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

Masks are gone after spring break seems to be the mantra of my large Midwestern university system, too, except they announced it ahead of time, which means half the students just stopped wearing them immediately, 2 weeks before the actual date.

Masks are on the way out at my large Midwestern university, as well. But coworker I share an office with has health issues that will likely lead to the continuance of masks in our own (small) building, which is A-OK by me.

We still mask when visiting each other's offices or entering an interior space not our own offices. A reflex at this point.

I explained that teachers may have immunity issues that make them want to only be around masked people, and are required to be in classrooms but don’t have to go into dorms or libraries or public spaces. They stared at me blankly with no flicker of understanding.

masks still required by law in scotland for another 2 weeks or so but use is dwindling away. at a several thousand capacity event this afternoon i'd say mask wearing was at around 1-2% and on a bus yesterday about 20%. Covid numbers in Glasgow are meanwhile at their highest ever recorded level but it seems nobody cares.

I explained that teachers may have immunity issues that make them want to only be around masked people, and are required to be in classrooms but don’t have to go into dorms or libraries or public spaces. They stared at me blankly with no flicker of understanding.

They may be wondering: How did they protect themselves from getting sick prior to COVID-19 and at what point will they feel safe enough to work in a maskless environment?
― beard papa, Sunday, 6 March 2022 17:22 (thirty-one minutes ago) link

FP'd

i just heard that yesterday stirry, about the numbers in scotland. fucked up. what’s the explanation? is it that people were more careful up there for longer, and now that they’re not being careful the genie’s out of the bottle so to speak?

nobody knows really. one theory is that slightly less people had had it here than in england so there are more people who can catch it, but also the majority having totally given up on following any restrictions must be a factor.

saying that, i was on Arran for a couple of days earlier this week and mask use was almost 100% and it felt like 2020 with shops limiting to 2 customers, people spraying shopping basket handles etc. properly old school! so, in more remote / less urban areas situation is different.

i was in france last week and the French are not exactly renowned to be a rule abiding nation yet mask use there in shops and on public transport was around 99%.

these differences in attitude fascinate me.

I’m honestly confused on why the delta and omicron waves of cases never seemed to end in the uk, while cases in the US go to very low levels between those waves. I wonder how much of this is a real difference due to things like population density, mass transit, more domestic travel etc. and how much of it is due to testing being widely available, unconstrained and free (and positive rapid tests get reported more into stats reliably) in the UK, while testing is functionally impossible for all by the lucky or very symptomatic in the US.

When you see those attempts to model how many people actually had covid, the numbers in the UK and US are comparable, which is consistent with this shitty US testing infrastructure making the dips in cases seem deeper than they really are.

UK seem intent on fucking it all up, rapid tests will no longer be free, no obligation to isolate if you're positive (which many people won't bother to find out via rapid test because they'll now have to pay) unless the school/ whatever policy specifically asks you to, no contract tracing or isolating if you think you're a close contact... meanwhile numbers in hospital are same/ higher than this time last year directly after the huge peak - possibly vaccine waning?

I think you're still meant to get a PCR if you have one of the "three" symptoms (which have never changed in the whole 2 years since we first heard of Covid) but messaging is so confused by this point it's meaningless.

I'm one of the last in my local group of friends not to have had it in our household at least. I'm wearing FFP masks in busy inside places/ trains etc which seem pretty good. School won't even formally tell us of cases in the class unless there's an outbreak of 20% or so (most have had it in my elder kid's class).

An interesting thought and probably has more than a grain of truth, but it doesn't explain why US positivity rates have also dropped rather sharply among those who can be tracked.

france is paradoxical re: rules. the levels bureaucracy and paperwork to do anything at all in france is insane. and if you’ve ever tried to swim in a public pool there you’ll know how seriously they take their rule about speedos. if you have “beach shorts” you can forget about swimming. but then at the same time people are like “fuck it” about so many things. maybe the first leads to the second, i don’t know.

An interesting thought and probably has more than a grain of truth, but it doesn't explain why US positivity rates have also dropped rather sharply among those who can be tracked.

Went out to run a few errands this morning. While I was in the grocery store I saw a bunch of naked faces, almost all of them on middle-aged white people. A woman who worked there, who was white and looked to be between 50 and 60, walked past while I was checking out and said to my (masked) cashier "You don't have to wear your mask anymore" in a tone that implied she had just had her life sentence unexpectedly commuted. After she was gone I said to him, "Taking masks off implies a degree of trust in my fellow human beings that I just don't have," and he nodded and said that he was fully vaccinated, but would not be unmasking anytime soon.

Later, while I was inside a bakery and my wife was waiting in the car, someone tapped on her window to tell her that she didn't have to wear a mask anymore. (Like me, she puts one on before leaving the house, and takes it off again when we get home, because why bother fucking around with it in between?) She told me about it when I got back; she had pretended not to understand the man, who had addressed her in Spanish.

My thinking is this: The more excited you are about getting to take your mask off, the more likely I think it is that you're the one who's gonna give your family or co-workers (or me) something. So my policy remains the same. I stay masked, and you stay over there.

I wonder how much of this is a real difference due to things like population density, mass transit, more domestic travel etc. and how much of it is due to testing being widely available, unconstrained and free (and positive rapid tests get reported more into stats reliably) in the UK, while testing is functionally impossible for all by the lucky or very symptomatic in the US.

lmao I was in a Walgreens yesterday and saw single antigen flowflex tests for sale for $9.99

I wouldn’t have taken even 1/20 of the tests I have if I was paying that every time.

don't worry you can now fill in a bunch of forms and get reimbursed several months later

lmao I was in a Walgreens today and saw single tests for sale for $124

jaymc my take given your antibodies situation is: hug your family if they want to be hugged

― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Friday, March 4, 2022 4:16 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Good take. It quickly became apparent that no one at the church was going to be masked, so those of us coming from Chicago kept our masks in our pockets. Before the service and at the catered lunch afterward, I mingled and shook hands and hugged like it was 2019. Tbh, it was kind of a relief to not worry about it, and it was nice to have that kind of social contact for the first time in a long while.

Becoming increasingly paranoid about the huge literary conference that's going to be here at the end of the month...in a city with no mask or vax mandates any longer. I'm supposed to read at an event with a bunch of cool people, including a performance by Ulla Straus, but I might pull out of it.

Where is everyone on this kind of thing? I wear a mask indoors everywhere, boosted of course.

she had pretended not to understand the man, who had addressed her in Spanish.

nice

Where is everyone on this kind of thing? I wear a mask indoors everywhere, boosted of course.

West a mask indoors. I assume your colleagues are jabbed.

Are you worried about yourself, or infecting others?

Tbh, mostly myself. I am only on the slight side of immunocompromised-- my WBC count is on the low end of normal, which is pretty good for a cancer survivor-- but I'm just trying to gauge how to approach these sorts of events. I miss my friends, and want to promote this new book of mine, but I also don't want to get laid up.

I went mask-free at Trader Joe's yesterday, sort of a test the waters thing. Most of the staff was umasked, most of the customers were masked, with about a 15-20% exception in either case. I kept my mask in my hand the entire time, in case it ever felt or got weird, but it went OK. At the checkout the staffer was wearing a (cloth) mask, so I asked him if he would feel more comfortable if I put my mask on while I was around him, and he said nah, it's cool, don't worry about it, but thanks for asking. That might be how I play it from now on, depending on where I am.

At TJs a week or so beforehand I asked the (different) person checking me out how she decided not to wear a mask. She told me earlier that day more of the staff was wearing them than later, but her decision to go mask-free came because she was vaxxed, boosted, masked and careful for months and *still* managed to relatively recently get covid, so figured at least for the time being, what's the point?

Yeah that's tough table I'm sorry. Just this constant weighing up of risk.

Yeah. I do think that if I end up doing these events and everything goes swell, I will probably feel a little more relaxed for the next events-- I'm doing two readings in the south (but in outdoor venues) in April, and an outdoor event in NY at the end of April.

Fwiw, one of the events I'm reading at in Philly is continuing with vax requirements and Kn95 mask requirements, but the organizer of the event is immunocompromised and is in a similar spot as me-- he wants to have a return to some semblance of normalcy but is also very worried about how all this is going to play out.

I still wear masks going into shops/on public transport but not in restaurants as I will be taking it off sooner or later, same for pubs. I generally find this hassle-free with the exception of Tuesday morning when I was flying back to the UK, having to wear a mask while trying to sleep on a plane was very hard. When I go home to Ireland masking is still prevalent & you had to wear them in pubs outside the main areas etc- well it was in February anyway. The only place I never wear one is outside.

Oh yeah I should say wearing a mask for 99% time in my daytime flight when I was wide awake the whole time, while not 100% comfortable for eight hours, was at least bearable.

At TJs a week or so beforehand I asked the (different) person checking me out how she decided not to wear a mask. She told me earlier that day more of the staff was wearing them than later, but her decision to go mask-free came because she was vaxxed, boosted, masked and careful for months and *still* managed to relatively recently get covid, so figured at least for the time being, what's the point?

did you explain to her what the point is?

the "protects other people" aspect has been largely forgotten (or in many cases, deliberately ignored).

The last thing I'm going to do is go to someone's business, let alone a supermarket, and yell at an employee for not wearing an optional mask.

I'm not gonna yell at anyone about anything. I was joking with my wife that we should order some fabric masks to go over our N95s that say My Body, My Choice. Someone's probably making them on Etsy.

I agree, actually, I would assume also that retail staff are a much greater risk from members of the public who are infected than vice versa. It’s how it played out in the UK.

my generic comeback when someone tells me i don't have to wear my mask anymore is "what? you do everything the government tells you?"

The last thing I'm going to do is go to someone's business, let alone a supermarket, and yell at an employee for not wearing an optional mask.

how do you get from "politely answer a sincere question a person you are already talking to asks" to "go to a place and yell at somebody unprompted" so quickly

the answer, my friend....is blowing in the wind

More than a week post removal of indoor mask requiring, still seeing equilibrium of most people wearing masks, some people not, among both customers and employees, nobody hassling anybody about it or even talking about it, everything chill

Multiple x-posts:

"And if you’ve ever tried to swim in a public pool there [in France] you’ll know how seriously they take their rule about Speedos."

Ha, yes. This made me chuckle.

Some x-posts:

I can't remember where I read it but isn't the idea that "outside is safe" a fallacy? "Outside is safer", yes, but there are also other factors ... So, for example, there's a big difference between being sat outside with someone for 20 mins and being sat outside with someone for a day etc, etc.

I have also traveled a decent amount to places in the US with no mask requirement, have worn masks into stores and buildings where no one else or nearly no one else was, nobody said boo

I mean to some extent I suppose this is because I am a white male of a certain age and strangers don't feel primed to feel they can/should put me in my place

droplets fall to the ground sooner without internal airflow.

there's not 'no risk', and people definitely catch it outside, but it's definitely significantly lower risk

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/01/21/1069904184/omicron-outdoor-transmission-risk

"my generic comeback when someone tells me i don't have to wear my mask anymore"

mine is "lol i have the coronavirus"

the "protects other people" aspect has been largely forgotten (or in many cases, deliberately ignored).

you can't count on any particular person to care about protecting others, but 99.9% of the time they will care about protecting themselves, so the emphasis on masks protecting yourself is the better sales tactic. in reality, the protection provided to any one person masking themself is limited. otoh wearing a mask only protects others when it is being worn by someone who is an active vector. if you aren't infectious, there's nothing happening from which anyone else needs to be protected.

it's the cumulative protection provided to everyone when everyone wears masks that is hugely effective and slows transmission down tremendously. that's what never came across to the public, partly because the selfish ones were so incredibly focused on their own petty annoyance with being asked to do something inconvenient without being given an instant reward for it.

the emphasis on masks protecting yourself is the better sales tactic.

I think this has absolutely proven to be the case and frankly I'm disappointed in us

fwiw N95s DO provide a pretty significant amount of protection for the wearer, as do KN95s, but the protection would be astronomically higher if all in the building were wearing them rather than just the one wearer.

but you’d need an absolutely enormous mask

i just don’t think that would be practical

everybody climb inside

wait you weren’t proposing that the entire building wear a building-sized mask i guess okay