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Comment by hartator | Hacker News Reader

Aren’t everyone living in dense areas require to wear masks already anyway?

Not really. For example, Florida has no state-wide mandate and the individual city mandates there are not really enforceable [1].

[1] https://www.flgov.com/wp-content/uploads/orders/2020/EO_20-2...

Not an American but if it all goes by what I see in the news, no you are not.

The paper cites this website: https://covid19.healthdata.org/global?view=mask-use&tab=tren..., which reports 60% (self-reported) of people consistently wear masks. "Required" isn't the same as followed. Furthermore, I think this paper is modeling COVID19 deaths everywhere, not just in dense areas.

Every time I leave the bay area to go somewhere hiking, the towns I pass through are full of both (a) Trump flags and (b) people not wearing masks. Two weeks ago, employees at local bakeries near Mt. Shasta weren't wearing masks in the kitchen. Even the employees at Taco Bell Drive Thru near Mt. Shasta weren't wearing masks (they had their masks off their nose). Complained via Taco Bell website and got no response. That's America in a nutshell.

For most people, regular consumption of Taco Bell is probably a worse health risk than COVID-19. Obesity and hypertension are known killers on their own, and also increase the risk of a bad COVID-19 outcome.

But their consumption of Taco Bell is their own individual problem - their obesity and hypertension can't harm me or others. COVID-19 is different.

If you're being confined to your house over fears of indirectly killing the guy who can't put down the bag of Doritos...well yes.

COVID-19 lockdowns are predicated on the vulnerable which includes the obese and chronically ill.

I'm not confined to my house, I'm just taking effortless precautions like wearing a mask. I'm doing this more for my elderly grandparents, and people like them, not some strawman who eats too many Doritos.

> not some strawman who eats too many Doritos

Hold on a second, 42.4% obesity in the US must play into the danger of COVID to the US population. That's a very weird dismissal that doesn't really make sense.

It does harm you and others. By continually weakening their immune system, they are more prone to viruses which they spread to others.

Although I agree with you about the health risk of regular consumption of fast food, I'm not a regular consumer of Taco Bell, and occasional consumption of fast food is not a significant health risk to most people. I only hoped that when I passed through the area that a nationwide chain would have slightly better COVID sanitation standards than the local establishments I passed by at first. It turned out not to be the case.

Have you thought that they have better grasp on the risks involved than you especially if their communities are not devastated by the virus?

Some uncertainty in one's beliefs can be beneficial sometimes.

Or they've been influenced by a broad array of politicians and media figures into believing that COVID is essentially over and there was nothing to worry about in the first place.

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