Honestly I’m sad for everyone that works manual labor. Wearing a mask absolutely lowers the chance of both transmitting covid and getting covid, but working in 90+ degree weather lifting heavy shit for 8 hours a day wearing a mask sucks. It gets moist as all hell and fogs your glasses.
Source: I unloaded trucks outside all day 5 days a week for the entire summer of 2020 and 2021.
A lot of people are doing manual labour in a mask even without COVID, but simply to protect their lungs from excessive pollution in a workplace. Don't be sad, working in a mask is a norm.
I mean I understand why people do it, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck and doesn’t make work just a little less tolerable for those having to deal with it.
Have you worked manual labor in a mask in the summer?
I have. The one time I got COVID, it felt like 40-50C all week plus humidity, I was masking with an N95 the whole time when I was around people, but because I was working an outdoor music festival, 95% of the people I was around wasn't.
I especially could barely get out of bed, had to use my inhaler about 5-10 times a day cuz it kept triggering asthma attacks, my limbs hurt so fucking much, I was nauseous and light-headed and had insane brain fog. It got better after 2 weeks but I was only really ok for about 4 hours a day and could only be vertical for about 2 or I would get really sick.
I had long COVID for about 2-3 months after that, which included severe brain fog, struggling to breathe, and easily got tired all the time.
I also get COVID-like symptoms when I get the vaccine for 2 weeks all 3 times I got it.
I really wish people would understand that masking is to protect other people by not spreading it to them, not yourself from getting sick.
What do you do for a living? For many, wearing a mask while working is a recipe for guaranteed heat exhaustion. I'm not subjecting myself to that, and if the illness is anything at all like the last time I had it, it was a goddamn cold.
Wearing a mask in a hospital full of people with compromised health and all sorts of contagions floating around is a really good idea.
Wearing a mask outdoors in the summer time on a construction site full of other able-bodied people is just fucking silly.
What kind of construction work are you talking about if you're not wearing a mask? Anything that produces fine dust or requires working with volatile chemicals like paints and aerosols requires you to work in a mask at all times. Do you have any work safety regulations in your country?
What did they say like 76 percent of the population has had one strain or another of covid?
Even if masks are totally effective, all you're going to effectively do is delay the inevitable. You will catch this; it's only a matter of time. I choose to get it over with.