This is incredibly helpful. It's especially meaningful given that you have been very clearly NOT a Covid denier at any point and very much recognized the risks early on.
Great article although I don’t see why it would even help to go to a bar and wear a mask. You aren’t drinking through the mask. It’s like when restaurants made you wear a mask to get to the restaurant and then you take it off to eat. Utter nonsense.
Thanks for writing about this. My family attended a memorial for my mother this summer in Kansas. 24 of the 30 attendees tested positive for COVID. One attendee, a man in his 80’s wound up in the hospital, lost 15 pounds, and is considerably weakened physically and cognitively.
I liked the nuance in this post regarding the term "disability", as it's often just used as a catch all without any detailed information.
Given the general population level of vaccine use/previous exposure and the effectiveness of high quality masks, if I'm vaccinated and masking, how much does it matter for my health if other people are masking? I'm sure it helps reduce risk, but is it essentially negligible?
That's a very useful question to which I don't have a great answer. It probably helps a bit, but I think it's likely not nearly as much as some of the "covid conscious" people seem to believe.
During 'the season' public transport, doctors / ED waiting rooms, and chemists always seem like mask-appropriate environments to me. It's not (just) about Covid now days, but that I learned something from the pandemic - I don't have to pick up every cough, cold, sniffle, and flu that goes around!
Just before the pandemic, I had side gigs teaching chess and martial arts to small children, and worked in a shared office. During the pandemic I lost the martial arts job (dojo closed down), chess moved to Zoom, and I worked from home. I still do. The difference in how often I get sick is *astounding*. I think I've been sick twice in the last three years; before that it was every few months. (Both my chess kids and my martial arts kids sometimes resorted to licking the chess pieces, or their own wrists, to discourage the opponent. It was the germiest environment I've ever been in.)
I got COVID anyway (made a good recovery luckily) but I sure do enjoy not getting sick with everything else.
Thank you for always having such a measured response. In some of the zero covid/covid conscious groups, they float as fact that long covid cases are climbing (no more perimenopause or brain fog or chronic cough- it is ALL long covid) and basically vilify anyone not masking to leave their house. I fall somewhere in between. I mask in medical facilities and in big crowds during respiratory season, but I absolutely won’t wear a mask to walk my dog outside. I think people can become so entrenched in their beliefs that they cannot see facts.
Thanks for this great, informative piece! Do you have a sense of how the risk of developing long COVID varies for different immunocompromised groups? That is, do we know if the rate of LC is decreasing equally fast in both the healthy general population and in the immunocompromised? I'm also curious about the benefit of Invivyd's COVID PReP vs. the perhaps enhanced risks faced by immunocompromised people on VVYD2. Cheers.
There is no quality evidence that wearing masks in the community significantly reduces the spread of colds, the flu or COVID-19. Only P100 respirators are effective (but only for the wearer) against respiratory illnesses, nothing less.
The reason most people don’t wear masks, even at hospital during peak seasons, is directly because of these people. No one wants to look like they’re part of this deranged group. Ironically, in their quest to cull the clean from the unclean, they’ve sullied their cause irrevocably.
And it didn’t start in 2021 or 22. Actually it began in 2020 in Europe with the phrase: “your mask protects me.” It was already game/over for public buy-in, bc the most vocal proponents were never promoting a health strategy; they were propounding a religion—complete with an apostasy & a moral penalty structure.
This is incredibly helpful. It's especially meaningful given that you have been very clearly NOT a Covid denier at any point and very much recognized the risks early on.
thank you for writing about this, the discourse has been heated
I can report that trains are still viral ground zero. Wished I had worn a mask. 🤒
(Dunno what exactly got me. Combi test was negative.)
Great article although I don’t see why it would even help to go to a bar and wear a mask. You aren’t drinking through the mask. It’s like when restaurants made you wear a mask to get to the restaurant and then you take it off to eat. Utter nonsense.
Thanks for writing about this. My family attended a memorial for my mother this summer in Kansas. 24 of the 30 attendees tested positive for COVID. One attendee, a man in his 80’s wound up in the hospital, lost 15 pounds, and is considerably weakened physically and cognitively.
I liked the nuance in this post regarding the term "disability", as it's often just used as a catch all without any detailed information.
Given the general population level of vaccine use/previous exposure and the effectiveness of high quality masks, if I'm vaccinated and masking, how much does it matter for my health if other people are masking? I'm sure it helps reduce risk, but is it essentially negligible?
That's a very useful question to which I don't have a great answer. It probably helps a bit, but I think it's likely not nearly as much as some of the "covid conscious" people seem to believe.
Might be worth acknowledging that mask wearing was always a signalling and mental health related behaviour on top of any rational risk reduction.
I’ll be sure to let my dentist know that when I’m next in his chair.
People were wearing masks alone in their own cars dude.
You said “always,” dude.
During 'the season' public transport, doctors / ED waiting rooms, and chemists always seem like mask-appropriate environments to me. It's not (just) about Covid now days, but that I learned something from the pandemic - I don't have to pick up every cough, cold, sniffle, and flu that goes around!
Just before the pandemic, I had side gigs teaching chess and martial arts to small children, and worked in a shared office. During the pandemic I lost the martial arts job (dojo closed down), chess moved to Zoom, and I worked from home. I still do. The difference in how often I get sick is *astounding*. I think I've been sick twice in the last three years; before that it was every few months. (Both my chess kids and my martial arts kids sometimes resorted to licking the chess pieces, or their own wrists, to discourage the opponent. It was the germiest environment I've ever been in.)
I got COVID anyway (made a good recovery luckily) but I sure do enjoy not getting sick with everything else.
Thank you for always having such a measured response. In some of the zero covid/covid conscious groups, they float as fact that long covid cases are climbing (no more perimenopause or brain fog or chronic cough- it is ALL long covid) and basically vilify anyone not masking to leave their house. I fall somewhere in between. I mask in medical facilities and in big crowds during respiratory season, but I absolutely won’t wear a mask to walk my dog outside. I think people can become so entrenched in their beliefs that they cannot see facts.
Very thoughtful and nuanced piece. Good job
Thanks for this great, informative piece! Do you have a sense of how the risk of developing long COVID varies for different immunocompromised groups? That is, do we know if the rate of LC is decreasing equally fast in both the healthy general population and in the immunocompromised? I'm also curious about the benefit of Invivyd's COVID PReP vs. the perhaps enhanced risks faced by immunocompromised people on VVYD2. Cheers.
There is no quality evidence that wearing masks in the community significantly reduces the spread of colds, the flu or COVID-19. Only P100 respirators are effective (but only for the wearer) against respiratory illnesses, nothing less.
The reason most people don’t wear masks, even at hospital during peak seasons, is directly because of these people. No one wants to look like they’re part of this deranged group. Ironically, in their quest to cull the clean from the unclean, they’ve sullied their cause irrevocably.
And it didn’t start in 2021 or 22. Actually it began in 2020 in Europe with the phrase: “your mask protects me.” It was already game/over for public buy-in, bc the most vocal proponents were never promoting a health strategy; they were propounding a religion—complete with an apostasy & a moral penalty structure.
When all the physicians at the local “Doc in a box” are wearing a mask, I am too.
What are your thoughts about masking for a transplant recipient today ? As we head into respiratory season, I plan on masking in crowded places.