Basically, wanted to know where people are at with mask wearing (as it relates to containing covid and all), I know it's been a while since it started. And I've seen people who say covid can still be threatening, like through long covid and such, even if the initial impact doesn't tend to be as bad. Being in the US, it's especially hard to tell what makes sense because the gov sorta gave up on containment a while back and only ever half-assed pushing mask wearing. And wearing a mask alone was a controversial thing in some places, even in the very beginning. Then there's vaccines, which of course help, but seems to be a thing like the flu where you have to get boosters to be fully covered for variant strains.
So in general, I'm wondering stuff like:
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Do you still wear a mask or not and why? And do you have distinctions like large crowds or anything like that?
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How does mask wearing compare by country, from what you know? For example, I'm sure China has a more pro-mask-wearing culture and policy overall, but I'm not clear on where they're at this late into it.
Partly asking cause I want to re-assess my own position on it, see if it makes sense to change it at all by now. I've still been doing it, in part out of inertia, but the US management of it is such a mess, in gov and culture, it's hard to tell when it makes sense to stop vs. just caving to peer pressure of people who were never acting responsibly to begin with.
Every time I want to forget COVID, my partner has another bi-weekly breathing crisis that's been going on since her infection in 2022. My best friend has been out of work since she last got Covid in 2020.
People that give me shit about masking are the grossest boomer reactionaries that I know, and I revel that I piss those knobheads off. Granted my situation is maybe easier than most, I'm white, tall, old, and have professional credentials. I think it's probably harder to fuck with me than a lot of other people.
Hey all you saying you don’t mask anymore: thanks for contributing to the deaths of millions of people like me, a disabled person who doesn’t get a choice. Hope it’s worth it. Fuck you.
“Nobody’s doing it so why would I” are the words of liberalism. Kill it or die with it. How dare any of you call yourselves my “comrades”.
Fully agree with you here, I mask over 12h daily and been doing it all this time, astonishing even the amount of people here that dont treat Covid seriously.
Kill it or die with it. How dare any of you call yourselves my “comrades”.
Facts. This is the only energy I accept regarding COVID and how to handle it; otherwise you and I are not comrades. If a so-called "comrade's" refusal to mask could disable or kill my family, they can call themselves whatever the fuck they want, but I ain't claiming their undisciplined ass.
If you're really out here like "wuhhhh no one else is dealing with it so why should I", if you're really out here like "it's a style choice at this point", if you're really out here like "but i need to see faces for 2% of my interactions in a day how dare you interfere with my liberty", then how the FUCK am I supposed to trust that when the pigs are goosestepping down the street with M4s at port ready over their chests, that when there's Humvees convoying down the streets of my hood, that when the Second Night of Long Knives happens, that ANY of you'd have the discipline to be of ANY FUCKING USE?
"capitalist governments won't do this thing to protect my community so why should i?" - allegedly a communist
I don't see why that gives you the right to tone police and concern troll a person who has a legitimate fear of death. I think a better answer would be compassion for her.
Nobody's not being liberals in the imperialcore too and yet they don't get off the hook here. It's a very annoying double standard to have.
I always wear a mask when sharing breath outside my household. That means everywhere inside. That means outsids if I'm near people. Even if it's just one person -- it only takes one oerson to spread disease. Covid is airborne and has killed and disabled millions. The vaccines lessen the chance of death in the acute phase but don't prevent Long Covid and I'm not willing to get Long Covid.
Covid is a class issue. The capitalists got pissed that keeping people safe from covid was too expensive and disruptive to business as normal so they sent the working class into the meat grinder and have manufactured the myth that it's over. All for their economy. Its not over and all the young people I see coming down with POTS, cognitive decline, and chronic fatigue are a testament to that fact.
Wear a respirator anytime you have to breathe in someone's exhalations -- kf94, kn95, n95, or better (kf99, kn100, p100). It should seal on your face, not have giant gaps. You can get body-safe double-sided tape called "mask tape" to affix a disposable respirator to your face. It's a bit more upfront effort and cost but you can get a resuable elastomeric respirator -- my P100 cost 30 to 40 dollars and the filters last for 3-4 months before they need replacing, at $15 per replacement set.
Never give in. Those who pressure you won't take care of you if you become disabled from Covid. They won't even care enough to spit on your grave if you die from it directly, or die from the disability and systemic oppression that is rained down upon those who cannot work. They won't spit on your grave because that would require remembering and acknowledging what they did to you and they'd rather sleepwalk to their own joyful doom with no acknowledgement of the cost in human blood to disrupt their shared mass delusion.
Never give in. Those who pressure you won't take care of you if you become disabled from Covid.
So much of my journey from being a liberal to a communist was figuring out that my middle-class (and middle-class aspirational) friends would drop me in an instant the second my life faced the tiniest of difficulties.
It's pure fantasy to imagine that any of my old family or friends, short of possibly two people, would give a fuck about me as a disabled person.
Absolutely. These people don't understand what a "friend" is -- at most they're friendly acquaintances
Masks and respirators for prevention of respiratory infections: a state of the science review
You may find this useful as an in-depth look on the topic of masking. It's pretty long, but I think worth the read.
I do still mask every time I leave my apartment. There's essentially no reason not to in my opinion. It would obviously be much safer if everyone was still masking, but at least in my experience, diligent masking has been very effective at preventing illness in my household despite the lack of precaution from the public. People can be kind of weird about it sometimes, but it's mostly limited to staring and the occasional rude statement, which as a trans woman is something I was used to before the pandemic anyways lol. I do worry sometimes about the chance of someone getting violent with me or my wife, but also if the alternative is giving up the mask and destroying our health, and maybe even killing her if we get unlucky, just to please ableist assholes, well, the choice is obvious to me.
I wish I knew more about the masking culture of other countries. All I can say with certainty is that in my community (A large city in the US), nobody gives a fuck about public health at all, and largely refuse to change their lifestyle in any way to help themselves, much less anyone else. Unmasked people outweigh masked people by an enormous amount, and the few maskers are often wearing surgical masks or other insufficient PPE, and I frequently see people still wearing them beneath their nose or taking them off in public. Many people I talk to are well aware that Covid is still around and is destroying everyone's health, but they either seem to think it doesn't affect them, or prefer to live in a lie and ignore it.
Will take a look at it in more depth at some point, good to have on hand.
There’s essentially no reason not to in my opinion. It would obviously be much safer if everyone was still masking, but at least in my experience, diligent masking has been very effective at preventing illness in my household despite the lack of precaution from the public.
This makes sense to me and I think is generally the sort of reasoning I've gone by in the past. Like a percentages thing. Even if you're living in a household where not everybody is doing it, as I am, reducing the odds of bringing something home is still better than nothing.
This community might be of interest as they still talk about it a lot there: !covid@hexbear.net
I still wear a mask. I wouldn't necessarily wear one or keep one on if I was walking around a lightly populated park or down the sidewalk but I would before going into a store or a crowd (even outdoors) or any enclosed space with people like a train or station.
I'm not sure how mask wearing compares by country. In most of Asia it seems like it's been normalized for decades for people who are feeling ill or have certain conditions to wear the blue cloth medical masks so I doubt in most of Asia it's a big deal in most situations compared to the west where you have anti-mask reactionary sentiment and ideology that favors individual recklessness rather than responsibility.
The covid comm on hexbear has gotta be my favourite place. We also broke no bs and minimisation.
Bookmarking that to read more on later, thanks. And yeah, I've wondered about the difference there - like would people in those places in Asia where it's normal even face any reaction at all for wearing a mask long past public mandates or would they just be viewed as socially responsible people. Part of why I'm curious about that, is because if I only go by what the US is doing as a general thing, it could lead to some very irresponsible decision-making. There's a lot of science ignorance and the like here. And of course the individualism in the US that goes something like: "if the odds are low that it will inconvenience me, then why should I care if it might kill someone else?" Not that I think people are reasoning it out that consciously, but that's sort of the implication of the lackadaisical attitude toward it.
I wear masks everywhere I share air with people and request anyone that enters my home does the same. there's social pressure everywhere to not wear them, but I'd rather deal with social pressure than risk getting covid. it's a threat to any part of your body that uses blood and thus worth tremendous effort to avoid where practicable.
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I do whenever I can, in my work I can't, because it's socially so frowned upon here. I try to work alone/remote as much as I can becaude of this and bought and aur purifier for my office, I have high risk loved ones, have longcovid and so does people closest to me. I'd rather mask everywhere, did not miss the smells of other peoples sweat at all.
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In my country (Finland) masking was negatively framed from day one. Also it was strongly hinted that they don't work, there's nothing we can do and the frail will fall regardless.
There have been no masks used here for most of the time I masked everywhere, the mask wearing only happened for the delta wave, but when the vaccinations began, they disappeared. "Expert" opinion has been very anti-mask and covid has been "just a cold" that only kills old people all along.
This whole thing has been my single biggest eye-opener to the fucked up fascist values I have actually grown up surrounded by. It has also made me understand that covid and covid protection is 100% a working class issue and a matter of class consciousness. It's the workers like me who don't get protected that die from it or get longcovid. Also lots of eugenist brainworms in my country.
This is a country where unironically one popular saying is "there's still room behind the sauna" and this is supposedly a joke about how the undesirables used to be shot behind a sauna in our fash past and gets thrown around whenever someone for example does something dumb. We are the baddies actually and covid made me see this in its entirety, because the society I live in is behaving like monsters without even realizing it.
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I want to preface what im about to say by saying i do wear a mask, and think everyone should.
I think that the focus on masking was a misdirect similar to how the powerful will push personal responsibility about the climate to combat systemic issues. While yes masking is effective and important it means we are relying on the lowest common denominator of dumbasses to do the right thing. Which never works out well.
I think that a much better solution would be to have buildings like stores where large crowds gather indoors with air filtration systems, and UV overhead sanitation lighting. Especially at entrances and exits. Its been proven such measures make a big difference. You could easily incorporate UV lighting into normal light fixtures and effectively sanitize every surface in a building constantly. Air filtration is already in most buildings AC systems and could be retrofitted to filter for viral bodies. Most people would not even notice these things happening. People should still be encouraged to mask especially when they are sick, but solutions that do not rely on an individual doing the proper thing are much more reliable.
The reason they don't get pushed is that they cost money, and companies and governments do not want to do them. But when Biden was going to campaign events they brought portable air filters to keep the air in the buildings he was in clean so they are clearly aware of these solutions.
Also in this same vein vaccines during the height of covid were made free for those without insurance but i do not think that is the case anymore. Vaccination combined with those other solutions even without proper masking would massively reduce spread, and the fact it hasnt been done is simply a systemic issue.
Yes I wear a mask when I’m indoors away of my home. I do this for the safety of myself, my family, and others. And you should too. And you should be advocating for others to do the same if they can.
A better world is possible. One where we treat communicable illnesses as something to mitigate/eradicate. It is morally right to protect others, the indigent, the youth, the imfirmed, the vulnerable. Wearing a mask indoors while away from your home when there is an ongoing pandemic, one that causes systematic harm to the body and immune system, is the least you can do. Each COVID infection is a roll of the dice. It’s a chance for mutation in a disease that is known for mutation. If you feel personally inconvenienced by a mask then you should reconsider a lot of things. Accepting disease as simply part of life is uninformed. It denies that we live in a global, interconnected community. It is as fatalistic as accepting the unending supremacy of capital. That myopic view has no place in class consciousness. The pandemic is without question the fault of the owner class. They rely on our complacency, accepting preventable death whether by war, climate, or disease.
Fair point on it. I don't know that I can budge the immediate people in my life on it, but I will probably continue to do it myself. I think the part that makes it difficult is the normalization of it. This thing of people viewing it like "well it's just sort of part of the makeup of infections that can happen now, like the flu and I got a vaccine, so now the pandemic is over." And I don't know how to counter that to people because what am I supposed to say, ya know, "just keep wearing a mask for the rest of your life"? People want to believe there's a cutoff point, I'm sure, myself included. But it's been handled so poorly in some places, it seems almost like the poor handling of it itself is part of what's making it difficult to have a cut off point for precaution.
I gotta say, wearing an N95 all day was a lot easier after doing it long enough. Some silly part of me doesn't want to go Flomask because of the opinions of strangers, but really I need to disregard this.
I'm sorry you got long covid. :( I can relate on the getting infected most likely due to others. The family members I was living with was good about it for a while and we'd avoided infection afaik and then another came in who wasn't so good about it and it was late in, post-vaccine too, so all the harder to argue the importance of it and we all got infected at one point. Don't think any of us got long covid, but it's that thing where all it takes sometimes is one person to be selfish about it. It's very frustrating.
you have to get boosters to be fully covered for variant strains.
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Speaking of boosters, friendly reminder that at least in the US, 2024 updated Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been out for a few weeks. If you haven't already, look into getting your updated booster soon :)
Any way to get it with no insurance without paying out the ass?
I mask every day; I will stop masking and taking precautions the moment the pandemic is over. I will not risk disability or death for myself or anybody in my life for the acceptance of those who deny science or for the mild convenience of not putting on a mask
It depends on what kind of mask. If you're wearing an N95/KN94 mask then you're protecting yourself (and if it doesn't have a valve also others if you happen to have it) by filtering 95/94% of viral particles.
Though I agree it could attract unwanted attention and hassle in some areas. Even in a place like California I've been followed around stores for a minute or so for still masking by employees who I guess thought I was there to shoplift but I've never been seriously confronted about it. I've had a cowardly guy shout from a dozen feet away how I should take it off and some rambling nonsense but I just stared at him and he stormed off, I've had a handful of guys tell me it's a shame I'm wearing it because they'd like to see my "pretty face" (ugh), but most people don't say anything. I'm sure many anti-maskers resent me but given most of the public has joined them in giving up I think they're content to just feel smugly superior and say shit behind my back which I can live with.
And here I thought California would at least be a little better about maskers.
Me wearing a mask around when nobody else is feels more like virtue signaling than anything
I don't want to beat up a fellow Marxist, but who cares what conservatives and libs think? Mask to protect you and your family. Those people who you're worried about judging won't give a fuck when you or your loved ones are disabled.
It's sort of a "nobody says anything but almost nobody else is doing it" thing here. I don't seem to be in an area where people will actively pushback about it, but there's few still doing it. If you're actually getting tirades about it, I can understand not wanting to risk drawing the attention.
If you see taking basic precautions towards preventing an infectious disease as a ‘style choice’ then I suppose you can’t expect much patience and decorum from people who are especially at risk of its worst effects
Clearly systemic approaches are the appropriate response to a pandemic. But our capitalist system has utterly failed to address this problem or put forth the most basic of solutions. So we must collectively work to protect one another in spite of their actions. Nobody is immune to Covid. Even as somebody who has gotten every vaccine the moment I could, I am susceptible to an infection, just much less so than somebody without the vaccines. Even if I got lucky and it was asymptomatic for me, I can act as a vector to spread it to somebody who is more at risk or just less lucky and who has major health outcomes for it. I’d much rather stick out in a crowd for masking than be the person responsible for passing the virus
It’s not about ‘viewing the world as a threat’ or ‘living in fear’ or whatever. It’s about community protection and mitigating the fallout of the ruling class’ selfish policies. The response of any revolutionary to systemic failures which are harming us should be collective action and education, and masks are a large part of that in the current climate of an ongoing pandemic. I wouldn’t look at the fact that millions of Americans vote for dems and repubs and conclude “the people want capitalism, I may as well give up on socialism.” Same principle should apply here
Would you prefer "petri dish"? How 'bout "Nurglite"? There's two immunocompromised people in my house, and a dozen in my personal orbit. Three of them have ALREADY been to the hospital over COVID. SEVEN OF THEM, MYSELF INCLUDED, have dealt with Long COVID symptoms after our infections passed.
I am beyond camaraderie or even so much as friendship, with anyone who'd further jeopardize the health and safety of my family. Plague. Rats. I'll cross the street in front of you in public if I don't see a mask on you, with the dirtiest look as I go by.
I don’t think calling the vast majority of people rats is as good of a look as you think it is,
You obviously don't know me then, I don't give the first fuck about optics in the eyes of crackers. I care about protecting the people I chose; and those who willingly carry pathogens and plagues in their faces are a tacit danger to me and my family.
I hope you have to live with the kind of lung scarring that my partner has to because crackers in my where wouldn't mask. I hope you have to live with the kind of brainfog that my grandfather has to exist in if he tries to exert himself in the ways he used to before the pandemic.
I curse you with that.
the people coming here from hexbear should take a deep breath and realize we all went thru the shit during covid and that not everyone is american
99% of Americans would rather have all Palestinians get killed by Israel than see a 10% drop in the S&P 500 from arms divestment that'd be reflected in their retirement portfolio. Does that mean that communists have to bend over and not call out the bloodthirsty settlerbrained nonsense that the vast majority of people believe? Do we have to be nice to people who are committing violence against the disabled and elderly because they happen to be the overwhelming majority? Do we have to extend that politeness to online spaces that are supposed to be for likeminded people yet still appear to be full of the same plague rat mentality?
Really? I've seen a protest a week since Oct 6
Yep, not to mention somewhere about 60-70% of Americans disapprove of Israel's genocide. But the Uncommitted Movement just endorsed Kamala Harris. UAW had endorsed Joe Biden months ago after no concessions wrt Gaza. The distance between where western leftists lie and the radical actions that are actually necessary to stop the genocide of the Palestinian people, COVID, and climate collapse is immense. What do you think happens to that 60-70% figure when you break down the effects of the collapse of American empire? Do you think anywhere more than a miniscule number of Americans currently stand in solidarity with the aims of the Axis of Resistance of complete eradication of the Zionist entity and American presence from Western Asia? Or are they just sad because they saw Palestinians being murdered, but will just as easily become outraged by whatever propaganda tells them to be angry about China or Russia next?
What does this tell us about COVID? Upthread there is already criticism of the individualistic approach of criticizing non-mask-wearers and prescription of new measures for the COVID conscious community to demand. HEPA filters, better ventilation, etc. But the thing these issues have in common with the failure of western anti imperialism, is that if we can't even get the basic knowledge across to a critical mass of people, as to make them make changes in their ordinary routines and daily behavior, then we obviously have a nearly impossible task ahead of us when tackling systems that have defence mechanisms built into them, much hardee defence mechanisms than simple force of habit.
Does that mean that the most effective strategy is to scream at people until they change their minds about the small stuff, then get together to scream about the big stuff? Obviously not, that strategy is ineffective on its own and I agree with you there. But when immunocompromised comrades' lives are on the line, of couse I'll scream at people who should get it because it's patently absurd that I have to explain basic facts that we already understood a couple months into the pandemic to people that are supposed to be materialists.
