People get sick. It happens. I am well-aware that by resuming my pre-pandemic lifestyle, and only wearing a mask in the spaces where they're mandatory, I am increasing my risk of getting ill.
But I'm not going to change my behavior, because I'd rather be sick for a week than sit at home 24/7 for the next year, or wear a mask every time I step outside, and constantly monitor my physical distance from other people. My life is passing me by right now, and I want to enjoy it while I can.
Especially because a lot of outside doesn’t need a mask. If you live in a dense urban core, it might. If you live in light urban, or suburban/rural, you can mask when stepping into the store or whatever.
Don’t forget that masks are to protect others at least as much as yourself.
> Don’t forget that masks are to protect others at least as much as yourself.
That seems to depend on the mask itself, some masks explicitly state that they offer no protection to the wearer and only serve to provide protection to others _from_ the wearer.
This article, for me, highlights one of the major problems of this entire response. Various establishments keep trying to present a rather black-and-white binary view on these subjects.
They're doing a particularly poor job of explaining the spectrum of risks and protections that are available and how to apply that knowledge to your own individual circumstances.
I had a different underestanding: I thought masks are to protect others, overwhelmingly, and there might also be some protecting power for yourself, in a much lesser amount.
The concept is consistent with "since you can, limit dispersing the droplets".
I unfortunately do not have bookmarked articles about this though. Do you have any good source (e.g. to state that masks have a protecting power for the wearer comparable to that for the others)?
Yes, 99.5% counts as “mostly”, I was just emphasizing that “I don’t want to wear a mask” is “I don’t care to protect you” not “I don’t care enough about the risk to myself too wear a mask”.
You're correct, that is our understanding in NZ, mask wearing is almost entirely about protecting others by limiting the projection range of droplets. It works if everyone wears a mask.
And wearing a mask is not just direct individual risk reduction either. Preventing spread reduces opportunities for the virus to mutate, which reduces the larger systemic risk that a new mutation is created that is even more adapted to bypassing vaccines and masks.
I've been seeing this a lot amongst anti-mask arguments. Antimaskers unironically equate wearing a mask to some type of life-altering, oppressive action. It's absurd.
Amongst all of our social responsibilities as human being, wearing a mask is probably the easiest, most bare-minimum thing imaginable, right up there with "don't litter". And just like I don't respect people who litter, I don't at all respect people who don't wear masks in crowded places.
edit: wowfunhappy deleted their comment, but previously it said that the reason they don't wear a mask is because "it fogs up my glasses and is hot and sweaty", and went on to say that such hardships "affect [them] psychologically". This is exactly what I'm referring to in the first sentence of my comment. Absurdity.
The damn thing fogs up my classes when it's cold, and is hot and sweaty when it's warm. When I speak, I frequently have to repeat myself, and I can't casually take a sip of water or eat a snack.
And while this part pertains more to other people wearing masks—I honestly feel like universal masking affects me psychologically. I have a huge amount of trouble recognizing people's faces when their masks are on—I didn't even recognize my sister when I ran into her on the subway—and I'm not able to read anyone's expressions.
I'm not an anti-masker, and I wore one diligently throughout 2020 and early 2021, but I'm just not willing to do it forever! Wearing a mask is by no means torturous, but I really do think it is life-altering. Similar to social distancing, masks change every single interaction I have with others.
I'm aware that masks protect others in addition to myself, but where does my responsibility end? I wear a mask on public transit, and I'll wear a mask any time someone asks me to put one on. But I'm not going to wear one otherwise, and I'm significantly less likely to go into a store if there's a sign on the front that masks are required. I think I should be able to make that choice, and other people can make the opposite choice.
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Edit: Re your edit, sorry about that, I actually deleted the above comment from downthread in order to post it here instead, and our actions seem to have crossed.
I didn't stop wearing masks early on, I got vaccinated as soon as possible, and I've pleaded with everyone I know to get themself vaccinated as well. Please don't lump me in with COVID deniers.
We're long past the point where "educating people" is going to help. The people left who still refuse to mask up are not doing it because of lack of education, and it's time to publicly shame them for their selfishness and arrogance, just like we shame drunk drivers or litterers.
I'm really, honestly trying my best to have a reasoned discussion about this! But I don't know where the misunderstanding is, somehow I'm looking at the same numbers for breakthrough infections as you are, and I'm seeing a very different story.
To be clear, I wore a mask religiously for 15 months, and got vaccinated as soon as I could.
Since you could have transmitted potentially deadly diseases to immunocompromised people before COVID, you have definitely worn a mask everywhere in public for your whole life, right? That’s the only way you have any sort of moral high ground.
If the answer is “no”, then we are just quibbling over what constitutes an acceptable loss of life. Because you are culpable.
Public shaming works best if the people being shamed care about the regard of those doing the shaming. It works very poorly when the topic is polarized and the shaming can be easily brushed off. The more hyperbolic and over the top you make this shaming, the easier it is to brush off.
At this point, the burden of the disease falls almost exclusively on unvaccinated adults. For everyone else, the risk is same order-of-magnitude as the flu. It's pathological and innumerate to obsess over COVID when we unthinkingly accept similar or greater risks. If you're afraid, stay home. Don't saddle the rest of us with the cost of your neuroses.
> The damn thing fogs up my glasses when it's cold
Check the nose clip of your mask. Fogging your glasses might mean it's not sealing correctly around the nose, so that the hot humid air from your breath is being directed upwards towards the interior of your glasses, and also allowing unfiltered outside air inside the mask when you inhale.
Last winter, I even bought a mask from https://zerofogmask.com/?v=7516fd43adaa, which you heat up with a hair drier before wearing for the first time so it molds to the shape of your face. It admittedly worked better than a normal mask, but only partially and only for a few uses, which wasn't economical at $20 each. Plus, it was particularly uncomfortable.
When I was at Mayo Clinic, one of the eye doctors put tape at the top of my mask to seal it. He did the same to his because he wore glasses. This prevents fogging up glasses (or eye exam equipment).
I'd suggest using paper tape for this because the skin around the eyes is very delicate and regular medical tape is a bitch to get off. They used medical tape, and I felt like it was ripping my lower eyelids off when I removed it!
I wear safety glasses and a mask at work. I pull my mask up a little so that I can catch the edge of it between my nose and the glasses. I haven't had any issues with fogging.
I did some research on this last winter, when I was literally struggling to go outside—I walked straight into a lamp post at one point! I'm not going to be able to find the article now, but what I read it's largely dependent on the shape of your nose and face. I seem to have lost the lottery.
I can accept that there may be a continuum of taste in terms of how onerous wearing a mask is. But I don't really know how it can be that bad when my six year old managed it all year last year for school.
The mask is to protect others as much as it is to protect yourself. You can be contagious and spread it for up to two weeks without symptoms. It's unfortunate that wearing a mask is such a hardship for you.
This has to be the biggest mistake of the whole pandemic. Exhalation valves dramatically improve the comfort of masks. A cloth mask might give 50% protection, and a surgical mask about 75%, but even after you double the effects to account for filtering both on exhalation and inhalation, that's still only 75% (1-(1-.5)^2) and 94% (1-(1-.75)^2), which is worse than the 95% you could expect from a correctly fitted N95 mask with exhalation valve.
If you protect yourself then you also protect others, because you can't infect others unless you are infected yourself. This focus on filtering exhaled breath just results in people wearing masks incorrectly to avoid the problems of valveless masks, making the numbers even worse than the previous calculation. It's also much easier to motivate people with self-protection than altruism, especially when the people they're helping often don't reciprocate. We've had more than long enough to solve the production problems by now, so N95 should be the minimum standard.
As former military ( I assume that background is the reason for this), I just cannot understand what the deal is over masks. I can literally forget that I'm wearing a fitted surgical mask. They feel like nothing. What is so damn hard about wearing them? I hear so many grown adults whine and complain and dramatize having to put one on, and it just blows my mind.
Maybe I am, unknown to myself, a superhero, and my power is not having a hard time wearing a mask. Or maybe I'm not a spoiled entitled brat. Not sure anymore.
Protect who though? Who do masks protect at this point? People who are vaccinated? They have no need to worry. People who are unvaccinated? They made that choice.
There is literally no reason for a vaccinated individual to wear a mask. Vaccines work. They are the ticket out of this. Not masks.
>You won't learn anything, because you're a deranged wingnut with a trapped prior. But maybe the cognitive dissonance will be enough to get you to shut up.
Stick to attacking the idea instead of the individual. Personal attacks like this cause others to disregard your stance, even when they already disagree with the parent (like I did). It only works against the cause in the end.
I hear this quite often on the internet, yet I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen a person wearing a mask in public pre-COVID. I’m in the US so it is extremely uncommon.
Where has all of the concern for the immunocompromised been before this? The flu is quite deadly, you know.
I can't stand this intimation that you're an asshole for not wearing a mask. If other people want to be precautious, they can get vaccinated and wear a mask and do the social distancing. It's not my problem.
If the standard is zero transmission, then they are useless. But that isn't had has never been the claim. N95 is better than simple masks, but they are more expensive, initially were in short supply, and uncomfortable.
But this is all about statistics. Simple masks reduce the chance of catching it by some small amount (say 15%) and reduce the emission of virus particles by something like 50% (it all depends on the mask). This doesn't mean the odds are cut in half; it means the exponent of the spread of the virus is cut in half.
It's a simple and easy way to reduce chances of spreading it to another person. It diverts airflow from directly forward, changing the distance outward that aerosols from your mouth go. Since, as you point out, this virus is spread via aerosols, this impacts the chances of spreading it, by reducing the contagion radius around you.
In an ill fitted mask? Not well. The suspension of the virus in aerosol is precisely why masks have any efficacy in the first place, since the viruses themselves could easily permeate without it.
this is a completely absurd assumption, and not appropriate for the standard of serious discourse this site aims for.
you could have no symptoms at all. you could die. you could suffer serious cognitive effects which eliminate your ability to work, read books, or even watch TV. you could get sick and stay sick for the rest of your life. we don't know the exact duration of long covid, but there are plenty of people who got sick in early 2020 and haven't gotten better yet.
there's a huge range of symptoms. in the dreamworld you posit here, where getting sick for a week would be the worst-case scenario, your reasoning would make sense, but nobody lives there, because that place doesn't exist.
> you could have no symptoms at all. you could die. you could suffer serious cognitive effects which eliminate your ability to work, read books, or even watch TV. you could get sick and stay sick for the rest of your life. we don't know the exact duration of long covid, but there are plenty of people who got sick in early 2020 and haven't gotten better yet.
Why just apply this to covid? 45,000 people a year in the US die when they get behind of a wheel of a car every year. Does that number need to be zero to be an acceptable level of risk.
at our current covid death rate, that 45K people happens about every 10 to 15 days. call it two weeks for simplicity's sake.
that 45K is also the most popular argument in favor of self-driving cars.
but none of this has ANYTHING TO DO with the argument I made, which is that the grandparent's estimate of a worst-case scenario was just wildly inaccurate.
> at our current covid death rate, that 45K people happens about every 10 to 15 days. call it two weeks for simplicity's sake.
Your math is wrong, 45 /1.5 = 30
But so what? 8,000 people tragically die a day in the US under accepted normal conditions and we move on.
> none of this has ANYTHING TO DO with the argument I made, which is that the grandparent's estimate of a worst-case scenario was just wildly inaccurate
Realistically if you are young, healthy, and vaccinated that is the worst case scenario.
> at our current covid death rate, that 45K people happens about every 10 to 15 days. call it two weeks for simplicity's sake.
I think your numbers may be a tad off in general, but regardless, I'm pretty sure you're including unvaccinated adults. While I absolutely don't want anyone to die, I don't feel a responsibility to protect people who aren't willing to take the most basic of steps to protect themselves.
When you crash your car, you could walk away unscathed. You could die. You could suffer serious cognitive effects which eliminates your ability to work, read books, or even watch TV. Should people be afraid to drive?†
My question for you would be, when does this end? I'm vaccinated, and the vaccines are very effective. Should we all be practicing social distancing for the rest of our lives?
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† Actually, maybe yeah, I think the number of people who die in car crashes is reason enough to move away from them as a primary mode of transport, even putting aside environmental concerns. But the point is, we have decided to accept this risk.
It only applies if you completely ignore the magnitude of the situation. Most US adults are exposed to cars on a daily basis.
It doesn't overrun the hospital system like covid. Cars are dangerous but covid seems much more so.
The hospital system is overrun by people who refuse to get vaccinated. If you're vaccinated, the risk is significantly lower than a car crash. And if you're not vaccinated, you should get vaccinated.
I think a better analogy is drunk driving because we are talking about risk to yourself and the risk you present to others. What about those people who really want to experience driving while high or drunk? What sort of freedom do we have where we prevent those activities?
Should you be allowed to drive drunk on a private road? Well, as long as I'm not paying your health bills, you fully recycle your trashed vehicle, and there's no other externality - go for it...
Is asking people not to drive drunk too much? Apparently it is because there are lots of people who do it.
EDIT: You do make a good point re: what's the exit strategy. My personal thoughts are we take some reasonable measures, especially during times when the virus is very active, but we should resume a more normal life. The people who don't get to resume a normal life should be those that have made the choice not to get a vaccine. To continue on my analogy, you choose to get drunk at the party, driving home is not an option as much as you'd really like to do that.
It has to do with your probability of causing serious harm to other people. ~40k deaths/year from driving (presumably some significant portion from drunk driving, texting, drugs etc.). (EDIT: this number is in the USA)
The point I am making is that you are not free to do whatever you feel like you want to do. You wanna drive? Get a license. You wanna drive drunk? Not allowed. You wanna speed? Not allowed. There are people coming to this discussion from the perspective that their freedom to do whatever they want is absolute regardless of impact to others, but it's not.
It's a balance. For sure the measures/restrictions on freedom need to be proportional to the risks but this is not about individual risks. If you drive a tank and there's zero risk to you you still can't drive drunk.
Again another false dichotomy. Wearing a mask and social distancing doesn’t preclude you from new experiences. One could argue living to have more masked experiences is more experiences. Having more people living to share those experiences with, is more experiences.
It’s just until the big waves of infection and death stop. That will happen when people take the threat seriously and take precautions. Maybe it will take another mutation that causes a great disturbance in public health to get Floridamen on board, but we will have to wait for them before we can call this over because the virus isn’t going to burn out on its own.
I go outdoors and hike beautiful coasts and mountains, enjoy properly socially distanced dining outdoors, and follow the guidelines given by CDC. I go out a lot but I manage the risk accordingly. There are lots of people that don’t want to take a single precaution. It’s like saying “I don’t want to wear a condom having casual sex”, eventually that person is going to get herpes or hpv. I guess I realize now why those diseases are so common is because many people fail to take precautions so they can have “more experiences”.
> Wearing a mask and social distancing doesn’t preclude you from new experiences.
You really can't think of any activity that is diminished by wearing a mask ?
210 Million people (64%) have already been vaccinated in the US, and children aren't even eligible. At some point there is an acceptable level of risk. When do these 'temporary safety precautions' stop?
We are patiently waiting for Floridamen to start participating in public health. Until then we will continue the precautions. Eventually enough people will die and they will come around.
Seems like you buy into the media narratives more than data... For most of Covid Florida's performance has been middle of the pack in the US despite having a large elderly population. They've slipped recently but still are only the 12th highest state deaths per population [1].
Plenty of other red or blue states that have done worse.
It’s just a symbol, it doesn’t need to be taken literally. After all the reason Floridamen exist as a meme is because of public disclosures of crimes by the state police.
Not due to covid. Unfortunately lots of childhood illnesses around, many much more dangerous than covid. This is not controversial. It's just empirical observation.
That we know of. Delta is killing some children, but low numbers. COVID-19 can infect brain cells and organs, so very much not like other viruses, and definitely not like the flu (or colds) which is limited to acidic cells from your nose to your lungs (and stomach).
My mom was a teacher. One Friday she said good bye to a student. On Saturday the student went blind. On Sunday he died of meningitis
Lots of terrible things happen to children in low numbers. Lots of terrible things happen to adults in low numbers. Never have we locked people in the house for that
My family members have been hospitalized for the covid vaccine and some have died while my other family members are left alone outside the hospital desperate to see our relatives who have been imprisoned in the system with no oversight.
Others have been hospitalized for non covid reasons, had their spouse/close relative kicked out of the room, and then gone on to suffer medical abuse and neglect, including being fed food that is not compatible with their medical history for months on end causing endless pain, as well as permanent disfigurement.
So spare me the lectures and the pain Olympics.
And yes some have died of covid, as some every year die of cancer, flu, and other diseases.
So, the expert in the article agreess you shouldn't sit at home 24/7 for the next year:
> Even with delta, the goal is not to go back to a lockdown mindset, though, says Malani. "My hope is that people who are fully vaccinated should really feel like this risk is manageable."
> "Feel good about spending time with your friends, or having a small dinner party, but make sure everyone is vaccinated," she says
But you probably should still be wearing masks in crowded indoor locations and avoiding/reducing large gatherings.
Since it's all statistical, it's not all of nothing, going to an occasional large gathering isn't the same as might as well go to one every day, you can prioritize ones important to you.
But it's up to you. The important thing is if you do get sick or know you're sick, please quarantine to avoid infecting others.
The annoying thing is, all the risks are proportional to how much covid there is in the community. If we could get rates down, then we wouldn't have to worry so much. So it's not just about what we are willing to risk personally, it's about trying to change social behavior to get risks much further down, so everyone in the community can do more stuff safer!
And I want to be able to climb a mountain, drink alcohol, taste pizza, and live past age 70. All of those things can go out the window with a severe case of COVID-19, and potentially even with an asymptomatic case, due to the long-term effects of scarring on multiple organs, and unknown long-term neurological effects.
I know humans always prioritize short-term goals over long-term. But personally, I am fine with wearing a mask or staying in for a year, to ensure my health for the next 70 years.
I also wear condoms when having sex with strangers. Crazy, I know, but somehow getting a lifelong disease just doesn't seem worth the momentary pleasure.
All you have to do is listen to the stories of young people who are now on a breathing machine for life. If that doesn't scare the fucking bejesus out of you, I don't know what will.
All respiratory viruses can have long term effects. I’ve had super annoying colds that refused to go away for like 6 months. Covid is no different.
So many people are so absolutely petrified over covid. It’s like they suddenly woke up and realized that respiratory viruses can suck and people die of horrible illness. None of this is unique to covid.
It’s life. There are no guarantees. What we are doing now is not living. Vaccines were it. Time to return to actual normal.
Covid-19 is literally a neurological disease. It causes the body to attack itself, like an autoimmune disease, which is what is leading to the incredibly high number of severe cases leading to death. And all of the long-term, quality-of-life-impacting side-effects that have nothing to do with respiratory viruses.
This has been reported for over a year.
> It’s life. There are no guarantees.
There's no guarantee you will get AIDS Or HepC if you have unprotected sex. Time to throw away the rubbers, we can't stop living life now can we?
Oh, wait. You can still fuck with rubbers. I guess you don't have to choose between not fucking or getting AIDS.
Just like you don't have to choose between being a hermit and making out with a dozen strangers at a bar. These things called "masks" are there to reduce risk without forcing us to stop living life.
If we covered the flu the same way we cover covid, people would be saying the same things…
> These things called "masks" are there to reduce risk without forcing us to stop living life.
Sorry I’m fully vaccinated. I’m not wearing a mask ever again. Masks are not normal. In fact they are quite the opposite.
Vaccines were supposed to be the end. Not some kind of dystopia where everybody wears masks and treats each other like disease vectors… forever. Because some people are frightened.
First, it's not forever. Over time, when we know more about the virus and it changes more, there will probably be less-severe variants where we can mostly rely on vaccination.
Second, there are plenty of ways you can mitigate the need for masks and social distancing with people that you know. Just like you don't need to use condoms with a monogamous partner that you trust, you don't need to wear masks around vaccinated people that use masks and social distance around people they don't know.
Third, you're not sorry. You're going to get people killed and continue to hurt the economy (and people who depend on it) because you can't stand to put a piece of cloth on your face for 5 minutes, stand back a bit from someone, or eat outside. You're freaking out and being childish because you personally don't care about the consequences, while ignoring the consequences for everyone else. It's the same as people who refused to wear condoms during the AIDS crisis because "they're not normal".
> Over time, when we know more about the virus and it changes more, there will probably be less-severe variants where we can mostly rely on vaccination.
With all due respect, this is a crazy take. Calling me childish and telling me that I’m “freaking out” is bullying and textbook gaslighting.
Covid is not novel at this point. It’s been a thing since very early 2020. What more are we possibly gonna know about it? It’s a respiratory virus. Not unlike many of its kind.
We have a vaccine for it. Anybody who is at risk can walk in and get it free.
I’m fully vaccinated. There is absolutely no reason for me to wear a mask. I’ve done my part. My obligations to society are over. I now can return to actual normal, no matter what people convince themselves of.
Pushing this dystopian “new normal” crap is, quite frankly, insane. There will be no new normal. People pushing for it need to be rigorously called out for the insanity they are preaching. Party is over.
> It’s a respiratory virus. Not unlike many of its kind.
It's very much unlike others of its kind. And it is novel. It is literally called a "novel coronavirus". Just to give you an idea how deadly and different this virus is:
- An outbreak of Ebola from 2014 to 2016 killed 11,310 people in West Africa.
- In 2009, the H1N1 pandemic killed approximately 12,469 people in the US.
- In 2014, during the MERS-CoV pandemic, 2 people in the US tested positive.
- As of today, COVID-19 has killed 661,000 people in the US.
COVID-19 is 53 times more deadly than the last major coronavirus pandemic in the US. Fifty. Three. Times.
> We have a vaccine for it.
We have a vaccine developed for the first variant of it, alpha. The vaccine was not developed against the delta variant. There is a drastic difference in its effectiveness against delta. Hence why there are now new mask mandates - for vaccinated people - where delta is rampaging. Are you telling me you didn't know this at all?
> I’ve done my part. My obligations to society are over.
Actually, no, society literally requires you by law to continue to wear masks in places where Delta is surging. But whatever; you want to kill people, you're gonna kill people.
I get it. You're petrified. But life will get better, and it does indeed change. "Normal" does shift. People didn't used to wear condoms, now they do (except for you). People didn't used to brush their teeth, now they do (except for you). People didn't used to wash their hands, now they do (except for you). You apparently live in 1750, where medical science and overall culture hasn't changed for hundreds of years, where everything is totally normal and will never ever ever ever Ever EVER change. Because everyone else is just insane, and you're normal.
Everyone can make their own choices, but I don't mind wearing a mask in optional scenarios if it gives me a good chance of avoiding a difficult and feverish few days with above average risk of hospitalization compared to flu. I can definitely picture wearing masks on an ongoing basis e.g. on mass transit even once the pandemic is done. On the other hand, we are still taking measured risks like eating indoors in not too crowded restaurants. My tolerance will likely increase once my children are both vaxxed but at the rate we're going that won't be for a while.
It's worth considering the continuum between taking the minimum possible measures and the maximum. There is space between those two.
This is one of the potentially higher risk activities that I see commonly accepted. If your area has high rates of community spread and/or the restraunt has poor ventilation, this is probably a risk that should be avoided. Choosing restraunts with outdoor seating or getting takeout to eat in a park is a very minor sacrifice to cut out one of the hishest risk activities that people commonly engage in
> [Indoor dining] is probably a risk that should be avoided
Eh. I have seen conflicting data on this. For example, some studies attributed only 1% of COVID spread to indoor dining (sorry in advance, I don't have a citation). My area is very highly vaccinated and requires all people to show a vaccine card to eat indoors, and while we do have some cases, the per capita rate right now is about 1/10000 and level.
Also, point of order, you can tell me I "should" do something according to your values, or according to some mutually agreed standard (which in this case does not exist), but you cannot tell me what I should do according to my values. I feel like this is a point of communication disconnect between those of us who favor increased or decreased COVID restrictions.
> Eh. I have seen conflicting data on this. For example, some studies attributed only 1% of COVID spread to indoor dining (sorry in advance, I don't have a citation)
This is pretty useless without details on the study conditions. If the study includes a population for which indoor dining is allowed 10% (on a per capita per day basis) but masks are mandated in other venues at a 0% rate, then the proportional amount of spread drom indoor dining should much lower that if the data is collected where indoor dining is allowed 100% and mask mandate coverage is 100%.
Similarly, if you don't bother to wear a mask in other indoor settings, indoor dining won't be as high among your risks. If you work from home, always mask everywhere and are very careful with social distancing, and have a similarly cautious bubble, indoor dining will probably be among your highest risk.
I mean "should" as in "if managing your covid risks is something you care about, this is a low impact way to reduce those risks when your local situation makes that important." Since I am not advocating any externally imposed restrictions, I think you are reading things into my comment that aren't there.
Living in a dense, student-heavy neighborhood of the Boston area, I really hope that this isn't the thinking of many students who just arrived, from all over.
The thinking is understandable, but a pandemic like Covid-19 seems like one scenario in which a billion small individual sacrifices together could've (and possibly still can) be a dramatically positive net benefit to the world.
One way to think about the significance of minor individual sacrifice like voluntarily masking (where it's not absolutely required by law/rules) is that every infection will tend to spread exponentially. Passing it on to even only one person seems like that would likely result in at least one tragedy for someone else's family. IIUC, masking reduces that significantly, so masking when I believe there's a significant risk of spread seems an easy decision to me.
I am willing to wear a mask and practice social distancing for a period of time—in the aim of some goal. I'm not willing to do it forever. Which is why I wore a mask until this summer when vaccines were widely available.
Give me an end date, and explain why things will be different then, and I'll do it! Honestly! But right now, I'm looking around and I'm not seeing a timeline.
It's a pandemic. Why would you expect a firm end date?
I know we're living in strange and difficult times, but I feel like a lot of people haven't accepted that just because you're tired of it, doesn't mean the pandemic is over, doesn't mean it's a good idea to stop taking measures to reduce illness and death.
> It's a pandemic. Why would you expect a firm end date?
Or an event, and a plausible way the world will get there. Please tell me what the goal is.
I don't think COVID is ever going to go away, just as the flu has never gone away, and every number I've seen indicates that if you're vaccinated (!), the risk of either virus putting you in the hospital is similar.
That seems to me like it's as good as it's gonna get.
I think a major reason the FDA is dragging their heels is because children under 12 are not at serious risk from COVID in the first place, so the risk vs reward calculous is very different.
Which is subsequently why I'm not particularly worried. Yes, the stories of the children who are in the hospital are heartbreaking, but they're the outliers.
Edit: Actually, I just realized something... now that the Pfizer vaccine is fully FDA approved, parents should be able to find a pediatrician who will administer the vaccine off-label, if they want their kids to have it badly enough...
If kids truly needed a vaccine, they’d be approved by now. The fact is kids are not at all even close to being at risk of covid. This is something that all these public health “experts” should be cheering about but I good news hasn’t been allowed since March of 2020. Good news around covid has always been met with outrage and mockery.
Because we think the powers that be might not ever let it be "over". Remember that after it became apparent that "two weeks" was a lie, the next lie where the goalposts were moved to was "once a vaccine is widely available".
> Remember that after it became apparent that "two weeks" was a lie...
It wasn't a lie.
First off, significant portions of the population refused to take the measures advised.
Second, it's on you if you took "two weeks to slow the spread" (and yes, it was slow, not stop; https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/trumps-coronavirus-guideline...) as "two weeks to slow the spread and then we're done". That's an absurd misunderstanding of the point of it.
^ Just to be clear, I personally don't think there's some conspiracy. I just think a lot of people aren't reasoning about the level of risk in a rational way. They absolutely were in 2020, but now we have widely-available vaccines.
I don't know when this will end, nor what the end will look like.
To consult recent history, my layperson's vague impression is, if early on we'd had better leadership and precautions compliance, we would've already incurred vastly fewer family tragedies, and the pandemic might've even been all but over by now.
So, personally (and I know my situation is easier than many people's), I can hold out longer with precautions, and I'm not yet willing to just give in to the same mistakes that seemed to contribute to us getting into the current challenging situation.
But I'm not going to change my behavior, because I'd rather be sick for a week than sit at home 24/7 for the next year, or wear a mask every time I step outside, and constantly monitor my physical distance from other people. My life is passing me by right now, and I want to enjoy it while I can.