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Comment by strogonoff | Hacker News Reader

I saw a video where a person, walking alone on an apparently empty sidewalk, is not scolded but harassed for not wearing a mask (there is a mask, just not worn). The harasser was the one proudly filming their heroic act.

(Addendum: there’s the obvious question, why not just wear a mask 100% of the time? There are no downsides, right? — There can be. Perhaps my mask had been in use for a while, I suspect it’s gotten dirty enough to be a potential health hazard, but I don’t have another mask to replace it? I’d still use it if people are around, but would try to reduce my exposure to it otherwise. Maybe I have asthma or some type of breathing difficulty, and wearing a mask makes it worse? I think those two are probably among the most common reasons.)

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WHO explicitly recommends against wearing masks while exercising: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

>FACT: People should NOT wear masks while exercising

>People should NOT wear masks when exercising, as masks may reduce the ability to breathe comfortably.

>Sweat can make the mask become wet more quickly which makes it difficult to breathe and promotes the growth of microorganisms. The important preventive measure during exercise is to maintain physical distance of at least one meter from others.

> The harasser was the one proudly filming their heroic act.

This behavior seems to be part of Call Out Culture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e9VYf9FKHo

For anyone interested in 'cancel culture' sans the reactionary right-wing propaganda: https://youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8

What is "reactionary right-wing propaganda" about Jonathan Haidt [1]? That's a completely unfounded assertion.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt

That's why "sans" was there.

Perhaps English is your second language (given your German username?) — "sans" means without. Thus the comment was implying that the ContraPoints video was "without" the implied "right-wing propaganda" in the Jonathan Haidt / Joe Rogan video.

Indeed its my second language, but I did get the meaning of sans right. Unfortunately I got mixed up with the two youtube links instead :)

This seems like it risks having an opposite effect.

How about the downside of normalizing wearing a mask? These are not normal times and this is not the new normal; I want everyone to wear a mask because it must be done not because we should permanently condition ourselves that this is how we now live.

I think the downside of not wearing a mask is, in fact, normalising not wearing a mask in the eyes of people who do not take into account that it’s not worn for a reason and because there is no one near me. Thus I try to put mask on when I see someone on the street even if they are far away.

I think not wearing masks again will be easy to normalise. For example, Hong Kong got hit by the first SARS and everyone wore a mask for a time, and then when it was over all was back to normal and masks quickly became rare.

I hope you are right, but I'm not convinced. Covid isn't just going to go away like switching off a light switch. A good number of people have gone way off the deep end with regard to "being safe". I'm not sure they will be able to reason about when the risk is low enough to be able to stop wearing a mask.

Some countries are now at nearly zero cases.

I believe once vaccines and better treatment are generally available and proven effective, it will be a cue to very quickly abandon excess caution for most people, even those who have gone to the extreme.

Larger countries (including the US) that are more sparsely populated and tend to rely on central messaging from authorities less will probably have areas that are slower at adopting new measures (or lack thereof), which may be frustrating, but I imagine large cities will be able to react promptly.

We should absolutely be normalizing wearing masks in public. In many parts of the civilized world (where, by miraculous chance, they've also handled Covid reasonably responsibly) people who were sick in public (or even just wanted to avoid putting on makeup) habitually wore masks pre-covid to avoid infecting others. I'd be willing to assert that it's exactly that habit (and a related set of hygiene conditions, in addition to an already-present infrastructure for home PPE) that helped them return to living much more normal lives through this pandemic.

I wrote in another comment up thread, one great result of this pandemic is that it could help to normalize mask wearing in general. People’s mouths and noses are disgusting, and a common source of non-lethal aerosolized diseases. There is really little downside to wearing a mask while around people and healthy upside.

The societal norm/expectation that we wear clothing in public is no big deal. Why can’t we have a similar mask-wearing norm? I don’t see many anti-clothers protesting city hall over their right to go naked.

One side-effect I am thinking of is that if our immune systems receive less challenge they could weaken over long term (maybe generations).

Hopefully that’s not how things work, or the effect has no practical significance.

Second best option, we’ll find a way to compensate for that.

Else, maybe we shouldn’t normalise masks to such a degree except for periods when it’s necessary.

Another side-effect is that masks should be replaced regularly, so everyone wearing masks at all times would mean a lot of waste (hopefully bio-degradable).

You know, I'd happily normalise "wear a mask if you want, especially if you're coughing". But without peer pressure in either direction once we're back to low stakes.

This was pretty much my experience in pre-COVID Hong Kong (which got hit by the first SARS earlier).

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