them when I'm alone in my car, or on an empty sidewalk. But I do put one whenever I'm in a shop or otherwise likely to be near other people.

went to a shop for the first time in forever at the weekend and i wore one then. no-one else was wearing one and my glasses kept fogging up. felt like i was in some weird bubble, realised i was shouting at the person behind the counter but they were behind a perspex screen too. kinda horrible really

I think people working in shops really appreciate visitors wearing masks. It seems basic courtesy at this point.

if the virus only lingers on cloth for a few hours, why do they need to be washed so frequently? Couldn’t you just wait till they start showing initial signs of mank, like I do with everything else?

I'd be happy to have one Les thing.to semi obsessively clean for sure.

I just would really resent the (possibly fantastic) scenario where it's trapping particles, drying them out and conveniently delivering them to my nose the next day.

You don't have multiple masks?

Supermarkets here selling them in packs of 50

I have one cloth mask with filters I can swap out (no idea the frequency I'm supposed to be doing this.. probably once a month?)

> Supermarkets here selling them in packs of 50

a good hack is to put all 50 on and then just peel the top one off once it starts getting a bit grubby

Has the added benefit of reducing oxygen consumption which means trees get to take a break.

if the virus only lingers on cloth for a few hours, why do they need to be washed so frequently? Couldn’t you just wait till they start showing initial signs of mank, like I do with everything else?

I think we had this conversation before? The instructions I got from my work were to wash them remorselessly, ferociously and to within an inch of their lives - I paraphrase but 'at least once a day'.

Like everyone else is saying itt, whenever I’m in an enclosed area with other people so: bus, work, shops, laundrette. Practically nobody is doing this in England though, even though the mask debate is over and everyone now knows they ought to be worn - because they *are* mandated on public transport, but not anywhere else where the exact same conditions would apply. It’s frankly bonkers. In the USA, a country famously not handling this well, refusing to wear a mask is associated with AR15 toting libertarian idiots and mutants like the no underwear lady but here it’s like... the entire population. Everyone’s in denial.

Probably because “you should wear a mask indoors” clashes with “everyone needs to go to the pub”

The instructions I got from my work were to wash them remorselessly, ferociously and to within an inch of their lives - I paraphrase but 'at least once a day'.

Yeah I don't get this. The only person touching my mask is me. I take it off when I'm home. Whatever virii are on it will be dead by morning. Non?

It's a mess. Like all of a sudden making wearing masks compulsory in supermarkets in July when people have been traipsing about without them for 4 months all the way through the peak of the pandemic.

always when shopping.

When walking or cycling, it depends on how many people I'll encounter. Busy city sidewalk? Yes. Alone in the woods? No.

The greyest area is a walking/running/biking trail. Sometimes when it's not crowded I will just carry a mask, and put it on when someone comes near, wait a bit after they've passed, then take it off again. Nodding at them in (what I hope is) a friendly manner to show that I mean it as a courtesy and not an insult to their cleanliness or whatever.

Sometimes when a jogger passes me I'll hold my breath for a few seconds. I remember those images going round about how joggers (breathing heavily) leave a much longer "plume" of breath behind them than someone merely walking.

When biking in the open I usually leave it off, but when biking around a lot of people I put it on.

Then I get into the question of whether to do mask-then-helmet or helmet-then-mask. Either way I'll be fumbling with the straps when I get to the liquor store.

I do have a new-found respect for superheroes - masks are fucking horrible, especially when you wear glasses as well.

I finally figured out how to keep my glasses from slipping off my face when wearing my mask. I have one of those masks where the loops go around the ears. What this seems to do is pull my ears just slightly away from my head, creating a gap, enough to allow my glasses to just fall right off if I look even slightly down. So what I do now is put the elastic loop over the arm of the glasses on each side, so they're kind of.... strapped in.

/cool story

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293317/

Apparently surgeons do this ^ to stop the fogging up issue, I keep forgetting to do this in the morning tho

I have to wear a mask at work sometimes anyway and I would usually just take my glasses off

Masks have been required in Miami-Dade County since late March; now the mask order requires outside wearing too unless you're doing extensive exercise. The only time I don't wear it is on my morning walks, but there's no one around.

I met a friend for drinks the other day, and I wore a mask both coming and going, but once at the (outside) bar I took it off. We were more than 1m apart and our table was 5m from anyone else. I did touch her dog, who'd been traipsing through our filthy streets.

Like others I wear them whenever I'm in an indoor space that isn't my own: grocery, booze store, um… the one time I had the car worked on I wore it inside the garage office to pay/get the keys. I've visited my parents and in-laws in their homes sans mask, but everyone had been tested and found negative, plus keeping to strict bubbles for 14+ days in anticipation of visiting.

If I had a place to go on public transit I'd wear it while riding there, but I don't so I don't. The couple of times I've been to a pub patio for a beer I've worn it indoors to use the restroom. Copious hand sanitizer all around there too. I haven't been to my office since March except for one half-hour visit that was highly regulated (one person at a time) and I wore one there.

At the parks I frequent most there is never much of a crowd so I go without one there, but I have one in my pocket just in case. If I wore one on my bike rides I'd probably die of suffocation so I don't then either, but again, there is hardly anyone around so keeping distance is easy.

NJ governor announcing a masks-outdoors-too executive order today.

Essentially whenever I'm outdoors, or in a public place. When we go for walks on some trails near our house, we get far enough away from anyone else that we take them off, but otherwise I always have one on outside of the house.

mandatory in PA any time you're in public within 6' of another person but i don't wear it to walk the dog or just walk around the neighborhood etc, only when going to stores, into the office etc.

maybe wearing a mask when you go running will be a bit like training at altitude. your body will respond to limited oxygen intake by increasing your red blood cells and we'll all come out of this running like kipchoges

out of the house until i'm away from people (say, in a secluded spot)

Yeah, this. On the rare occasions I go out, I'll have it on, but I have been out to a couple of parks and I'll take it off when I'm there, with plenty of space around.

have yet to wear a mask. if my airport based job still exists in august and i am back at work then i'll presumably have to wear one.

Only if I'm in a shop or public transit (am avoiding the latter as much as possible). Funnily enough I had no problem not wearing one at the bar at the weekend

Shops, queues, public transport, busy stretches of road.

Mask-wearing is probably at about 5% where i am - almost exclusively BAME ppl.

My quartier's habitants are almost all BAME people, and yes, most everyone is wearing masks outside. This is a bit up over the last few days it seems.

I did touch her dog

DANGER

don't even know what the official advice in the uk is at the moment but government ministers are still not wearing facemasks in public - e.g. rishi posing for restaurant photos etc

I wear a mask every time I leave the apartment. And I've yet to touch a surface outside of my apartment without a proxy (e.g. glove, disinfectant wipe, paper towel, etc.). People might think I'm nuts but IDGAF. It's not how I've ever conducted myself wrt the potential for catching a bug (living in the city, I'm generally resigned for instance that I'm going to eventually fall ill in the wintertime what with all the coughing sneezing MF-ers on the train and in the office) so I'm secure in the knowledge that my newfound OCD is only temporary.

We just got an official email yesterday that our office will be closed through at least Labor Day, which makes for six months+ of WFH. I'm super cool with that however much my cabin fever may rage.

I believe that masks were barely mentioned in the uk until a month ago or so, but surely British people were aware that in other countries they'd become standard?

British people are deferent and will do what they are told (as long as it's the right person doing the telling).

Pushing masks early on would definitely have been successful, particular if there were Union Jack masks

surely British people were aware that in other countries they'd become standard?

Yeah this isn't the way the country works, on a national consciousness level at least. In my experience even 'BAME people' is doing a lot of work, lots of people of East Asian origin have been wearing masks throughout, black people generally haven't (although I've seen more, particularly young black men, wearing them in the last week or two).

don't even know what the official advice in the uk is at the moment
― Boris the Spreader (NickB), Thursday, July 9, 2020 12:26 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

that link wins posted was damning and probably goes a long way to explaining why no one is wearing a mask: confused messaging around efficacy of wearing masks; lack of measures to make them compulsory and then inconsistent implementation when eventually put in; lack of role modelling from leadership etc

We don't even have "BAME neigbourhoods" per se, there are some parts of our towns and cities where there are more people of Bangladeshi or Pakistani origin, or where there are a higher proportion of black people, but most areas are racially heavily mixed and, in more metropolitan areas, regularly with people from different socioeconomic groups living close together.

Yeah a bit of leadership/clear guidance early on is all it would have taken; obviously there would be a vocal minority who think it’s all a load of old cobblers like all health & safety, or pricks who think being told to wear a seat belt is nineteen eighty-four or whatever, but it wouldn’t be anything like the current situation

don't even know what the official advice in the uk is at the moment but government ministers are still not wearing facemasks in public - e.g. rishi posing for restaurant photos etc

I'm not sure I've seen any leading politician in the UK, or whatever party, wearing a mask - they possibly have, but I don't remember it.

Right, in my part of town I saw East Asians with masks at a time when they were not yet widely available---probably they had kept them at home just in case something like this were to happen? I had several Japanese colleagues in town during the initial outbreak who were not so prepared, but they were visitors rather than normal habitants.

But this

surely British people were aware that in other countries they'd become standard?

Yeah this isn't the way the country works, on a national consciousness level at least.

is what really interests me, because you want to say this is different than the US right, but I'm not quite seeing how.

nicola sturgeon has been wearing a mask

And yet her government didn't advise the wearing of masks either.

Mask goes on before I open our door to go out and stays on until I come back home because it's easier and the glasses fogging issue has lessened as I've gotten used to wearing longer (no idea how). We've got a UV-C sanitizer box that masks and phones go in once we're in the door.

pricks who think being told to wear a seat belt is nineteen eighty-four or whatever

tbf jimmy savile was the face of that particular campaign in the uk and lets be honest, he knew a thing or two about sex crime

is what really interests me, because you want to say this is different than the US right, but I'm not quite seeing how.

The average British person isn't going to look at what they're doing in Spain or South Korea and follow suit. But we're unlikely to be seeing Texas-style protests against wearing a mask either. By and large the public will do what it's told to do in a pandemic. If it falls apart now, it's because the messaging has become confusing and contradictory (which it has).

I see: the British public will do what it's told to do, provided that it is told by British authorities. That's not so different than the US right, though the level of granularity of who is the relevant authority is even finer. But in both cases, the judgment of the public is "we'll do what we're told, provided that the right people are telling us to do it, and otherwise we won't", and "the right people" is defined on national grounds.

Much of Britain is a month or two past the peak at least, and while there may be a second peak, it isn't like many US states where they're only just hitting the first now. Masks are a very very good idea in London now, they would have been an even better idea in the spring, but they have to be pretty much essential in California or Texas right now.

Also right now the British government is saying it's no big deal, you don't need to wear a mask anywhere except on public transport, and while trust in the government has collapsed that weird deference to authority is weirdly persistent. There's so much confusing messaging out there right now and there has been throughout, but no one else is 'telling' the British public to do anything, except maybe the WHO.

I'd been thinking before less of the "being told" part, and more of the "choosing to take ideas from elsewhere". That is, applying a kind of empiricism, "what can we do to manage this virus? oh, East Asian countries have seemed to have a grip on things, let's try their mask idea". A practical idea rather than one imposed by authority.

People in the UK are fairly deferential, they're more trusting of their goverments than in a lot of countries.

It's pretty nuch the opposite of the US, where wearing a mark is some anti-authority gesture.

... mask.

... not wearing a mask

jfc!

thanks! I'm interested in these generalisations of national character

I'd been thinking before less of the "being told" part, and more of the "choosing to take ideas from elsewhere". That is, applying a kind of empiricism, "what can we do to manage this virus? oh, East Asian countries have seemed to have a grip on things, let's try their mask idea". A practical idea rather than one imposed by authority.

This isn't possible in the UK. Its not even that there would be resistance, it would never emerge as an idea in the first place to resist

Or to think of something yourself!

TBH the "see what they're doing in South Korea" approach doesn't fit with my impression of the French public either, or for that matter most European countries, even if you have had much more decisive or active governments throughout this crisis.

i don't want to underestimate the ability of american yahoos to engage in wilfully stupid self-sabotage but if i were a foreign power interested in tying american's shoelaces together and also just happened to have a few loosely affiliated troll armies lying around who were already plugged into the friend networks of the most gullible sectors of maga-land, i might start planting a few vociferous conspiracy theories about mask wearing and the new world order and how i wasn't afraid of no corona-cold

uk are world-beating innovators at the forefront of all science, the envy of all nations, best league in the world

Am I supposed to wear a mask if I'm walking around, say, an uncrowded park?

Have been wearing them at shops, but not for outdoor walks in the quiet suburbs - is that right, or should I be wearing a mask then too?

i think you're fine, chuck

i think most people in a crisis actively appreciate being told what to do as long as it comes from recognised authority figures who sound like they believe what they're saying. if the government won't play that role, self-assured maga chuds will

Most people here aren't wearing a mask in the park except at crowded pressure points, it feels entirely unnecessary to me.

If the AstraZeneca/Oxford group gets to a working vaccine first the jingoism is going to be off the charts.

I've counted 20 people I've bumped into my walks the last four months and I'm unmasked; I carry one in my pocket, though.

Only you can decide how much you're endangering other people.

I'm trying to work out the line between "low crowd, don't bother" and "put on a mask". I was walking Waterlow Park/Suicide Bridge last week, and it's crowded-ish, but people were keeping their distance and there was lots of wind. I was unmasked, but it was the first time I felt - "maybe I should be".

This morning I went to a supermarket, two people had taken off their masks and were having a nice long chat in the middle of the one-way aisle, so people couldn't get past. Annoying.

Wearing a mask indoors just became required in the city where I live (Madison), so it'll be interesting to see how that goes when I'm forced to go back to the office next month, and when students are back at the university in the fall (assuming either of those things come to pass as planned).

Also my experience so far as that there are zero masks worn outside of the two city centers in the state.

Anytime I leave my apartment. When I drink or eat outside, I will wear it below my chin. I am in Queens and mask wearing outdoors is probably at around 90 % compliant. It gets easier the more you do it — I went back to work recently and it wasn’t hard to wear the mask all day — which it would have been if I hadn’t been used to it. Wearing the mask outside might not be completely necessary — but it’s the social norm here now — and it certainly can’t hurt. It’s a nice way to signify that you care about your neighbors.

There would've been a LOT of mask resistance in Britain under a Corbyn government, particularly as it would've been implemented as a guideline much earlier.

What I can't get over is they're talking about making the wearing of mask compulsory of shops mandatory TO HELP STOP THE SPREAD OF THE VIRUS and it seems like no-one is saying, well, in that case, why didn't you do it 4 months earlier?

they can - and will - reply that the science was unclear at that point. nb i'm not saying that's true.

At the bar

Any enclosed space outside of my own home. Outdoors in any place where keeping distance is difficult or when I'm around the same people for an extended time, as opposed to brief contact. Fortunately, I am able to minimize all those circumstances to a very small sliver of my waking hours.

What kind of bar are we talking about here?

xp

Literally drinking it through a shitey cloot

stores, farmers market, crowded places

i dont wear one on my neighborhood walks - if i see someone walking towards me at a distance i’ll move out & walk on the street until we pass or cross the street

I put my mask on when I near the store on foot or when I get off the bike at the store. I take it back off when I’m back on my bike. I do not go anywhere but the grocery store. I am unlikely to go anywhere but the grocery store for the remainder of 2020.

Generally if I’m walking I can easily give people a berth, and walking up the specific hill to the store with a mask on is an ordeal I don’t want to contemplate. But I’m usually using my partner’s cargo bike to go to the store now.

I'm trying to work out the line between "low crowd, don't bother" and "put on a mask". I was walking Waterlow Park/Suicide Bridge last week, and it's crowded-ish, but people were keeping their distance and there was lots of wind. I was unmasked, but it was the first time I felt - "maybe I should be".

― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, July 9, 2020 10:10 AM (two days ago)

if I may ask gently, what is the hesitation? wearing a mask seems effortless and harmless to me, and imo we should be normalizing it as much as possible

I wear my mask on my bike, on rounds where I have to speak for nearly two hours straight, when I walk our dog; what is the harm?

yes, agree