I don’t really leave the house that often, mostly to walk the dog, but I don’t then cuz it’s a huge open air space.
I do on the bus because of how confined it is and how many people use/touch it, but besides that I have no idea.
Do you always have to wear a mask in these places? Or just when there is a covid spike?
How do you even know when there is a covid spike for that matter?
Always indoors. Always in crowded outdoor areas, but I rarely deal with that shit. Tbh, since I have to mask at home, when I go out I rarely even bother taking it off even if I'm not around other people outside. Just easier to leave it on.
I watch wastewater, but in all reality the "lull" between surges is so high we don't really get a break anymore. Best to assume you are always in active area.
For reference, https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/rv/COVID19-nationaltrend.html puts us at a 'low' wastewater level ATM, 1.94 nationally. April 2022 was about the same. The difference is, in 2024 far more people have been disabled by the pandemic and have compromised immune systems, and in 2022 almost everyone was up to date on their vaccines. Right now, a negligible number of people who aren't 65 or older or immunocompromised have their vaccines up to date. So IMO it makes very little sense that if your calculation in 2022 was to always mask (which was the case for everyone who wasn't an antimask psycho at the time), there's no reason other than peer pressure to be anal about when to mask or not in 2024.
imo, the CDC can lick my BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. We're monitoring far less locations now and they've been so manipulative with their maps that it's criminal. Florida has 67 counties and the CDC has 20 locations spread among 10 of them. They average sites together that are nowhere near each other and then call it good with a MINIMAL.
Meanwhile over on the wastewaterscan.org dashboard...
The high lulls are maintained by spikes occurring in the unmonitored areas, viral spread isn't as simple as each person infects one or two people and that's how lulls are kept as they are. Viral spread needs spikes in order to make up for the people that don't spread. those are then averaged out in the wastwater and give us a "level" lull. There are random spikes occurring in unmonitored areas that people are spreading into the monitored areas.
edit: I really need to figure out how to explain this better. Maybe a with video or something.
Thanks for the source! Also, it really is a tragedy how monitoring has been completely gutted so on top of the government providing the conditions for capital to kill all of us, we also can't even attempt to make informed decisions because the information is simply not there.
Welcome! Yeah, I'm not a happy camper. Especially as the wheels on this crazy ride become more and more wobbly and we find ourselves having to deal with more than just covid. There's a big outbreak of walking pneumonia going on among kids now and I think one of my niblings has it. But hey, could be covid too. Who knows since no one is testing for anything.