Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

oops, i got sidetracked on my nasal flow. what i meant to ask about is whether it's ok to try to obtain a N95 now (which i assume will be better quality and help with my glasses) or if medical professionals are still in need.

quite a few of the tailored cloth masks you can find for sale on social media or e-commerce sites have nose bridge things built in for that purpose, might be time to shell out ten or twenty bucks

i think the official word is still to steer clear of n95 masks and prefer lowest-tier 'medical masks' or cloth ones

KM have you tried putting a Kleenex tissue inside the mask to absorb the moisture? That worked for me.

Even with those built in nose bridge cloth masks my glasses constantly fog up. I've found nothing works.

The message never changed.

― Subverted by buggery (Tom D.), Monday, 8 June 2020 17:31 (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Scottish govt advised mask wearing in shops and indoor workplaces weeks ago. No one really bothered.

https://www.nytimes.com/article/glasses-fog-wearing-mask-coronavirus.html

No idea if this works or not but a colleague (whose wife is a nurse) passed on a tip to put shaving foam on your lenses then wipe it off - it forms some sort of film that prevents your glasses steaming up.
Another colleague is a scuba diver and says he does the same thing when diving but with washing up liquid to prevent his mask steaming up.

Tried all of those, no dice. Still fog up. Wiping soapy water does help a little bit, but then I'm looking through soap smears constantly instead of fog roughly 60% of the time. But I found if you wipe it (or shaving cream!) off too well, it doesn't stop the fog.

thanks everyone. caek, that exact article was my starting point a few months ago. it seems very sensible and i'm sure those techniques work for most people, but they barely make a difference with me. in addition to mye extreme nasal flow, i also have a big ass bent bridge on my nose (missed a baseball self-thrown pop fly as a kid once) that complicates things.

oh god. i'm going to become the bubble boy, aren't i

Scottish govt advised mask wearing in shops and indoor workplaces weeks ago. No one really bothered.

Left it too late.

Follow-up to Josh's restaurant post above: the reopening rules in Toronto.

http://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2020/06/restaurants-rules-reopen-toronto/

So, I was at a not too-crowded protest a little over a week ago, and again at the much larger and more crowded one in downtown Philly this past weekend. I wasn't too worried about being exposed to COVID at the previous one, now I am being diligent about staying home and trying to get tested.

However, I've noticed today that my resting heart rate has been unusually high, like it won't go any lower than 85-90. And if I stand up quickly it shoots up to over 100 and I even feel a little short of breath. Sometimes that's just a symptom of anxiety for me (and these have been anxiety-inducing times). I don't feel panicky right now though, just mildly anxious that this is a sign of the 'vid.

The UK seems to be uniquely weird when it comes to not wearing facemasks.

Facemasks are a pretty rare sight here in Norway. OTOH it appears that the early and broad closedown measures, which appear to have seen a good level of compliance, worked out well, and that the easing up of the last few weeks haven't yet resulted in a resurgence of cases or deaths (which may of course still materialize). Of course, no place in Norway, even our cities, are anywhere near as densely populated as major world metropolises, which surely helps.

I'm returning home tonight after 7 weeks at the folks. my dad is mostly recovered.

no more having to worry about getting dad sick just cos I went to Publix

You have done the Lord's work, Neanderthal. Take a rest.

FWIW I used to wear a real N95 mask and now wear a cloth mask, and the N95 mask was better at not fogging up my glasses, but it was overall less comfortable, since tighter fitting.

i want a face modification to make my face adhere with the mask so no air escapes upward. i will pay good money for this

I wear disposable masks (not N95) that have a wire that I can press fit over my nose, that works pretty well.

the only thing with the nose bridges is that they really irritate the top of my nose after about half an hour

my tightest/safest mask makes me sweat and gives me a runny nose. It is hard to breath through it when I'm walking up hills in SF. I have to take the filters out and wash it frequently. I have decided it is to be reserved for grocery store visits. I will wear my looser more comfortable masks when I'm just outside for a walk

I'm trying a wisp cpap nose cushion inside my fabric mask - silicone seal against your face, nose exhaust goes straight out but could also put a 90 deg down elbow there. We'll see how it goes.

FWIW I used to wear a real N95 mask and now wear a cloth mask, and the N95 mask was better at not fogging up my glasses, but it was overall less comfortable, since tighter fitting.

― o. nate, Tuesday, June 9, 2020 12:53 AM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

My in-laws found a stash of n95s in their attic and passed some off to us. I tried one for a day but it fit like this.

https://i.gifer.com/9DB9.gif

https://i.gifer.com/9DB9.gif

Facemasks are a pretty rare sight here in Norway. OTOH it appears that the early and broad closedown measures, which appear to have seen a good level of compliance, worked out well, and that the easing up of the last few weeks haven't yet resulted in a resurgence of cases or deaths (which may of course still materialize). Of course, no place in Norway, even our cities, are anywhere near as densely populated as major world metropolises, which surely helps.

― anatol_merklich, Monday, 8 June 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Oslo has 700k, what has that been like?

Better than Sweden, which is even less densely populated than Norway.

Not to be flippant here, but didn't y'all, like invent ski masks?

The main difference between Norway and Sweden (which is about 40% more densely populated than Norway, not less) has surely been the Norwegian choice of early closedown and persistent reminders of social distancing, the path that Sweden has notably not followed.

I live pretty near central Oslo, and have been taking walks most days, including to the central parts of the city. Distancing has been complied with pretty well in general, though maybe not universally, with recent BLM-related protests probably the main non-random exception (not having attended, I don't know for sure to what degree the official 1-metre-distance advice (reduced from 2 metres about a month ago) was followed). Norwegians being Norwegians, there were days at the early closedown weekends where the city centre was pretty much deserted while there were reports of worrying congestion along the most popular hiking trails in the woods just outside the city.

Now, a few weeks along the lifting of closedown, things do seem more normal, although there are still reminders to avoid public transport if possible, limits to the number of simultaneous customers in shops, ubiquitous disinfection-liquid dispensers, bakery tongs that you pick up at the entrance, use once and hand over to the cashier for cleaning, etc. But, as noted, only the occasional facemask.

I have wondered whether there was something hidden from the COVID case/death numbers, as has been reported in other countries, and checked out official overall countrywide deaths-per-week statistics (which I do trust until having specific reasons not to). So far, I can see no anomalous increase whatsoever when comparing with the last few years -- with the significant caveat of a few weeks' lag in the stats, currently complete only up to about 24 May, which means a bump may still turn up, given that easing started around the start of May.

I guess there is also the point that if the Swedish path should in hindsight turn out to have been the right one, there would probably be no way of detecting that at the current point in time anyway; data supporting any such conclusion would surely need several more months to emerge.

xp to YMP: if you ask a Norwegian to enumerate their skiing equipment, I honestly do not think a mask would turn up among the first few items mentioned, no. To me (not a skier for the last few decades tbf), such a thing has connotations either to Finland (finlandshette) or Crimea (balaklava).

Oh, right, another recent arena for systematically dubious distancing: the newly-opened outdoor drinking establishments. We do love our utepils the few months of the year when it is meteorologically sensible, and I've passed many places where the one-metre rule seems to have been only barely respected, if at all. Inside, seating seems to be more strictly controlled.

which is about 40% more densely populated than Norway, not less

Oops, right. Sweden is still very sparsely populated by European standards!

Not to be flippant here, but didn't y'all, like invent ski masks?

I know I'd feel safer if everyone was wearing these.

https://www.augustcaps.com/thumbnail.asp?file=assets/images/spider%20hats%20and%20princess%20hats/11192011/threeholemask1.jpg

Private pools got the OK to open in Florida last week. I finally used my condo pool last weekend and did a few laps this morning. After closing from September to December for its first renovation in forty years (!), it closed in March thanks to COVID fears. All social distancing rules apply: the new furniture was spaced out, masks required when not in the pool, no more than 11 guests. I was the only one. It felt great -- one more small way of feeling normal.

so my friend, who runs a small theater that I used to perform at, is doing little 2 hour "introspective" video conferencing specials, bringing back panels of people from each previous season. I jointed this week. it was just 10 of us who were in the theater's second season, remembering the shows we were in. The idea is that the people who were in each show would talk about it and share memories, and funny stories, and it's broadcast for an audience of friends of the theater, who we hope will give small donations to keep the theater going.

instead, it quickly fell apart when instead of letting the people from each production talk, 2 chatterboxes decided to hijack every production's conversation so that the people who were actually IN the productions could barely talk about them. We got to a production I was in (25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), and I planned to share a memory from the time I pulled my (still to this day) best friend on stage as a guest speller, only to get interrupted by one of these loudmouths, who then proceeded to tell the story I was in process of telling. She wasn't even part of the show! She just happened to see the night in question.

so I left the broadcast 30 minutes early. lol...I should have known, I fucking hate zoom when it's more than like, 5 people.

Going to go buy a tallboy and a pack of American Spirits and smoke three on my porch, first alcohol and nicotine in... three months? I expect them to taste like shit. (Especially because the top shelf at my corner store will probably be Dos Equiis.)

get a lime stuck in there and enjoy

some days even shit beer hits the spot these days

I remember beer :/

so a ton of people receiving unemployment in Florida, my mother and two friends included, were receiving the $600 weekly federal checks, which stopped for no apparent reason on 5/19. at first, the answer given from FL DEO was "we're moving to a biweekly pay schedule", but two weeks came and went for most without payment.

one of our local representatives, Anna Eskamani, has been harassing them for months, and finally, the DEO asked her to get a list of all of the people who hadn't been paid since 5/19.

Gee, wonder why people are rushing back to work when sick and under less than optimal circumstances.

Florida's the only state whose trust fund increased in the months since the CARES act was passed. this is starting to look very deliberate now.

Desantis for jail 2020!

i've now been waiting for three months for the unemployment system to process my claim here in honolulu. great fun.

I'm sorry to hear that, davey....it's ridiculous how bad the unemployment programs are in some states.

after much noise and insistence, the DEO finally looked into the fact that thousands of people are saying their payments stopped and they realized that everybody who filled out a form to backdate their claim (since it took most people a month just to file a claim) was accidentally excluded from the last payroll files.

I've been taking my glasses off before heading into stores, to prevent my (inadequate, cloth) mask from fogging them. I usually leave them in the car, but if I forget to do that, I'll sometimes tuck them into the collar of my t-shirt. I've come across three pairs of someone else's broken, crushed glasses in parking lots in the past week.

It's not fair...
THERE WAS TIME NOW

lol. my life goal has always been to be that guy in the apocalypse

lol Neanderthal

So as others have said we are a looong way off widespread takeup of mask wearing in the UK. I was masked up in budgens (who have one of the better covid setups ime) & I was buying wine & the checkout person hesitated before selling it to me & then said “um, can I see your face?” (I never get ID’d usually because I have a face ravaged & bloated by age - also a beard)

So I had to pull my mask down lol

Cpap nose mask seal meant no glasses fogging, but made it impossible to breathe in. Not recommended :)

Neanderthal, I've alluded to your central Florida updates every time we discuss COVID in our state.

So cases rising in 24 out of 50 states, including going back up in states that peaked early (Michigan being a big one). Hoping someone can talk me off the ledge that this news isn’t quite as bleak as it looks. At this rate it’s hard to imagine we won’t all be back under lockdowns by mid-July.

Idk seems bleak.

We're not going under lockdown. Trump's forgotten about the virus already. As ever it's up to the states.