Uh yeah. Those of us can't afford to be more sick that we already are never stopped wearing masks. I'm disabled and catching COVID once, while not too bad in the acute phase, has wreaked havoc on my health long term. It's not worth fucking around and finding out.
Right from the outset, my wife's coworker got her sick, which spread to my two little kids and then to me. They only work two days a week in person and it's not heavily enforced, but people still lack the fucking common sense to quarantine themself after symptoms go away but when you're still contagious. Smh
In countries that have high pollution rates, wearing a mask is normal, for pollution.
Only in America is trying to take care of yourself viewed as wrong.
I literally don't care if other people think I'm bizarre, I will wear a mask whenever I feel like it.
At least for covid, hand sanitizer is completely useless, though. It's not transmitted via smear infection (or at least very very rarely).
For other stuff it might be helpful, but even then moderation is a virtue, since that stuff dries out your skin and might create more open wounds - ask any nurse.
May I ask why? Legit question. I still occasionally see folks masking and such in my area, but the vast majority of people have gone back to pre-pandemic behaviors. Cases still pop up here and there but most folks treat it like flu… if you get sick, stay home until you’re better.
If you’ve got an immune issue, I get it. But otherwise, why bother?
Uhh have you heard of long COVID? More and more people are becoming disabled because of this. Before too long it'll be more common to have it than not.
Because being sick is inconvenient and I’m a busy person with shit to do.
If it’s something like BART during commute hours, I wear a mask. Before the pandemic I was sick once a month from riding that stupid subway. Now that I mask in tight crowded places, that happens much less often.
Because it (n95, kf94, etc) helps protect myself from getting other airborne diseases like the flu, especially in crowded places like concerts. I also live in a place that has some type of allergen (pollen, ragweed, etc) all year round, and masking outdoors helps reduce the impact of allergies.
Depending on the venue it's absolutely straightforward sense to wear a mask. Airports, trains, concerts, generally any crowded poorly ventilated indoors.
Besides other people 's excellent points, there's the matter of keeping loved ones from getting it who are more vulnerable. My spouse is fully vaccinated but I've seen him hospitalized too many times for what started as a cold or flu and became pneumonia. Neither of us has ever caught COVID and I intend to keep it that way.
Simple for me: I loooove food. I hate colds, because then I can't taste. Between 2020-2023 I never got a cold where I'd normally get one 1-3 times a year.
I haven't gotten one in 2024 yet either. I will gladly wear a mask in public places and use hand sanitizer if it means a lower chance of getting a cold.
COVID might stick around in your organs and causing a plethora of bad (even fatal) long term effects even when asymptomatic. It's not wanting like flu.
I was recently traveling around the pacific and 20% of all chinese, australians, and americans were coughing up a storm, not a mask in sight (other than us)
I hate that COVID has become normal. I know it was destined to become normal the moment it spread outside of China, but I hate that it has. It wouldn't bother me if it was just COVID - it'd suck but it wouldn't be a big deal. However, the fact that COVID can be so destructive, even in mild cases, is what concerns me. The fact that someone can have a mild case of COVID but have the symptoms stick around for months, years, or even permanently, makes me wonder if COVID is going to be the next lead (alongside microplastics). The more you get it, the higher the chance it'll fuck you up, and if everyone gets COVID >10 times over their life, that's a pretty big chance to permanently fuck up your brain and body; and the damage is going to add up every time you get it.
I know that >10 cases seems like a lot for one person, but considering the vaccines don't have a 100% prevention rate and that vaccinated people can still get long-covid, I don't think it'd be far off for people who were under 20yrs old during the lockdown. I've had COVID 2~3 times (one was unconfirmed but felt like COVID) so far despite the fact that I still don't go out much, I've been trying to keep up with vaccines and I've been trying to stay masked (though I've gotten kinda lax on the latter). That means I have an average of about 0.5~0.75 times a year since COVID first happened despite trying to avoid it. Someone who doesn't bother trying to avoid it might have a significantly higher rate.
Is COVID gonna be the new dementia? It sounds like we're making some pretty big strides in figuring out dementia so I'm honestly betting that it won't really be a thing in another 20yrs (or we'll discover that it's basically impossible to prevent without another 100yrs of biotech); is COVID gonna take over as the primary cause of abnormal mental and/or physical decline?
Already 4 million people out of work in the US because of long covid, and 8% of the population are reporting it.
Yet like dementia was a couple decades ago, it is being treated by parts of the medico-political establishment as if it is the patient’s fault, or even a mental illness.
We never learn, nearly every new chronic illness that popped up was first treated as “hysteria” or “mental” or “psychosomatic” in the past, until we figured out the pathology. From most autoimmune diseases, to peptic ulcer to epilepsy…