Reply to Americans at high risk advised to wear masks as new Covid variant detected

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Huge spike?  [/quote]

it’s honestly like these people get excited from contemplating a “huge” spike[/quote]

There is a difference between giving a warning and getting "excited."

If you don't already have long covid, and don't want to mask, fine. Go for it. [/quote]

We don't want mandates coming back because of those who want to mask and, most importantly, can't wait to force everyone to mask again.  In some places mandates already restarted.  The idea that we will continue living like this with masking and possibly lockdown waves every now and then and all the division and friction among people doesn't make me happy.  If it makes you happy, you are a sociopath.  We know that this virus isn't going away, it's a merry-go-round thing.  Masking and lockdowns didn't stop it even in places implementing most draconian measures.  And it's not about personal protection, this has been always available to everyone who wanted.  Some continued wearing masks and never stopped, they were not unicorns. 
 and nobody really cared about this until the usual "recommendations" that lead to mandates in some places first (already started) and then spread like cancer all over, into every classroom, office, store, public transit, etc.   [/quote]

It doesn’t make us “happy” to acknowledge that this is in fact what is happening. It is reality. There will be waves. They are disproportionately dangerous for some in our society and not to others. The question is: how do we respond to those facts?

Your preference is we all act like it’s not happening and some degree of eugenic selection occurs and in fact may even be celebrated (as it has been in this very thread).

My preference is a society that values inclusion of disabled people, and in a society like the one I want there will be some masking required—especially in places where personal presence is not optional.

For those of us who cannot take the chance of repeated COVID infection, those mask rules make us more free to move around the world with the same freedom you claim to so prize for yourself and in general.

We can each repeat ourselves about this forever. The bottom line is you are highly ideologically motivated to act like masks do not matter and I am highly motivated by a desire to keep living as normally as possible, and without additional disability, to act like they do. Don’t confuse that with whether I am “happy” about it or not.[/quote]

But if the mask protects the wearer, why do you need others to wear the mask? [/quote]

because they are in love with the slogan “my mask protects you and your mask protects me.” I have a very sweet friend who would get upset about this because she truly believed that as long as anyone else believed that her masking would help them, she should do it. she didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. she  wasn’t open to discussing the actual science or acknowledging that some people really dislike masking (or are prejudiced by it) because it upset her to feel like people were being “mean” about it. [/quote]

Ah, no. That is not the answer to the question the PP asked me. I’m pretty confident in my own N95 (which has been fit-tested)

Masks reduce transmission. The science is clear. But as that science also demonstrates, masking as a practice is imperfect—not everyone wears or can wear them correctly, has access to high-filtration masks that fit, etc.

When the variants are highly contagious, reducing the total amount of virus circulating, especially in spaces people are required to be in, improves everyone’s chances of avoiding illness. That reduction happens by masking and it also happens by filtration and ventilation.

All of that has a disproportionate positive impact on people who are experiencing disproportionate negative impacts in trying to be present and participating in our shared society most of the rest of the time.

My view on this has nothing to do with making anyone comfortable or uncomfortable. Comfortable or not, mean or not—it’s irrelevant to this view. The question is: are we doing all we can to keep people in my community—who are also in the disabled community—alive and as healthy as possible, or not?

My answer is we should be. Yours is that we shouldn’t.

[/quote]

No, my answer is a) you are wrong about the benefits of masking and b) you are showing huge cognitive bias in decreeing one rather random thing that means we are “doing all we can to keep people alive and as healthy as possible.” How about universal health care? Reducing air pollution? Getting everyone to wear sunscreen? Taking the bus instead of driving to reduce global warming? Did you fly on vacation this year and emit a ton of carbon just so you could have fun? You’re NOT “doing all you can.” You’re fixated on one arbitrary, mostly talisman symbol of what you think represents “I care more than Republicans do.”[/quote]

This is not about individual virtue-signaling behavior. This is about who the society will show care for and who it chooses to treat as discards.

What ARE you willing for us, as a society, to do going forward to minimize the number of disabled people getting killed or seriously injured by COVID because we encounter it in public spaces that we have no choice but to go to? 
[/quote]

NP  but NOTHING. I’m not doing any Covid rituals anymore, along with the rest of the world. Those who are that severely vulnerable need to do what they need to do, just as they did pre Covid. Because, there have and will always be nasty flu strains going around that would do as much harm to a person like this as Covid would. Society is not going to cater to you. [/quote]

Like the PP, your answer is that you are good with excluding these folks, on pain of further disability or death for them.

The idea that you speak for all of Earth for all time is not inevitable. [/quote]

Why don't we give you a giant round of applause for being the most virtuous person on this thread? GMAFB.

The CDC website says there were only 12,613 hospitalizations due to covid last week, in a country of 350,000,000 people. Deaths due to covid 1.7% (unclear 1.7% of what..) Why dont they give a specific number? Is it 1.7% of hospitalizations? So 200 people in the entire country?

Anyway, that might have something to do with the responses you're getting. I'm just not going to do the full routine when I'm a) not sick and b) not even statistically likely to encounter someone eventually needing hospitalization or dying. I'm just not.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home[/quote]

This. Covid is an endemic virus that has become one of many medical issues a person might worry about, but is no more dangerous to most people than the flu or RSV. And for many people it is no worse than a mild cold. It is no longer novel, so the stuff we saw early in the pandemic -- healthy young people dying of Covid -- are no longer happening. Now, the people most susceptible to Covid are the people who have always been most susceptible to respiratory illness -- the elderly, people with lung damage or diminished lung capacity. Actually one thing that has remained consistent throughout the pandemic and now endemic phases is that children do not appear to have any special vulnerability to Covid, which sets it apart from viruses like RSV which tend to be significantly more dangerous in young children and babies than in non-elderly adults.

If you want to be a "follow the science" person, it's important that you continue to follow science released AFTER the summer of 2020. Covid has evolved. If it remains your number one health concern, you are not following the science. If you want to mask children in schools, you are not following the science. If you insist on two way masking, you are not follow the science. If you claim special vulnerability to Covid due to a condition that somehow does not also make you more vulnerable to flu and RSV, you are not following the science.[/quote]

Stop making stuff up.  CDC is RECOMMENDING masking for some folks now.  And, yes, it works.  And, science says so.[/quote]

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