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Comment by viraptor | Hacker News Reader

I'm considering keeping the mask for shop trips and school pickups in the future, after covid dies down. There's just no downside to that really.

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This was common in Japan (and other Asian countries) long before COVID. Wearing a mask when sick has always been expected etiquette, and they’re also worn by healthy people who just want to be left alone in public.

The downside is that your immune system is strengthened by interacting with mild pathogens.

We just need a startup to sell mild pathogens online.

Don't give them ideas, "move fast and break things" is not something I want mixed with infectious diseases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTHg-tGvlJ8

One of the funniest things I've seen :-)

You’ll need a viral marketing campaign.

Pretty close to just being a vaccine.

You can still be exposed to mild stuff everywhere. YMMV. I choose shopping and school pickup because they're the places of biggest concentration of random sick people in my experience. I have regular contact with medical clinics and GPs so will get mild exposure either way.

Also, as others mentioned - flu shots.

There might be an unintended consequence on our immune systems from masks and lockdowns.

Yearly flu shots.

I wish there wasn't, but I have minor claustrophobia and masks make it worse.

But my understanding is that the vast majority of protection comes from other people wearing masks, is that wrong?

If you wear a properly fitting N95, you are protecting yourself, full stop.

From what I've read, that also requires you to be clean shaven

Yes. If you are working somewhere with known hazards, the standards for mask wearing are much higher.

As long as your facial hair doesn't cross the area where the mask seals to your face, it's fine.

For example, a Hitler mustache would probably be okay (though it may negatively impact your health in other ways)

https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/files/2017/11/Facia...

For some reason that style of beard is even less accepted in Germany than elsewhere. And anyway, my beard is a bit bigger than just a Nazi stache.

It’s more acceptable with a mask on.

The thinking before the pandemic was that there was almost no protection in wearing the mask for yourself which has been shown to be incorrect. The best thing to stop infection is still for everyone to wear a mask.

Can you point to where it was shown to be incorrect?

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-scien...

The US has been extremely behind other countries but even the CDC has finally acknowledged the benefits

Wait, are you serious? I truly cannot tell if that was a sarcastic comment or not.

I truly cannot tell if your comment is sarcastic or not. What is the downside to using mask if you feel like it?

I get that some might want to use masks forever, but to me it's alienating. We are already quite isolated from our community in our homes and in our cars, if everyone starts wearing masks at normal places to meet other people in the community I think that would be a bit sad.

Exactly. In all of the mask discussions, there should be more focus on the kind of life we want and less on the science of masks. I think it's pretty obvious that masks have immediate infection control benefits, and always will.

But it's a perfectly valid opinion that the benefits do not outweigh the societal impact of treating each other like infection vectors instead of having normal social behavior (as well as the option to wear a mask or stay away from people if your priorities are different).

I would rather risk death than live the rest of my life in a bubble, and there needs to be more of a discussion of what people value and the tradeoffs we're making.

"I would rather risk death than"

Whose?

Normally I'd ignore that, but yes, that's the classic argument to try and short circuit real debate by making us think that one death anywhere is worse than small actions we can take. I disagree, just like I think we should be able to create other social policies that don't save everyone but that try to compromise between the kind of world we want and the safety of its inhabitants. It's hard to think about and takes strong leadership to navigate, but instead of talking about that we focus of hyperbole and hashtags

It’s not black and white. If you drive you also risk other people’s deaths.

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