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Comment by dboreham | Hacker News Reader

Wow. Here in deepest Republican middle America mask wearing by _staff_ in supermarkets is universal. Customers around 90% if you count "nose-slingers" as non compliant. Pretty much nobody just swanning around with no mask these days. Costco has heavy mask enforcement -- they will hunt down and eject anyone with their nose out.

Where masks are not worn here is in smaller family owned businesses. Some have notices requiring masks on the door, some (many) do not, even though it's a state mandate.

Since this is the US, we have no public transport so I can't comment on that.

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Here in the liberal northwest, where we at least have a token amount of public transport, I see the bus signs alternating between their usual route number + description and "masks required". Haven't been on one to verify use by ridership, or to see what the driver's reaction to noncompliant riders is. The higher staff-to-rider ratio might help?

Outdoor mask use is limited (50%?) but at least quite sparse and distant (it's pretty cold, and wet, and everyone drives anyways.) Indoors the numbers are much higher (I'm guessing at least 90%), including for smaller businesses. I'm trying to think of a single business around here (small or large) without at least a sign saying you need to mask up before entry, and I'm drawing a blank. Several have soap dispensers too, and haphazard plexiglass sheets to help physically separate staff from customers.

Food is strictly delivery and take-out. Even when dine-in was still AFAIK legal, some places had it already voluntarilly closed off anyways.

I don’t know where either of the London-based commenters go shopping but all staff are legally required to wear masks at shops in the U.K.

Im in Scotland, at my local coop the staff hardly ever wear masks. Twice ive seen them have conversations with people just hanging at the till who arent wearing masks eithet.

Visit any of the major supermarket brands in London and I guarantee you'll see a handful of staff or security not or not properly wearing a mask.

> Haven't been on one to verify use by ridership, or to see what the driver's reaction to noncompliant riders is.

Compliance is very high (>95%?), but the people who do not comply are basically the same people who were problems in the Before Times: belligerent, mentally ill, or both. The drivers almost always let them get away with it, again just as in the Before Times, probably because it's a risk to even interact with these people. I, for one, try very hard not to make eye contact with them or even look in their general direction; treating them like the Bugblatter Beast of Traal is at least moderately effective.

I do wish they wouldn't flash the stupid "Masks Required" on the route signs so often, though. It makes it a lot harder to tell which bus is actually arriving. And showing it on the route indicator on the _back_ of the coach is just spiteful.

> the people who do not comply are basically the same people who were problems in the Before Times: belligerent, mentally ill, or both.

Or maybe they're one of 12,943 medical and public health scientists who signed the Great Barrington Declaration [0].

[0] ; https://gbdeclaration.org/

The declaration you linked seems to be more about lockdown policy and doesn't even mention masks.

It at least mentions:

> Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold.

Wearing a mask seems like a simple hygine measure to me.

Perhaps a signator might not wear a mask as a measure of protest against government "overreach", disregarding that part of the declaration, disregarding the law, and disregarding the risk of their actions to the health of their fellow citizens.

That last bit seems rather hostile. Rather belligerent. So I think we're right back to square one.

There are reasonable discussions and lawsuits to be had about how far is too far, and what reasonable public policy looks like. Even arguing on the internet sounds more productive to me than not wearing a mask as "protest" though.

Not sure about other retailers, but the one I work for (300+ stores and still expanding) doesn't really allow us to enforce such mask mandates. Sure, we have a sign posted that says you need a mask, but it's an understood no-no to push any further than asking if they want one for fear of customer complaints to corporate. Because even when the customer is wrong, they're still "right" (which is utter garbage).

I got chided at Costco for bringing in my five year old without a mask (she’d broken the straps on the ride there), even though the state mandate here is for ages above five. Costco employee said nope, in here anyone two and over needs a mask. So I had to impromptu tie up an adult mask’s ear straps to accommodate her, and go in with a lot of crying on her part because my first try was too tight.

Yup, same. I live in Idaho, and you’ve got to be out in the boonies before mask compliance for the customer base falls below 50%. I’ve not seen a single staff member not wearing a mask so far. But I’ve also avoided stores that culturally would be anti-mask, to be fair. I’d probably have a different take if I’d visited say, a gun store.

For gun stores, auto repair shops and the like, I adopt the approach that supposedly it takes 15 minutes of close exposure to become infected (obviously probabilistically), so if I absolutely must visit one of those places I aim to be in and out in less than 10 minutes.

I was on a flight from Abu Dhabi to Frankfurt last month. The moron in the next counter traveling to Paris literally told the check-in counter employees that he had Covid and asked whether he could travel.

I don't know, I'd like to call this Angevin idiocy or something. But yeah, Europe does have its fair share of covidiots too.

> Since this is the US, we have no public transport

What do you mean you have no public transport? Is it cancelled because of covid?

Public transport doesn't really exist in the US, outside of major cities. In non-urban areas, if there's a bus at all, it'll be like one token bus route that takes a roundabout path to nowhere in particular and comes once every 3 hours.

There's often a service providing rides on demand:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_responsive_transport#Un...

(typically with subsidies or other provisions for paratransit)

And covid is devastating the fare income for public transit. The systems need more money because of it, but will obviously get less.

Yes, we have some bus services (Greyhound, like in the movies, and a bus that goes between towns once a day) but I've never been on one and don't know anyone who has. Kids begin driving age 16 and under that age are typically driven places by a friend or parent, so there's not much need for busses.

Also: younger kids are ferried back and forth to school in special yellow busses that are only used for school service. So actually there _is_ a widespread public transport service all over the US but people don't think of it as such because it's run by the schools and only usable by school kids. Some companies run their own busses too for their workers, to and from the plant, to suit shift hours.

"nose slingers"

That’s a nice phrase. In my group we called it “dick-nosing” - iirc it came about due to:

1) you wouldn’t (shouldn’t?) go around with your dick hanging out of your trousers, so why would you do the same with your nose and your mask

2) you’re a dick if you do this

A decent amount of it is unintentional I suspect. Subconcious fiddling, poor feeling / awareness of slipping masks... a gentle reminder that "your mask has slipped a bit" can do wonders.

Similarly, a gentle reminder when one's dick accidentally slips out of one's trousers is also appreciated.

Too rarely does good, cutting satire grace HN.

Some responses to that will be (in the spirit of) coughing in the speaker's face.

So far nobody's coughed in my face, in spirit or otherwise.

Seen a guy on the street taking off mask to do giant sneeze, put it back on afterwards promptly. His wife facepalmed. To his defence he’d probably have to wear juicy mask if he didn’t do it.

My interpretation is that this is referring to those individuals who are wearing a surgical type mask, with the top of the mask resting on their upper lip and their nose not covered by the mask.

Yes. I get the impression that often they simply don't know how to put these masks on -- you need to pull them apart somewhat so they extend from the nose bridge to the chin. If you don't know that's how they're fitted, you'll end up with either of the nose or bottom of the mouth uncovered.

Staff enforcement is much easier in the US since losing your job results in homelessness.

The US has a homelessness rate of 6.2%, while the UK has a homelessness rate of 7.7%.

That is astonishingly high and may be counted differently (people living insecurely on couches)

Not sure about the UK, but any kind of insecure or temporary housing is counted for the US - including people living on couches.

One in around fourteen? I don't need to look anything up to know that's way off, in both countries. I doubt that can even count as 'misleading'.

Using what metric?

To use a local(ish) example to me, Multnomah County in Oregon has about 815K people, and 3800 that are either living on the streets, in a shelter, or in temporary housing. That's 0.4%. Portland is known for having a homeless problem.

That's actually nonsense for the UK, as the real figure is 280,000 which includes people in temporary accommodation, which is provided by the government.

In the UK if someone is on the street and needs a place to stay there are shelters in every town. Nationally there are about 4,000 people that sleep rough, although most of the people that do suffer from addiction or mental illness. Many choose not to go to shelters because you have to be sober to stay in them.

It surprises people to hear this, but mask compliance in the US is better than most of all of Europe. People still get the virus though, because it’s almost never spread through community but rather face-to-face unmasked indoor contact, which is something people will never give up.

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