I still wear a mask when going out to stores because I’m immunocompromised due to a kidney transplant. It’s ultimately up to me to protect myself from others but what bothers me most lately are people who either laugh or think I’m stupid for still wearing a mask. Some even go as far as to call me out and shame me for it. Can people just mind their own business? I’m not trying to get them to wear a mask so why are they so fixated on me taking mine off?
I still wear a mask because I stand in soldiartiy with folks like you.
Not only do I want to prevent the spread of the disease that could kill immune compromised folks like yourself, but it also helps normalize mask wearing.
Thank you. I genuinely appreciate you and others who do this. ❤️
Genuinely, I think it’s probably because they feel a little guilty when they see you wearing one, and that’s uncomfortable for people, so they respond by taking it out on you.
Yeah, you’re probably right. They see someone wearing a mask, they feel bad, they decide the person wearing the mask made them feel bad.
Same. I never stopped wearing a mask because I’m immunocompromised from my lung transplant. People call me names all the time. Even here on Lemmy.
Protect yourself first, never apologize.
People that call you names are also telling you they don’t have your back and do not care if they give you covid or if you die from it.
I find this hard to believe. Especially considering that your post history shows you calling others names like ‘simp’.
Wonder why these comments replying to me were removed…
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This is why I started exclusively wearing kn95s because it became clear after a time that people simply don’t give a shit about anyone except themselves, they don’t care if you or I get covid and die.
So I stopped pretending like I’m doing my part since we all know surgicals and cloth masks are only truly effective if everyone else is wearing them. They know too but choose to fuck us anyway. So fuck them too and protect yourself first. Wear your p100 respirator with the exhaust vents that filter nothing for extra vindictive points
P100 is the best. Ain’t no fart going around that filter.
I was refused service at my bank the other day for not taking off my mask when they asked. They never had a problem with me being masked up before, even when I opened the account. I went and used mobile deposit instead, but it was a really disturbing precedent. I wrote in asking about their policy and instead of a straight answer I was dodged by management.
I don’t want to sue them or anything, I just want them to come to their senses and not prohibit me from making a deposit to my account because I don’t want to get sick.
I wrote in asking about their policy and instead of a straight answer I was dodged by management.
I feel like over the last few years organisations in general have become far more likely to try to just brush off an issues someone raises than just cleanly and easily address them.
Not just the last few years, that’s just how the system is set up in general; companies are rewarded for reaching over a wider population, not for the quality of the established coverage. They need to keep growing or die.
It’s more financially incentivized to put time to get at least a handful of new customers onboard than it is to address the grievances of a single customer, so the quality of marketing gets boosted while customer support gets shafted. Any public negative feedback can be drowned out by the larger pool of customers that aren’t involved in any direct interactions with the company, and there’s also the classic astroturfing + plausible deniability combo for good measure to maintain that public trust.
Honestly, I am not immunocompromised and I still wear a mask because I haven’t gotten sick since the pandemic started, and it even helps my sinus’ when I’m cleaning the house. I’ve never been one to worry about what someone thinks of me, so I’m sorry if this comes off as tone deaf, but fuck ‘em. Why should you care about what they think about you? When was the last time you thought about that person who was doing something you thought was strange in the local mart? I will assume not until I just made you think about them. Live your life as safely as you want. For every moron out there trying to make fun of you (they can try, but ultimately they themselves just look foolish and stupid) there are more like me and the others who wear masks alongside you. Stay safe and have a good rest of your day!
For every moron out there trying to make fun of you (they can try, but ultimately they themselves just look foolish and stupid) there are more like me and the others who wear masks alongside you.
That does not match my experiences. Assuming you’re happy saying so, where in the world are you that this is true? Are they accepting new residents?
This is the same issue the LGBT community suffers from, as well as people of color, people with accents, etc. People always find ways to make themselves feel superior to others by pointing out something different. You choosing to wear a mask just makes those kinds of people laugh because they either 1. Feel better than you for not wearing masks or 2. They are uneducated/ignorant and follow others’ opinions without question.
I suppose the only way to turn it back around on them would be to try scaring them by saying you have something contagious like strep throat, or worse, so they’ll shut up and leave you alone. Otherwise my only other advice would be to just do your best to not engage with these types of people.
I suppose the only way to turn it back around on them would be to try scaring them by saying you have something contagious like strep throat, or worse, so they’ll shut up and leave you alone.
I do find that I suddenly feel like I need to clear my throat when this happens.
The thing that bothers me more is when they seem actively annoyed to see someone in a mask. Like somehow me wearing a mask in a shared public space in order to prevent someone from dieing horribly is unfair to this rando but this rando doesn’t think that them hacking and coughing everywhere in a shared public space without a mask on is unfair to anybody.
I really hoped that the mask stigma would change, but it’s sad to see it go this way. I might just start wearing a mask again to do my part to normalize it.
If people are sick, they should feel like it’s the right thing to do to wear a mask. It needs to be a normal thing and people that make fun of it are pieces of shit .
Someone called me a libtard under his breath, but loudly enough to make sure I heard…in a CANCER center, where many of us were having our immune systems weakened by chemo.
You can’t fix stupid so I don’t even try. I’ve been in remission for almost two years, I’m healthy and he’s out there sucking in viruses. We both have ticking clocks, but mine is ticking much more slowly than his is.
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I don’t wear one in my day-to-day, but I’m certainly not going to begrudge somebody for wearing one, and you can be sure I’m gonna have em around for flu season, COVID or no.
The problem is masks got politicized by assholes that want to be contrarian for the sake of preserving their paradigm, their worldview.
These are people so mentally weak and reliant on the lifestyle they’ve grown accustomed to that when something like a plague comes around, it shifts their paradigm so fuckin’ hard that they have to tell themselves the science is wrong and everybody is going to be fine. I suppose the other part of it is treating your national politics like a fuckin’ football game, but that doesn’t even warrant discussing because it’s so goddamn obvious and pervasive.
Now imagine, as a hypothetical scenario, the government tells us aliens are real one day, and they’re here. Watch these people really lose it. Wouldn’t know whether to shit or go blind.
Edit: As for the people that are just genuinely tired of hearing about it, be it on here, Reddit, or else where… Pull the fucking plug and let everything go for a bit. Decompress. You don’t have to be online and connected to everything every minute of your boredom or free time.
There’s no lockdown anymore. Go touch grass.I’m not an anti masker, wore mine for 3 solid years, but definitely tired of it. And we can’t wear a mask forever.
I can understand if I’m sick or regularly near someone who is sick, but day to day is too much. Especially in my line of work, where I’m working in the heat doing physical work.
Why can’t we wear masks in public forever? Do you wear pants in public? Shoes?
If you are in an open space outdoors distanced from people, like most hard labor, you probably don’t need to be masked. But white collar jobs in coffee proximity to each other?
I should ask this, how long do you typically wear a mask for when you do wear one?
I had to wear it for 8-12 hours a day while at work. My sinuses were clogged up by the end of the day, acne all over my face, and the mask venting into my eyes was causing an stye to develop on my eyelid.
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Why not? If its flu season you should just mask up.
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Other studies show that in health-care workers, n95 vs medical masks made almost no statistical difference.
However, the use of masks in the public is not necessarily to protect yourself. It’s to keep you from spreading germs in a wide range if you cough. It’s the same concept as herd immunity with vaccinations. We all help protect each other.
So with that in mind: wear a washable cloth mask.
That’s not what the science says. It seems logical, but the mask is supposed to protect the wearer from external shit. It seems logical that it would slow down the spread if an infected individual wears a mask, but the science is far from clear on this after a multi year long pandemic. If a mask makes you feel better, then wear it, but it’s not evident that it plays a big role when it comes to respiratory viruses.
There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness, and although this effect was also present when ILI and laboratory-confirmed influenza were analysed separately, it was not found to be a significant difference for the latter two outcomes. Harms associated with physical interventions were under-investigated.
That is about you catching a disease while wearing masks.
While masks are to prevent OTHERS from catching your diseases.
I swear, anti-vaxxers really don’t understand how to READ.
Clearly you haven’t read the review I linked. I guess people struggle with reading the literature so they spew shit that, while logical, is simply false.
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i’m not an anti-vaxxer, ut I do refuse to have my DNA modified by a vaccine. Not only that the risks associated with the vaccines for covid are too high for my health. I’ve already had 2 heart attacks, I don’t need a vaccine to increase the risk of another one.
during the pandemic, before the lockdowns were completely lifted, I wore my mask for the sake of others. Not all anti-vaxxers can be lumped into your last comment. Oh and btw, I’ve had covid twice, once before it was even listed as a pandemic, and it did not put me in the hospital, but it did make me feel worse than if I had the flu.
also, on another note, I thought the vaccine was supposed to HELP defeat Covid? Obviously that was a lie. Everytime a new variant comes around, all of a sudden you need another booster shot which has not been “programmed” to help with the new variant. At this point the covid vaccine is nothing more than a cash grab for big pharma.
Lol
Yes. They are saying that the studies are rubbish and therefore they can’t be used to prove anything.
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Cause you also are unable to READ.
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You missed that it was about the efficacy of mask mandates, not masks themselves
Yeah. Haha. Another Reddit indeed. Glad there are a few intelligent people out there.
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Even if they only prevent 0.01% of viruses, that is still better than nothing.
WEAR YOUR MASK
I mean sorry but are you wearing a helmet every day at your desk? There is surely a 0.01% chance that it prevents some minor headinjury from a colleague bumping into you
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A cloth mask is a waste of plastic to you?
Most cloth contains plastic these days, so yes.
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I think the newest Cochrane medical study rated n95 as 18% effective and regular masks 5% effective against covid, btw.
Lots of people seem to have picked up the idea that the recent Cochrane report states that the evidence shows masks not to be effective that but it is a misunderstanding (largely it just seems to claim that the various studies it found on the various topics they were looking at were mostly useless for drawing any sort of conclusion about the matter.)
Directly from the horse’s mouth: https://www.cochrane.org/news/statement-physical-interventions-interrupt-or-reduce-spread-respiratory-viruses-review
The text of the statement on the matter from Cochrane from the above link:
Statement on ‘Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses’ review logo
The Cochrane Review ‘Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses’ was published in January 2023 and has been widely misinterpreted.
Karla Soares-Weiser, Editor-in-Chief of the Cochrane Library, has responded on behalf of Cochrane:
"Many commentators have claimed that a recently-updated Cochrane Review shows that ‘masks don’t work’, which is an inaccurate and misleading interpretation.
It would be accurate to say that the review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses, and that the results were inconclusive. Given the limitations in the primary evidence, the review is not able to address the question of whether mask-wearing itself reduces people’s risk of contracting or spreading respiratory viruses.
The review authors are clear on the limitations in the abstract: ‘The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions.’ Adherence in this context refers to the number of people who actually wore the provided masks when encouraged to do so as part of the intervention. For example, in the most heavily-weighted trial of interventions to promote community mask wearing, 42.3% of people in the intervention arm wore masks compared to 13.3% of those in the control arm.
The original Plain Language Summary for this review stated that ‘We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed.’ This wording was open to misinterpretation, for which we apologize. While scientific evidence is never immune to misinterpretation, we take responsibility for not making the wording clearer from the outset. We are engaging with the review authors with the aim of updating the Plain Language Summary and abstract to make clear that the review looked at whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses."
The anti maskers/vaxxers are just loud and like to make their opinion known. I don’t really give a fuck anymore who wears a mask or not, I just stay safe and try to keep others safe. People are gonna be dumb no matter what you do. Just wish they weren’t so fucking vocal about pushing misinformation, while being so confidently incorrect.
I really like the KF94’s personally, they’re more comfortable for me. Definitely look into them if you haven’t already!
Edit: By looking at your upvotes vs the loud minority, you can tell what people around here think lol. A lot of instances don’t allow downvotes (mine for one), so upvotes are the only option
You are not up to date. The science on whether mass masking is effective is far from settled and the biggest reviews of the literature strongly suggest that masks are not effective in preventing or slowing the spread of respiratory viruses. See below.
The Cochrane Review is highly respected in the medical community. The authors, after a massive study, write the following:
We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed.
There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness, and although this effect was also present when ILI and laboratory-confirmed influenza were analysed separately, it was not found to be a significant difference for the latter two outcomes. Harms associated with physical interventions were under-investigated.
Stop posting this all over the place. Masks clearly work, unless you like randos sneezing and coughing all over you. It catches all the phlegm.
Also, it prevents the smells of anti-maskers from reaching your nose. They can be pretty bad. You wear clothes over literally every other part of your body. Why do you think your face is different?
“Stop posting something that, while scientific and deeply rigorous, goes against my deep seated and unchangeable views. I can’t handle it with my weak, feeble mind!”
It is scientific and rigorous. You’ve not understood it correctly and Cochrane have been explicit about the fact of that misunderstanding. They are not saying the things you think they are saying.
You’ve been corrected multiple times with excerpts from the authors of the study you’re parroting all over this thread. And yet you just keep posting the same shit, not acknowledging the people who are refuting your claims.
I’m all for wearing masks when needed but that last point is dumb. Facial expressions are a huge part of human communication.
I don’t understand people downvoting without correcting. This way this wrong information stands here, seemingly scientifically sound as a study is linked, contradicted only by votes and words.
Thank you @SigloPseudoMundo@lemmy.ml for looking at the study and noting its limits here.
If somebody wants to check for himself I suggest to take a look at https://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/full/10.2217/fvl-2021-0032 A study which looks at many different studies and metastudies.
To summarize:
- Some studies exist that measured no benefits of masks under certain circumstances. E.g. only evaluating complete protection. But few also seem to be sound at first glance. E.g. one looking at effects of a mask requirement in Bexar County, TX.
- Many of the negative result studies focus on cloth face masks, one even suggesting they increase risk.
- Many studies and metastudies with generally more sound methods suggest mask are effective at preventing spread and limiting mortality.
Conclusion: Masks, excluding simple cloth masks, are likely quite effective. More research is needed.
Your conclusion, in respect to the highly detailed Cochrane review, is extremely wrong. I don’t know how people like you come up with this logic. It’s bizarre. Cloth masks have been proven to be in effective time and time again and you keep promoting them. It’s ridiculous.
It’s not seemingly scientific, the study I linked is the best study we have and it came up with “masks don’t seem to help for reducing the spread of respiratory viruses.” Yet you spew the same bullshit we had at the beginning of the pandemic that wasn’t researched.
Luckily I live in a place where it will be highly unlikely for some ridiculous mandate. Hopefully you live in a place that will mandate this shit for the rest of your life so you can live in the dystopia you want to live in. Leave the rest of us alone.
It seems you have not read my post or the study in detail.
Indeed it seems that cloth masks are not very or even not effective. But, and that’s a big but: FFP2/KN95 Masks seem to be quite effective.
The Cochrane study authors themselves note the low confidence they have in their results. The sample size is quite small (e.g. only 8407 people in summary over all studies they evaluated for FFP2 masks) They even got the result that handwashing has no benefits.
In Contrast the studies in the metastudy I linked work with far larger sample sizes.
I won’t respond anymore after this comment as you seem agitated and resort to personal attacks which won’t lead to a productive discussion. I hope you find a calmer moment to consider the evidence studies have gathered and overthink your position.
Largely what the Cochrane report appears to say is that these studies aren’t actually suitable to draw firm conclusions from (which is what all the talk of “evidence” are about. They mean that the studies they read don’t have sufficient evidence to support their own claims and that while Cochrane can therefore tell us “study X had conclusion Y” they and we shouldn’t assume that’s actually correct as “study X” wasn’t actually very good.)
“The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions.”
“Our confidence in these results is generally low to moderate for the subjective outcomes related to respiratory illness, but moderate for the more precisely defined laboratory-confirmed respiratory virus infection, related to masks and N95/P2 respirators.”
You failed to mention that part when you quoted the study. Good thing not everyone is a health care worker huh?
The science on whether mass masking is effective is far from settled
Be kind and wear a mask until it’s settled that they don’t help. What we know for sure is that it’s very hard to measure whether they’re effective or not.
FWIW, they definitely do work. The issue is that it’s quite hard to produce effective studies to confirm if they work one way or another to point to to say “see, we’ve proved they work, now put one on!”
In addition to Macros’s comment explaining some of the details around what the specific claims of that report are, here is the statement from Cochrane explicitly saying that people have misunderstood the report in claiming it says masks aren’t effective (and taking ownership of the fact that this is at least in part because of issues with how clearly the report communicates it’s findings.)
I love this bit; “The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited.”
So why, exactly, would you not err on the side of caution?
This makes no sense.
Ya, we’re not going to wear masks forever. Don’t be ridiculous.
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That’s fine don’t wear a mask. Your forever will be shorter than mine.
Is there no risk to weaken your immune system by continuously wearing masks even outside epidemic waves?
No. Masks do not weaken immune systems.
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KF94’s are also equally effective (and similar in comfort to KN95’s.) There are concerns about counterfeits of KN95’s in general and masks made in China in general though so KR95’s (Korean) made in Korea or n95s made not in China are more reliable options.
Even a counterfeit mask claiming to be any of the above is likely to be alrightish and far better than nothing.
What you want to look for generally is a triple-layer (or more) mask that is made from non-woven/melt-blown material that gets a good seal. Beyond that just finding something you can afford, reliably get and feel comfortable wearing are kind of the next most important things to look for (the mask you wear is always better than the one you don’t!)
False information. Masks made in China are perfectly fine. The majority of N95 respirators (and masks in general) are made in China. In fact the numbers in the name is part of the Chinese Filtration Index.
KN95, KN95S, KR95, KF94 all follow the same index.
N95 respirators will always be the best option, but they require a shaved face and are very uncomfortable.
How dare people have a personal choice
Lol, what?
Why would I wear a mask if I’m vaccinated?
Do you also put on a tinfoil hat?
The lesson I’m learning is that we should have worn masks during “flu season” all along. In crowded and poorly ventilated spaces at least. It’s a cheap and easy measure and I don’t know what the BFD is with masks.
But fuck it, let’s all just return to the office anyways. Amirite? SMH
Well yeah. If we don’t the landowners will lose money on all their ugly and useless office buildings and that would be sooo awful :(
I wonder how much of the wave is due to return to office
How many people haven’t returned? My company, and nearly everyone I know has been back for 2 years.
Here in Norway there was a marked shift to acceptance for more home office post-Corona. We did have stricter and longer restrictions than you guys though, and basically things didn’t go back to normal until winter 2022. At my work I’d say 80% do home office at least 1 day per week, and 30% do home office 4/5 days in the week (we have one mandatory office day per week). I’d also say that a few percent have taken that opportunity to do “quiet quitting” and essentially do nothing (joining meetings from the car in the middle of the day on their way to IKEA and stuff like that, never engaging in or starting initiatives by themselves etc.), but that’s on management for not getting rid of them.
Personally I still go 5/5 days by own choice, because I live right next by, prefer the ritual of switching into job/focus mode that it is to walk to the office, and like sitting in a separate place that has no distractions (compared to home, where I would take 5 minutes to do the dishes, take an extended trip to the grocery at lunch, etc) and that my brain only associates with working.
Just in time with school starting back up too for kids. A lot have already gone back, hence where I think the spike patterns originate.
Get over it. COVID is a lot more minor than anyone made out to be. Have you not had it yet? You will if you haven’t. And then you will get over it like a cold. COVID is over for good.
Covid put my healthy 26 yo friend in hospital when he caught it last year, and I have friends who took several years of suffering before they recovered from long covid. It’s definitely not as harmless as you’re implying.
Our track record dealing with covid shows us that our approach was largely unsuccessful. Masking must be enforced, not suggested. This is the only effective solution.
People were such dimwits about it though. Even if you had a security guard at the entrance to every shop challenging people to wear properly fitted n95s, I’m certain heaps of people would remove it after they walked past just on principle.
Yeah it was a shitshow, all because of how politicized it became. No one in 2018 would have thought that asking people to wear a face mask would become such an embarrassing ordeal.
But trust me, it’s easy to catch a mask less person in a store. It shouldn’t take more than a couple incidents before they learn their lesson and make an example for others.
“Police are bad unless it is to arrest people over a mask”
Thanks for coming over from reddit
Police are bad because they don’t serve the interests of the community
I tend to agree, but realistically who is going to enforce it? You’ve got to take into consideration the impact the constant stream of conflict has on low level employees who end up responsible for this enforcement. For those who want to protect themselves, N95 masks are highly effective when used properly.
You also need to wear eye protection. Even just regular, prescription glasses showed a 30% reduction in infection rates. Masks don’t protect if other people wont also wear them.
Make good paying security jobs whose sole purpose is covid enforcement (joking) (maybe) (people who refuse to mask make me angry as fuck. It’s such a low effort way to save lives)
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You mean like in China?
who is going to enforce it?
In an ideal world, the community. In our current world, the government must require businesses to require customers to wear masks and social distance, and threaten them with suspending their business if they do not comply.
the impact the constant stream of conflict has on low level employees who end up responsible for this enforcement
It will not be constant. Places where this was enforced strictly did not have that trouble. It is the wishy-washy enforcement that empowered people to do this. It will be a short lived protest that dies out quickly, and the suffering will be far easier than that of covid deaths.
For those who want to protect themselves, N95 masks are highly effective when used properly
From my understanding, it is not enough. A person sharing a public space with you and not wearing a mask poses a threat, and this threat is massive if they are carrying the virus (even if non-symptomatic).
People must not have the freedom to cause the death or others by spreading respiratory viruses due to childish irresponsibility because their favorite youtuber said so.
Read it. Then read it again.
You need to reread it more carefully.
You people need to be stopped, you are insane autoritarians. The crisis is over, we are but fin to wear mask forever. You had your time in the lime light, now it’s back to normal. Continue to abuse this position and you will not get the population to mobilise again to alleviate the situation.
Once again we see the abled throwing tantrums over the idea of having to suffer a mild discomfort so as to protect the lives of the disabled, especially the immunocompromised.
I have an aunt whose immune system has to be medicated into nonexistence at all times so it doesn’t wreck her body, and she is still fucked up from covid, months after “getting over” it and with multiple vaccine shots beforehand. How many people have you killed or left permanently ill, and never realised, in your selfish ignorance?
If there were any divine justice in this world, idiots like you would be smote with horrible autoimmune diseases or total organ failure, forced to go on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of your lives, and live with the same fear you force on others, the fear that any “harmless” disease could be the death of you.
Stop bringing up imaginary malingerers to make your point, it’s as ridiculous as your magical man in the sky delivering justice
Your aunt would have to protect herself covid or no covid. Do you think microorganisms only appeared in the last 5 years?
Your last paragraph shows your true self and how “caring” you truly are.
You are very, very wrong.
Read this review. https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses
People like you shouldn’t live in the west. Fuck forcing people to wear a face rag when the science is far from clear on its effectiveness.
Curb your pseudo science. Use a real source.
Cochrane is a real source.
The report is being entirely misinterpreted. It does not make the claims regarding masks being ineffective that people think it does.
Here’s a statement from them to that effect: https://www.cochrane.org/news/statement-physical-interventions-interrupt-or-reduce-spread-respiratory-viruses-review
Look at the date you dumb fuck. Then recognize that the Cochrane review is highly respected when it comes to public health science.
You people are ridiculous.
You ever gonna respond to people telling you your posts are a misrepresentation or are you just gonna call people dumb fucks? Kinda hard to trust someone posting like this.
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And we can concentrate those who refuse in special camps!
We can tell them to make a real argument or expect no acknowledgement
Wear a Mask. Get vaccinated. Stop spreading misinformation
Since the anti-mask/vax comments seem to be flooding in, figured I’d make my opinion known too… as obnoxiously as I can, because apparently that’s how it’s done
it’s interesting to see how common it is for people in NYC to still wear them sometimes, especially when on the subway (the air is shitty, so it makes sense).
I doubt it will be much of a problem here, except for those who always refused. yeah, it sucks, but it’s a lot better than getting sick— or dying.
especially when on the subway (the air is shitty, so it makes sense).
Man, having had easy access to some sort of mask for a long time now, I keep finding little situations where historically I’d be like “man, I wish I didn’t have to breath this shit, it can’t be good for me” where I just don’t breath those things anymore…
I’m trying to think of good examples but the only one that comes to mind is that in the rare instance I need to use bug spray I’m always glad I have a mask I can wear in case it floats my way.
funny you say this… I often think, “have I been breathing this shit this whole time?” when I pull off a mask I’ve been wearing in the subway to wash it, and all this grime washes out
Public spaces often smell reaaal bad when you do have to take your mask off.
what, you don’t like the smell of garbage and rat pee?
tourists… :P
covid or no covid, its not the worse thing to wear masks and stay safe!
I saw a study a while back that claimed that good filtration and ventilation systems in indoor public places were more effective than masking. If that’s the case, what I’d like to see is subsidies for businesses and public buildings to get.new systems installed, as well as new minimum air quality standards for public spaces with inspections for enforcement.
Schools, get the schools some serious ventilation upgrades. Petri dishes full of cootie factories…
If we couldn’t achieve this when everyone was scared of covid, what makes you think we’ll pull it off now? This fight is lost. We’re just going to keep getting exposed to this shit, and take cardiac damage every time.
Politicians occasionally like to throw money at things (PPP loans and forgiveness), so maybe we could convince them to throw it this way.
Or we could do both and have even more protection.
Well so there’s the question: how much more effective is good ventilation than masking? I was under the impression that it’s, like, a lot. Orders of magnitude. Like if good ventilation was equivalent to seatbelts in cars, then masking would be wearing a helmet while driving.
But perhaps someone who is better at reading scientific results could find the study and come up with a better analogy for us laymen, in case my understanding is way off base. If it’s actually that masking is more like airbags, then I think people would be a lot more amenable to doing both.
Let me help you out.
Wearing a mask is like wearing a mask. It helps prevent spit and other large particulate matter from escaping your personal space. Some work better than others, some work almost not at all.
All are, at least, somewhat helpful in containing the spread of illness.
You can work with that information.
And despite masking, COVID spread all over the globe and killed a fuckload of people.
Would more people have died if there was no masking? Yes, absolutely.
But the question of interest is: how many fewer people would have died if we made a concentrated effort to improve ventilation in public spaces?
Maybe I’m completely missing your point, or maybe you’re just being snarky/contrarian and don’t really have a point, but it sounds like you are basically saying (reusing the above analogy) “Why are we talking about adding seatbelts to cars when we already have helmets?”
Maybe I’m completely missing your point, or maybe you’re just being snarky/contrarian and don’t really have a point, but it sounds like you are basically saying (reusing the above analogy) “Why are we talking about adding seatbelts to cars when we already have helmets?”
I can promise you the latter is not the case. It’s possible I misinterpreted your post. I am 100% for layers of preventative measures.
This is a good start, but even if this all was enacted I’d still mask up during COVID surges. There’s no way in hell I would trust any business to do what’s best for the general public.
Hence inspections. Like we have health inspections for restaurants, we could have HVAC inspections.
My girlfriend brought Covid home like three times last year I didn’t get sick once I just have decent. HVAC and I get the high quality Vairo filters that put extra strain on the HVAC.
Yes, and I’ve always worn a mask when needed, but filtration and ventilation require planning and funding, mask policies allow for the individualization and moralization of health crises.
Just like when they stopped smoking on planes and everyone caught a cold.
Why should they need subsidies?
If they can’t afford to keep their places sanitary in line with what the law requires, they should go out of business.
Not sure why we think taxpayers should pick up the slack of business owners.
Well taxpayers have been subsidizing Walmart for years, but sure, let’s kill more small businesses in the country. That’ll be great for the economy.
I believe once industries become so big and necessary for life, they should just be nationalized.
That way we can get the same services but don’t have to funnel money to ‘owners’ profiting from doing nothing.
Sounds reasonable.
I’d also accept actually enforcing anti-trust laws and breaking up these big companies.
I mean, that just makes it so different rich people can start profiting at everyone else’s expense.
Now businesses are trying to do the same thing in slightly different ways instead of one entity doing it the best way.
I keep wearing N95s. Haven’t gotten COVID yet and not feeling like playing the Long COVID roulette. I don’t work 9-5 in an office so I don’t even have to wear a mask for very long periods of time. Buses, stores require it, but there’s plenty to do outside anyway. Patios are fine. Need to take a leak? Put the mask on. No one from my circle has caught it yet. Honestly this protocol isn’t that bad.
It’s like once “their guy” gave them the ok, everyone started licking doorknobs again. Why couldn’t we keep this “social distancing” thing going? I liked my personal space.
I find myself still standing a moderate distance away from people while in line at stores etc.
yeah I always did this even before COVID and I hate being around people who seem to be spatially unaware.
In a way he saved us from fascism. In the very first months of the pandemic there were several instances of police overstepping and enforcing isolation rules like it was martial law. I know it wasn’t a good response, but we could have been under martial law for years instead.
Who do you think I’m talking about? Trump was all around terrible. He wanted the virus to spread while he and his party thought it was killing black people more then white people.
My original comment was about my Biden friends who all flocked back to theaters then he signaled the “end” to the pandemic.
It was amazing watching the Republicans/Trump’s response change when they realised that they were mostly encouraging their own voters to catch Covid.
And by then, it was too late to their voters behavior. Hell, Trump didn’t really change his public stance either. Him and his voters made anti-masking a point of pride. Whenever the press asked him about vaccines, he never out rite said that they should get vaccines for the health and safety of the county they supposed love. It’s so simple. Love the county? Love the economy? Get vaccinated and stay up to date. Trust the American™ researchers.
Everyone in my immediate circles either masks up like I do or hasn’t seen me in a few years lol. I didn’t quarantine and mask all this time to get COVID now goddammit I refuse. Funny thing is my life hasn’t been any worse without those people now that I think about it… Huh.
We got it several times due to having a toddler and other people being selfish and not keeping their kids home when they got sick.
I’ve been doing this and still somehow managed to catch it about a year ago. One of the few people at that event that was wearing a mask and somehow I’m the one that gets it…
Don’t know if I’m ever going to stop wearing a mask.
Cause masks prevent others from getting your diseases.
If everyone else wasn’t wearing a mask, then you were prone to getting their diseases.
It happens. Since the beginning of the pandemic I’ve caught something exactly once, a couple of months ago. I did a PCR test however while symptomatic and it came out negative. So did my wife when she got it a couple of days later. My point is that something got through the defense protocol and could easily have been SARS-CoV-2. I only know it wasn’t because I tested for it.
Just remember to try not to touch anything after handling your mask until you’ve had a chance to wash or sanitise your hands again. It’s designed to gather up any Covid you’d breath in or out so ironically is one of the worst things you can touch in terms of risk of spreading infection. (Personally, since I work at home, I tend to just leave my mask on fulltime when I’m out, unless I actively need to take it off for food or water or something, just so I don’t have to mess around with the administration of keeping my hands clean while taking it on and off and making sure it’s properly seated after I put it back on. Wearing a mask for hours on end isn’t my favourite thing but I don’t find it too unpleasant, so I can see why people who really hate it would want to deal with faffing around putting it on and off.)
Unless the strain is killing a sizable amount of people getting it it’ll be hard to get people to wear masks en masse again.
Even if it kills (which it likely will), our track record shows that didn’t care enough about that, and in a decreasing manner. So it’ll only be worse.
Pretty sure every virus has killed people, from the cold, to flu, and of course covid. It feels like now the death rate for the latest variants of covid are pretty comparable to the flu, the virus has lost a lot of its killing power over time.
Death rates aren’t a feeling. I want some hard numbers.
I feel like we just don’t care if we live or die anymore.
I know I’ve read reports about the latest variants being much less deadly. I did see one study recently which for patients presenting to hospital covid was a few percentage points more likely to result in death compared to hospitalized flu patients. There were a lot more covid patients though.
Found it:
death rates among people hospitalized for COVID-19 were 17% to 21% in 2020 vs 6% in this study, while death rates for those hospitalized for influenza were 3.8% in 2020 vs 3.7% in this study
So there is some data backing up the feelings I’ve gotten from everything I’ve been hearing and seeing.
So that’s almost twice as bad as the flu.
I mean, that’s one way to look at it. I looked at it as only a couple percent higher death rate than the flu. Either way, a little less than 2x is way better than like 5x worse.
Obviously it’s better than before, but it’s also worth keeping in mind these deaths are in addition to the flu.
Also, there are good and bad flu seasons. I see no reason for COVID to not be the same.
That’s the same shit that businesses were pushing last time because they didn’t want to close for a few months, ended up making everything worse.
Yup. More effective action faster would have had a higher same-day-you-make-the-decision cost but would have been tremendously less harmful economically to all the entities blocking it for fear of the economic impact to them. They were digging a mass grave and then leaping into it.
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I know I am a bit biased here because I didn’t get sick and didn’t really try that hard to avoid it either. I only wore a mask when I had to, I went to bars with friends, really didn’t take any extra precautions, and I washed my hands normally. If I got covid I didn’t notice it.
Personally I would hate if we went into lockdown again, but again, I didn’t get sick, the worst I felt was when I got the vaccine.
The issue is that it happens out of sight out of mind so it’s just an abstract statistic that it’s easy to ignore or pretend away. If Covid-19 killed you by making your head spontaneously fall off we’d have eliminated it or reduced it to a few tiny isolated pockets simply by the change in the public’s attitude to it. But because it kills you “quietly” out of sight in a hospital bed or at home, people were able to just convince themselves everything is basically normal.
get people to wear masks en masse again
The time when people wore masks en masse must be something that I’m too American and lung-scarred to remember
I’m too American and lung-scarred to remember
Due to a history of smoking and multiple bouts of pneumonia I was already fairly sure that my “dying of old age” (which noone truly does) would consist of drowning on fluids from my own damaged lungs one day. Then the drowning on fluids from your own damaged lungs plague came and people decided they’d rather other people die by drowning on fluids from their own damaged lungs than follow simple enhanced hygiene practices for a bit.
Mostly I try to just block that out but it’s come back into sharp focus today…
If you put about 15 minutes between an action and it’s consequences there’s a strong subset of our population that will just completely lose the connection between the two. That, to me, was the primary problem. Well, that and the fact that it’s impossible to measure how many times you didn’t get COVID due to masking or vaxxing
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But let’s be bluntly honest, people’s behaviour has nothing to do with the efficacy of masks. They won’t wear a mask, regardless of efficacy, because they simply do not want to. And they do not care if they spread disease.
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I did not live in the timeline where medical professionals advised people to stop masking after recieving the vaccine. Because that didn’t actually happen. Masks were recommended long after the vaccines rolled out. And really, were never advised against.
Vaccines protect you, masks protect others from you. And the two operate on entirely different mechanisms and can be layered for greater efficacy at combating the virus.
I’m sorry, what is it that you think those links say? Neither of them advise against masking.
The first says that cloth masks are advised against for healthcare workers, because they are not up to medical requirements. They still have value in community use, because any cut in rate of transmission is valuable.
The second says that masks are not needed in outdoor settings, because the risk of transmission is lowered already. Masks would make the risk even lower still, but there is an amount of risk most people are willing to accept. Still not advising against masking.
They both say it’s unnecessary for vaccinated people, and the first one directly calls cloth masks a last resort when nothing better is available.
You can wear your security blanket if you want though, it’s a free country.
I am so tired of you people.
You linked to advice that says:
“Generally, if you are up to date on your COVID-19 vaccinations, you do not need to wear a mask in outdoor settings. Check your local COVID-19 hospital admission level for recommendations on when to wear a mask indoors and additional precautions you can take to protect yourself from COVID-19. If you are immunocompromised or more likely to get very sick from COVID-19, learn more about how to protect yourself.”
That just isn’t the same thing as saying it’s unnecessary for vaccinated people.
Those words don’t mean the thing you say they mean.
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I think people think “outdoor settings” means “not at home”.
This is obvious by all the folks with their nose sticking out
That’s weird. My girlfriend got another booster yesterday in Canada for free.
Someone is paying for it. The manufacturer is not just giving it away for free. That means your taxes are going towards it.
Not sure why people say this like it’s a surprise or somehow bad. Paying for public health measures, or just healthcare in general is way better than where a lot of tax revenue winds up.
Not saying it’s bad that taxes pay for it. What’s bad is when manufacturers keep raising rates to pad their pockets at the expense of the taxpayer money. That means taxes are being shifted to their profits rather than other programs. GP was saying they didn’t care that rates went up because it was “free” to them.
Fair point. I would say that something similar happens with private insurance as well. I don’t claim to have the solution for greed but it sure would be nice to enjoy a system where health outcomes take priority over profit.
The reason it’s bad is because it has got to be unreasonably expensive.
Americans pay the same taxes.
I’m happy to see “fuck you, I got mine” is alive and well internationally, but why that was your first response to a plague vaccine being inaccessible to the masses should be up for question.
Glad to see you took my comment and turned it into something to hate me for.
I just said that that’s weird, because just yesterday we went and didn’t have to pay. Just giving insight to the fact it’s not a paid thing everywhere.
Seems like Americans still haven’t learned that the internet is GLOBAL. Saying:
The pharma companies jacked up the price of the vaccines knowing future waves were coming and yearly boosters would be necessary.
without any context of where you live, means I can take it anyway I want. So maybe this person lives in Canada, and I commented that it’s weird because my shot was free in Canada yesterday. Stop treating the internet as if it’s a US only thing. State where you’re from. State the currency you’re using (news flash, $ is not American).
Stop being !usdefaultism@lemmy.world
Rub it in, why don’t ya.
(You won’t see the outrageous profiteering of their new pricing directly, but don’t worry, you’re still impacted, even if your tax rates are a bit more sensible)
That’s your take from what I said?
That’s what your comment implies, yes, that the costs don’t matter because you don’t see them.
What do you think your comment implies?
I just said that that’s weird, because just yesterday we went and didn’t have to pay. Just giving insight to the fact it’s not a paid thing everywhere.
Seems like Americans still haven’t learned that the internet is GLOBAL. Saying:
The pharma companies jacked up the price of the vaccines knowing future waves were coming and yearly boosters would be necessary.
without any context of where you live, means I can take it anyway I want. So maybe this person lives in Canada, and I commented that it’s weird because my shot was free in Canada yesterday. Stop treating the internet as if it’s a US only thing. State where you’re from. State the currency you’re using (news flash, $ is not American).
Stop being !usdefaultism@lemmy.world
BuT wHaT aBoUt the ecoNoMy??!!
I mean, we didn’t handle any of this well the first time. That goes for most places on the planet. I’m sure we won’t handle it well if it really does go south again.
Hey, let’s again make sure we don’t listen to the scientists that come armed with facts and data. 7 million dead the last time? Probably a made-up statistic just to spread fear and panic…right?
sigh
It’s a conspiracy by the Big Pipette cartel to sell more tips to labs.
That’s pretty damn funny.
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Do yOu EveN kNOw aNYoNe tHaT dIEd oF cOViD?
Pretty sure the latest variants of covid are much less deadly than the beginning of the pandemic.
I googled about it and this is not only news site talking about it last month, and there is little pump in cases - idc anymore about it anyway
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If so, then don’t just look at the positive tests but at the graph that shows tests performed
and patients committed
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Can you explain the need for hysteria?
No, because if hysteria would be an appropriate response it wouldn’t be hysteria. The good news is: no one is calling for hysteria, there’s just a recommendation to wear masks.
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You know you can follow the tweet to learn more about the author, right?
That “random person” is Trisha Greenhalgh - Professor of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford.
Here’s an excerpt from her Oxford Uni profile:
Trish is the author of over 400 peer-reviewed publications and 16 textbooks. She was awarded the OBE for Services to Medicine by Her Majesty the Queen in 2001, made a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences in 2014, and elected an International Fellow of the US Academy of Medicine in 2021. She is also a Fellow of the UK Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of General Practitioners, Faculty of Clinical Informatics and Faculty of Public Health.
https://www.phc.ox.ac.uk/team/trish-greenhalghHer Google Scholar profile shows that her work has been cited almost 95,000 times in other research papers.
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?sortby=pubdate&hl=en&user=8KQwEGcAAAAJ&view_op=list_worksdeleted by creator
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Definitely a them problem because it’s not a problem over here where I am
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not knowing the details
“Not knowing the details” is part of scientific endeavour. If we already knew the details there would be no need for science in the first place. We should not hold it against her.
Your idiocy is astounding and it’s a miracle your bloodline hasn’t been wiped out yet by natural selection. This article is a warning against complacency and an effort to prevent a second covid crisis. Idiots like you are for a huge part to blame why the first one was so devestating so shut the fuck up and stick to your esotheric yoga group for middle aged women on facebook.
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Its for yor benefit. And NHS actually saves lives.
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