New Covid wave has begun and masks should be worn again, scientists warn

Hey everybody! Lets all return to the office! Quick! Commercial real-estate landlords aren't rich enough. We need to fill those buildings ASAP!
- Office buildings are either test tubes or petri dishes depending on the height to width ratio.
  
  Office buildings are test tubes, schools are petri dishes.

I’m in Europe and it’s anecdotal but there are SO many acquaintances that are sick with corona right now. Also not particularly mild, some are in bed since 1+ week with bad symptoms. Fuck this virus and fuck the people who don’t care about the well-being of the person next to them.
- Japan here. Both wife and I have many sick coworkers. Nearly all of them were corona positive.
- I have the first friend that has really bad long-covid now, too. She's visibly weaker and exhausted. Ouff.
  
  I worry that long covid is going to be one of the things that breaks the global economy long-term (likely leading to accelerated automation), if we can't sort out a therapy for it.
- Also in Europe (Germany) and there have been a lot of people OOO due to illness. So far my family has stayed free of it.
  
  there have been a lot of people OOO due to illness
  They died and became ghosts?
- I'm in Finland. Haven't heard a thing about corona from anywhere other than news for the longest time. It's like it vanished

It blows my mind how upset people get about masking. During the two primary years of Covid where I isolated and masked religiously, I didn’t get sick once or even have allergies (despite visiting parks often).
Now companies have RTO and try to get everyone in on the same days so illness spreads like wildfire. People sitting right beside me hacking their lungs out.
- It blows my mind how upset people get about masking
  The pandemic is when I gave up on the notion that diehard conservatives had even a shred of intelligence or morals. I couldn't believe what I was hearing from them.
- I used masks, got the vaccine and boosters, washed my hands religiously and so on. Still got sick. With something as transmissible as corona a lot of it is just luck, good or bad
  
  Right, but that doesn't mean your precautions were worthless. Even if you are eventually going to catch it, delaying the infection reduces how much it can spread and means fewer people get it at the same time (reducing the impact). Some of these precautions will also reduce the severity of the illness, which is a huge win for you personally! Of course none of these precautions are perfect, but they're still helpful and limit the damage caused by the pandemic.
  You're probably already well aware of this, of course! I've just seen a bunch of people saying things like "well I did X and I still got sick, so we shouldn't do X", which I don't think is the right conclusion for something that impacts the entire population. There's billions of dice rolls in this equation, and you got some bad luck (I'm sorry you got sick :( ), but I think you still gave yourself better odds and improved the odds for everybody else as well, which is great!
- I wear masks but I absolutely hate it. Maybe if you work from home you don't notice, but wearing that thing for 9-10 hours can be a real pain. On top of that you miss a lot of a person's face, I had to meet a lot of new people during that time and it was hard.
  
  I’m not saying it’s enjoyable. It’s especially awful when it’s hot & humid, if you wear glasses, or when wearing for a long period of time. But when the alternative is increasing the chances of catching/spreading a dangerous virus… well there isn’t much of an argument against.
- The mask helped against my allergies too!
  It was a bit of a disappointed when I noticed the world wanted to kill me of allergies and a simple mask would help me out.
- It was easy before having a child. After having a kid it's impossible.
- People do not want to be told what to do. They do not want to be inconvenienced.
  Personally I hated wearing a mask. it was a huge pain in my ass, and mostly unnecessary most of the time except on public transit or in like a very crowded place like a grocery store.
  
  If wearing a mask is a pain in your ass then you're wearing it wrong.
  
  Where exactly were you wearing a mask other than crowded public places? Nobody ever told you to wear it at home.
- Nice anecdotal story. I know many people that masked and still do and got multiple brands of vaccines and multiple boosters and still got sick multiple times. So which one of us is correct? Neither. There are far more variables that matter.
  
  Do you not understand what "reduction" means?
  
  So which one of us is correct?
  Spoiler alert, it's the other guy, the one who was following the advice of medical professionals and reducing spread.
  
  Nice anecdotal story. I know many people...
  Love when people follow up calling someone elses arguments anecdotal by providing their own anecdotal arguments.
  
  Antivaxxers and antimaskers are a shitplague.
  
  How sick did they get? Consider that people who get vaccinated aren't just less likely to get it, they're also less likely to have serious cases.

IMO people should wear masks if they have to go out with any cold/flu type illness. Stops them spreading their germs to other people.
- I'm recovering from my first bout with Covid after dodging it for 3.5 years. Pretty mild, a couple shitty days of fever and congestion etc nbd. Wore a mask to the grocery store today in a red state and got stares. I seriously considered not wearing it at all because none of these mouth breathers would do the same for me during peak Covid pre vaccine, but ultimately decided to do the right thing. If only that were as contagious as the virus.
  
  You wear a cheap mask to protect the community, but if no one is wearing then you should wear a n95 to protect yourself
  
  "Pre vaccine" lol
- Covid spreads easily because people who have it are often asymptomatic.
  For god's, sake, it's been 3.5 years. How do people still not know this?
  
  Sure, but still, if you're visibly sick you should wear a mask. It's respectful. I mean shit the Japanese have been doing that shit since forever and you don't see their asses complaining.
- When I feel ill I wear a mask at work or when I have to get food but otherwise I try to stay home.
  
  Why would you go to work if you're feeling ill??
- No, if your sick you stay home. If you might spread of dangerous disease of which people and their immune systems are largely unused to dealing with and you otherwise cannot tell if your sick, then you wear a mask.
  
  While I understand your sentiment life is not as black and white as that and some people cannot just stop everything they are doing because they are sick. I believe there should be more protection for people who are sick so they can recover.
- Why hear mask? Dont leave the house. But the police should make sure this happens!

Physician here. Masks absolutely reduce transmission and the chance of contracting COVID.
Here is the definitive study on the subject.
Here is a video of a presentation by one of the authors along with some demonstrations and explanations.
TLDR: Here is the Abstract:
There is ample evidence that masking and social distancing are effective in reducing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission. However, due to the complexity of airborne disease transmission, it is difficult to quantify their effectiveness, especially in the case of one-to-one exposure. Here, we introduce the concept of an upper bound for one-to-one exposure to infectious human respiratory particles and apply it to SARS-CoV-2. To calculate exposure and infection risk, we use a comprehensive database on respiratory particle size distribution; exhalation flow physics; leakage from face masks of various types and fits measured on human subjects; consideration of ambient particle shrinkage due to evaporation; and rehydration, inhalability, and deposition in the susceptible airways. We find, for a typical SARS-CoV-2 viral load and infectious dose, that social distancing alone, even at 3.0 m between two speaking individuals, leads to an upper bound of 90% for risk of infection after a few minutes. If only the susceptible wears a face mask with infectious speaking at a distance of 1.5 m, the upper bound drops very significantly; that is, with a surgical mask, the upper bound reaches 90% after 30 min, and, with an FFP2 mask, it remains at about 20% even after 1 h. When both wear a surgical mask, while the infectious is speaking, the very conservative upper bound remains below 30% after 1 h, but, when both wear a well-fitting FFP2 mask, it is 0.4%. We conclude that wearing appropriate masks in the community provides excellent protection for others and oneself, and makes social distancing less important.
- reduce
  Sadly, a huge portion of the American public don’t have this word in their vocabulary. Masks and vaccines either eliminate all risk, and “work” or don’t completely eliminate all risk and therefore “don’t work.”
  This lower ape thinking inflicted so much unnecessary death and suffering here.
  
  It's an intentional thing, pushed by propagandists. Thinking in absolutes reduces the need for critical thinking skills as whole. When you can make people boil everything in the world down to a binary, its very easy to tell them how to think, and equally easy to define the "out" group you all hate.
  To wit, when masks "work or don't work", you can look at the people telling you to wear masks, and because masks "don't work" they're wrong, and if they're wrong, then the people we aren't telling you to wear a mask are right. You should always follow people who are right... right?
  
  It’s the forced tyranny that is a problem. Why Covid is such a big deal. The sheep need to go hide in their bubble and stop imposing their will on others. Do as I say or suffer is their way of operating.
- TY! Also a physician. So tired of this discussion. Everyone is masked in my clinic. Anecdotal, and my partner and I are still covid free, and hope to continue. Masking, distancing, hand washing, and isolation when sick, these simple, time tested, behavioral changes can significantly reduce risk of infection.
- ⭐ <-- my lemmy gold for you, excellent writeup

You know, even before COVID-19, there would be flu, rsv, etc. outbreaks and there would barely be a blerb about it. People would send kids to school sick, literally everyone would catch it, and it sucked. Maybe less lethal, but it still sucked. And I always caught whatever was going around cause we just didn't have the culture here.
At least now there's more recognition, some people might wear masks, and there's a fighting chance I don't catch the thing everyone gets that season (at least in California where it's still ok to wear a mask without ridicule).
Except my sister gave me COVID two months ago since I let her stay here to avoid homelessness. Can't fix bad habit family members, and getting a false negative on a test gave her confidence to get me and my baby sick. Ugh, bad times.
- where it's still ok to wear a mask without ridicule
  Serious question, why are people being ridiculed for wearing masks in the US? Is this generally how it goes in all of the US?
  I'm from Asia and most countries here have been wearing masks even before the pandemic for multiple reasons - pollution, not wanting to spread sickness including the basic cough and cold not just flu or COVID, when at a clinic or hospital, etc. I wear a mask even when I just have allergic rhinitis just so that I don't accidentally blow snot all over somebody else. No one would bat an eye here if you wore a mask.
  I don't understand the negative connotation to wearing masks and why anyone would care if you're wearing one.
  
  US culture is founded on individualism at the expense of everyone else. A lot of people buy into the idea that any kind of government imposed action, even as minor as wearing a face covering that even helps the wearer, is a horrible tragedy and assault on their ability to make bad decisions. Those people are belligerent and numerous.
  
  Politics, the party in charge decided that the best response was to pretend the problem didn't exist and maybe it'll go away. Wearing a mask is a very public sign that there is a problem.
  
  Yeah. In Malaysia before covid, every flu season i could see some people(not a lot) start wearing mask, and people masked up as well in hazy season. Just before Covid become the pandemic i can see people already started to wear one before the mandate. Of course, nowadays some butthurt netizen will still jab at those wear mask here and there, but other than that, i still see people wear mask everywhere i go, which is a great thing. Sanitary and personal health shouldn't be something that get ridiculed.
  But then again, it's Asia, and SARS is pretty big back then.
  
  Maybe before the pandemic someone somewhere might have said something but not now. Even living in a rural area people don't say anything at all. I don't know where that user got the idea that you'd be ridiculed.
  
  because wearing a mask is for pussies.
  it's really as simple as that. it's seen as weak and pathetic and makes you an object of ridicule.
- Those outbreaks didn't kill a million people Ina year, and did not strain the hospital system to the point of breaking.
  Well, there was the Spanish flu which also lead to mask mandates and other social safety measures as covid.
  
  It's certainly more deadly, yes. That's why it got more attention. But I'm young and the risk to me is about the same, plus that's not really my point. I'm mostly saying that I'm grateful people actually care about hygiene for once, 2020 the first time in my life I didn't catch "the thing going around" since I didn't have a jackass coughing on everything at work or school.
  
  Flu absolutely killed a grip of people when it was new.
  It eventually became endemic and what we live with now. More or less what we have with covid. It will rear its ugly head every year as it mutates. Some will get it and have a rough time, some people's immunity or vaccine will help make it less deadly contagious as it was in 2020.
  Life goes on. Wear a mask or don't, but we are way past the point of putting the genie back in the bottle
- Hmm I mean thousands of people (mostly the old) still died of flu every year. So kinda lethal.
- Some 40 to 70 thousand people in the US die every year from the flu. I think the big thing is most people don't care until it affects them personally. It's been weird seeing covid coverage be all, "THINK OF THE DEATHS" as if that meaningfully would change much
  
  1 million+ vs 70k... hard to compare COVID to flu

Honestly I’m sad for everyone that works manual labor. Wearing a mask absolutely lowers the chance of both transmitting covid and getting covid, but working in 90+ degree weather lifting heavy shit for 8 hours a day wearing a mask sucks. It gets moist as all hell and fogs your glasses.
Source: I unloaded trucks outside all day 5 days a week for the entire summer of 2020 and 2021.
- A lot of people are doing manual labour in a mask even without COVID, but simply to protect their lungs from excessive pollution in a workplace. Don't be sad, working in a mask is a norm.
  
  I mean I understand why people do it, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck and doesn’t make work just a little less tolerable for those having to deal with it.
  Have you worked manual labor in a mask in the summer?
- I was a cement truck driver during COVID. They do not wear masks. I also drove long haul and no wearhouse workers wear them either.
- Id rather be sick for a week than wear a mask doing physical labour.
  
  That's a dumb take.
  
  Who says you won't be one of the 15 percent who get long covid?

I'm in Australia and half my kids class was sick last week. Me and the kid both tested positive today. It is pretty rough.
Nobody here cares at all any more. This is my first but most people are on their 2nd or more go around. Its not even discussed, there are zero masks, and people are sending their kids to school sick.
All our care and caution just in the bin because people just don't give a shit
- Yeah and dickheads without a clue or a sense of morality will continue to take other peoples lives to save themselves a minor inconvenience. Murica!
- It might have to do with the fact that by far most of the population has some degree of immunity now due to infection or vaccination, making the disease much less lethal than it was, and now completely comparable to other flu viruses. I don't want everyone to freak out every time some mild disease is in season. Yes, it sucks to get a cold, and it sucks to get the flu, but if nobody ever catches them we will have very low levels of immunity in the population, making it far worse when people do eventually catch them.
  After covid I was bedridden a couple weeks because of common colds. Thats never happened before. The amount of people hospitalised due to other diseases than covid also spiked (we have statistics for this). The reason was that very few people had gotten sick for two years, so nobody had any immunity agains anything they weren't vaccinated against (which is most cold- or flu viruses).
  
  So your standpoint is that you want people to walk around making each other sick regardless of the consequences? And your reason for this is that you spent two weeks in bed? That's whacky man
  
  No, most people don't have some degree of immunity. They found out very early during the pandemic that Covid damages the immune system and that you can basically assume you won't gain immunity. Stop pretending it's the flu.
  Fun fact: if you got sick during the first wave, getting it again will not result in any immunity.
  
  That is not how the immune system works. There is lots of info about it and it is very complicated, but stuff that has been around for literally ages, that coincided with humans evolutionary path, have been basically added to a permanent watch list and so our immune system goes haywire at the slightest hint of one of those invaders presence. Covid is still considered a novel virus, regardless of it being a few years since it's existence, and our immune systems haven't had time to find a good defense against it. This is a simplification, but think of covid or other viruses like a key, but a rapidly changing (mutating) key and the immune system as a really elaborate lock, that also changes (but incredibly slowly, comparatively) and yeah that's all I've got. Source: I'm in undergrad studying to be a microbiologist.
- because wearing masks did shit. that's why.
  vaccines did.
  
  wearing masks did shit
  Citation needed.
  
  It's funny, I didn't get COVID while I was wearing a mask, but caught it after we were vaccinated and I stopped wearing them.
  
  I'm not just going to downvote you here, because I think this is an information problem.
  Here's a cool video about mask efficacy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GndKYJ4uBI
  And a study on the topic: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm
  The tl:dr is that masks are ac5ually extremely effective at reducing infection by respiratory diseases if both the infected and uninfected parties wear them.

I've never stopped wearing a mask in public transport/while grocery shopping etc. and I don't think I will =/
- Fuck I am so sorry. Gonna continue wearing the mask for people like you especially.
- I still do, though nearly zero of that is due to virus stuff. I'd say for me it's 95% I'm too lazy to retrain myself to keeping a neutral expression, 4% because hiding my ugly mug seems polite, and 1% sickness reduction ( combination of allergies, flu, covid. Etc)
  
  Valid
  
  +Help mask my Bad Breath.
  Also I don't smell others' bad Breath/BO as much. Heavy perfume still gets through ..."silent deadly" farts...not sure...
- Me neither. I'm also in a part of the United States where people seem to give a damn at least a little more. I'm never the only person wearing a mask in the stores I shop at. And shockingly (not really), we have a lot less COVID-19 than the national average.
  So, not planning to stop any time soon.
- Are you sure they weren't just being recorded anymore? How many people continued to test themselves and informed the responsible people? I know at least in Germany we don't have any accurate numbers anymore.
- Same. Never got it and I love not having long Covid. It takes me zero effort whatsoever.

Fuck, I'm pro mask and all, but... that's gonna be a hard sell. And tbh I fucking enjoy not wearing one anymore (unless I'm sick or something).
- Maybe "something" = "at high risk of getting stick?"
  
  😂
  Edit: maybe I should have noted that I agreed with "Maybe "something" = "at high risk of getting stick?"" But just thought it was funny that he had to point that out.
- I was just typing up the same thing. I the UK this would need to get really bad for any sort of compliance to take place
- Ah a medical expert as I can see. Please go ahead and enlighten me: where is your systemic proof of the ineffectiveness of masks as a precaution to reduce the spread of Covid?
  If it's not too much to ask, please be so kind to provide the statistics regarding the different severity levels and corresponding number of cases of Covid while comparing that to the common cold.
  
  Imagine the survival rate without precautions. (e.g. look at Italy 2020)
  
  I think the way you put it is blunt but a lot of people feel this way.

In the US, it's extremely unlikely we'll see more masks being required unless we see the Healthcare system getting overwhelmed with sick Covid patients again.
- Politically it will be suicide for the democrats.
  
  I don't know, the people who threw hissy fits about masking were Republicans, who, historically, don't vote for Democrats.

Looks like I'll be masking for 8 hours straight on my flight home. It's a bastard (my glasses fog up constantly), but that's life.
I just hope it gets tamed before term starts since I'd rather not be forced to teach hybrid again (the style of lesson where every student loses)!
- Look into mask tape, it's double-sided tape that goes along the inside bridge of the mask. I buy a pack of 100 strips on amazon and it lasts me a couple months. Cheap and easy and completely solves that issue.
  
  Thanks for this! I will definitely be getting some 😊
  
  Will try this out - thanks for the tip!
- The fog means it's not fit properly. Air should not be escaping over the bridge of the nose it should diffuse out of the entire mask. Either the strips across the top are not being bent correctly to contour the nose or the mask just can't be made to fit your face shape and you need to try something else.
  
  No, it doesn't. Exhaled breath emitted through the filtration material can still cause glasses to fog.
- My wife and I are going to the US from Japan in roughly a month. Our first flight is something like 12 hours. Not going to be a fun one. I'm hoping her first time in the US and mine in 5 or 6 years isn't spent with corona. We're also visiting my elderly grandparents for what may be the last time, but I'd certainly rather not MAKE it the last time by bringing disease with.
- Get a piece of tissue paper and fold it into a thin lengthwise strip. Put it on top of the bridge of your nose and underneath the mask. No more fog.
- I don’t wear glasses full time, just sunglasses and reading glasses, but they’re really hard to make compatible with masks. Fogging up sounds like an inconvenience but you basically can’t see within seconds. I wonder if a lot of people opted for contacts or lasik during this period to help compensate. Regardless, yes, masks on flights just make sense. It’s a huge number of strangers in a very close space and not something you need to do every day. You’re not exercising or socializing or moving about in public so why not just mask up and sit tight.
- You could use a bandaid to seal the top of the mask across the bridge of your nose. This will prevent air from escaping up and fogging up your glasses.
- Buy a few good reusable masks (that you can run through the washer) that have a metal strip inside to conform to your nose. Have the top of the mask up high on the bridge of your nose and push down on it so the metal strip conforms to your nose shape. Rest the plastic feet of your glasses on top of the metal strip, so that they're resting on the mask and not on your nose. That's what I figured out keeps my breath from escaping the top of the mask so it eliminates fogging.
  
  Don't do this. Any mask that you can wash is useless for protection. You need an N95/FFP2 or better.

Good luck getting the ignorant masses to mask up these days.
- At least locally there's a clear anti-mask attitude. There is no way you can get a middle aged man, who listens right wing media, to wear a mask again. They reminisce the last time like a lost unjust war and because covid didn't hit bad here, they think it was just a hoax of the pharmaceutical industry.
- Yeah, I think that ship has sailed. When the covid wasn't as bad as originally thought and with the reports that masks weren't all that effective even the people who were gung ho aren't likely to mask up anymore. And I'm not trying to downplay covid or mask effectiveness, but rather talking about the feeling people have right now.
  
  Covid WAS as bad as originally thought!
  The whole point of the precautions was to reduce the spread enough to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed and more time to release a vaccine before everyone got it. Hospitals were very close to collapsing in a lot of areas, and if it had not been slowed it would have been far worse.
  Don't confuse successful mitigation with the disease not being as bad as originally thought.

- It's just that people don't consider it that bad to get it and are under the impression that masks don't do anything. Of course with a sentiment like that people moved on, in a way and stopped masking or caring.
  
  As an avid mask wearer I'm here to say that the critics are right, masks don't do anything. They don't make it harder to breathe, think, feel, or exist out in public...oh and they don't do anything to your lungs, liver, kidneys, heart, or brain...unlike COVID...that shit can fuck you up.
- Do you think the severity of infection is important? Meaning, if previous variants were wiped out and the only variants still spreading were less severe than a common cold, would you keep wearing masks?
  
  What's the point of this hypothetical? It's both not remotely close to where we are currently and has redefined the consequences to absurdity.
  "Would you still wear a mask if the consequence of infection was a single light sneeze?"
  "Would you wear a seat belt if the only consequence of car crashes was a small bruise?"
- And it never will. It's just one of those things people get in the cold part of the year now.

Never stopped wearing them. COVID never went away.
- Thank you. Being with someone who endured a hard cancer treatment and having a weak immune system since then, I really appreciate it if people wear masks where appropriate to protect themselves and others.
- COVID will never go away. What has happened and will continue to happen even further is the lethality and severity of symptoms will go down so it's not as worrisome. Also we have defenses and medications for it now. But what I do hope that COVID has done for us is that if you're sick or have symptoms, you'll mask up, but masking all the time now is not necessary.
- I mean..... It never will.
- Was there a bacterial pneumonia trend that happened like during spanish flu?

- The CDC declared the end in May in the US: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/end-of-phe.html
- They were determined that it was all a hoax because they don't know anyone who died.
  
  Even if they knew someone who died, they insisted it wasn't covid, even to the point of keeping it off death certificates.
- And your proof for that is where? In the illusions you build around yourself?
- I wish we'd never forced masks to begin with. There wasn't nearly enough natural selection from the whole thing. Let em kill themselves.
  
  How at this point are there still so many people who don't understand what masks are for? It's not primarily to protect yourself, it's to bolster the whole herd's defenses by reducing spread.
  The mask isn't for you, it's for everyone else. It's not that fucking hard to understand.
  
  Even though I share your morbid enthusiasm about humankind, you might possibly admit in some corner of your heart that there might be some people who don't deserve to die or get long term health issues from Covid. Aren't those, who might be worth saving from your point of view, important enough to try to participate in measures which might help to reduce the risks for them?
  
  The flimsy masks are more beneficial to others than the wearer. Preventing moisture leaving your mouth/nose.

Why would you go to work if you know you are not feeling well??
- because your kids are hungry
  
  You need to do something about that policies, forcing you to work sick.
  
  I raised this exact point to a relative on a similar issue (people on the road during a major blizzard).
  That said, there are many jobs where you don't need to be there in person. Saying "if you feel sick stay home" (or similar) should be encouraged as it's necessary to enforce this expectation that if you can stay home, you should.
- Thanks to the COVID infection I already had and some other illness, I have no sick time left. So if I get it again, I have to take the entire time I'm sick unpaid.
  Now I'm lucky in that I can work from home and would do so while able but contagious, and we can afford me to take a few days off unpaid, but plenty of people are in my situation and can't afford a single unpaid day.
  
  A numbered amount of sick days is such a stupid concept. I'm glad I have as much as I need.
  
  Is this a US thing I'm too European to relate to?
  That's horrible. Social darwinism at its finest.
- I have a coworker who is here with me today ay my job. he's horribly sick and lost his sense of taste but still insists on working and the managers let him. so I'll probably have covid next week.
- The fact you have 8 downvotes is insane. People truly are piece of shit in this world.
- People are dumb.
  
  People are often forced to as many live from salary to salary. My country had a genius idea to reduce longest sick time doctor can prescribe without commission to two weeks from previously two months. Imagine how great that must be for everyone having to work their asses off. Especially considering that a lot of salaries are minimum wages and the rest of the salary is tied through KPI bonuses and stuff. So if you miss a day or two a month there goes majority of your salary.

It's a conundrum for me in my part of the US. Do I risk catching covid or catching hands from stupid people?
- Well, if they do attack you, you can sue them and then own their double-wide? I don't know if that's a win or not, though.
  
  you realize that civil suits take years and a lot of money? not all of us have 50K in the bank to hire a lawyer for 2-4 years so we can get the payout.

I've stopped giving handshakes to almost anyone, favouring the ol' terrorist fist jab instead. I get awkward reactions sometimes but some people seem to get why. Masking up again is gonna be fun, can't wait to hear the vaxxosckeptics tell me all about how everything is a hoax again.
- Terrorist fist?
  
  Terrorist fist jab
  Please don't make me feel old.

I couldn't get my booster back in April (in Latvia), because "the is no demand for it" so they just stopped offering them.
- My mum works at a pediatrician. The other day she told me how they stopped ordering covid tests because there was literally no one coming to get tested.
  
  What would testing achieve now, anyways? Since there is no mandated isolation we can just treat it like any other disease and stay at home until we're healthy, no matter if it actually is covid

Hm maybe I should've held off on giving away all my extra masks..
- I kept mine, still have a huge package. My thought was to use them in the winter months anyways. Always like that about countries like Japan. Even if it's not a deadly worldwide pandemic, I think we can do a bit to spread less sickness with really only a tiny inconvenience.
  
  True that. I still have the washable ones so I guess they'll have to do for now.

No wait! Boris came on TV and said it was all over. He wouldn't lie, would he? Oh, yeah.

With a lot of overreactions this gonna be hard this time.
By overreaction I mean f.e. closing forests in my country.
- There's going to be a lot less trust/compliance for any overreach, that's for sure

I've never stopped but it's made me depressed when I was seemingly the only one doing it :/
- Oh definitely, it was really such a depressing eye-opener, to see so many people around just not give a fuck about anyone else.

I know two people with COVID who don't know each other at the moment. I don't remember the last time that happened. It's BACK.

I wear a mask when I'm out in public and not feeling well. I won't wear one otherwise.
- Please consider wearing one any time you're out of your home during any resurgence. You can be a carrier and shredding while asymptomatic. If your masking keeps even one elderly person from getting COVID, isn't that worth? Even if it just lowers the chance they'll get it by a few percent?
- Covid mostly spreads through asymptomatic cases. Ignorance kills (or causes long covid).
- I understand this was a playful jest but I think just wearing a mask for anything is admirable.

Caught and fainted twice. Rough go this stuff.

Id be surprised if anyone actually does this. I don't think anyone cares anymore.
I am worried about my grandma though, she's old and covid has a way with old people.
- I was just in Japan a month ago and they have somewhere around 99% mask usage.
  And still people were catching COVID.

Yeah, its endemic now. When will it stop being news the way flu is, that kills people too
- You're right. The flu should be more present in the news as well.

- Werent their antimask protests in Europe?

The masks they peddle in stores are labeled as "not for medical use". I mean, damn! They have holes in them that I can see through with my bare eyes!
Masks that are protective, are called respirators and are part of a class of equipment called PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). The word "Personal" is in the name, because it is designed to protect the wearer, not those around the wearer, and is limited by the rating (P100 being the rating that will actually reduce the risk of some viral infections a reasonable amount, while N95 is for larger particulates like airborne dust and pollen). Will they (including those rated for dust) help reduce the risk of spread from the wearer to others around her/him? Of course, but only as long as the virus didn't go airborne and, even then, "only" up to 20% reduction in risk. Airborne viruses, like the coronavirus family of viruses, are able to penetrate the fibers and travel, but the layers of the respirators and non-medical masks slow that travel considerably.
I don't think that people should be required to wear masks. If you want to wear one, please do so and protect yourself with your PPE. If you'll see me around, I'll be wearing mine. But if you don't want to wear it, I believe that that's your freedom over your own body. It's your choice not to wear one, just as it is my choice to wear one. If someone makes fun of you for wearing a mask, I believe it to be your freedom to punch them in their throats.
The issue, as far as I've noticed, is that people think they know something, when none of us really do. Even our scientists are waffling back and forth on the subject. We all do what we feel is best for us and ours, and we should allow others to do the same to them and their.
Additionally, if someone around you is terrified, and would prefer you wear a mask, I think you should wear a mask (or not be around them). As I've said, we're flying blind, and, sometimes, we need to feel safe whether or not we really are. Just be a good human.
Lastly, up to 20% reduction in risk of spread isn't anything to sneeze at, after all (pun intended). Do the right thing, whatever you feel that is, and respect others as they do their right thing.
[E] You don't have to agree with me, but it is scientifically accurate. I hope you don't disagree with the "be a good human" part, though, since... why would you not be a good human?

- Thanos much?
  I appreciate the sentiment but that really would ruin life for the rest of us as the world economy and all industries crashed.
  
  Economy and politics instead of human rights and health. Yeah I see you bootlicker.

"press X to doubt"

As somebody with family in the extremely high risk of death category twice over, I'll make sure we're all extra careful.
Unfortunately, masks only protect others, not yourself, and so we must rely on the intelligence of others around us to wear masks to protect their loved ones and the at risk British population.
So, we shall see. Mark my words, if these people kill my family, I will never forgive them. Right wing antivax tossers and left wing apathetic idiots, I'll never forgive either group. On my deathbed in the 2080s I won't forgive them.

Just happens to coincide w/ the 2024 elections... Riiiiight.
- 2024 elections in UK? I didn't know that.
- The 2024 elections... Next year? If it was last year, would you say it JUST HAPPENED to coincide with the midterms? Give me a break

- They work better than your brain does.
  
  LOL
- They do.
  From: Verma, S., Dhanak, M., & Frankenfield, J. (2020). Visualizing the effectiveness of face masks in obstructing respiratory jets. Physics of Fluids, 32(6), 061708. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0016018
  TABLE I. A summary of the different types of masks tested, the materials they are made of, and their effectiveness in impeding droplet-dispersal. The last column indicates the distance traveled by the jet beyond which its forward progression stops. The average distances have been computed over multiple runs, and the symbol “∼” is used to indicate the presence of high variability in the first two scenarios listed.
  Mask type Material Threads/in. Average jet distance
  Uncovered … … ∼8 ft
  Bandana Elastic T-shirt material 85 ∼3 ft 7 in.
  Folded handkerchief Cotton 55 1 ft 3 in.
  Stitched mask Quilting cotton 70 2.5 in.
  Commercial maska Unknown Randomly assorted fibres 8 in.

Hahahahhajaj you can wear them at you house if you want
- hahaha long Covid is so funny!
- Lol right? Eff that.

- Saying that people should mask up is not authoritarian.
  When a pandemic is killing thousands a day, and wearing masks is the best solution for everyone, requiring masks in grouped spaces is not authoritarian any more than prohibiting drunk driving because that also has a decent chance of killing others.
  
  Saying they should is not authoritarian, yes. Mandating they do so under penalty of law is.
  And for sure, authoritarian measures are sometimes genuinely necessary in strenuous circumstances. But I'm pretty damn confident that if you polled Americans about restoring mask mandates, you would see pretty overwhelming opposition against it. Imposing it despite that would be unquestionably undemocratic, and yes, authoritarian.
  
  The govt telling anyone to do anything is authoritarian.
  The issue is if you agree with what the govt is telling you, or not. It's only authoritarian when you disagree.
- What does that have to do with authoritarianism?
  Nobody was forced to do shit except on things like planes, which is their right. You just would be refused service for your choice not to wear a mask. Nobody was even forced to vaccinate because it didn't hold up in court. Oh wow looks like the system worked.
  And I roll my eyes when you tell us we need to "heal." Maybe the side that refused to wear a measly mask (I'll give you a hint: Trump supporters) should have stopped being plague demons and making it an issue in the first place.

- I'm waiting for my gov or health authorities to recommend it. Otherwise I don't think I'll wear one.