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Comment by wkat4242 | Hacker News Reader

Do people in the US still wear masks? Here in Spain it's 1 in 200 now, in public transport, offices etc.

The strange things is those people tend to wear them even outdoors where the risk of infection was always low anyway.

Personally I think the quality of life loss of wearing masks is heavier than that of getting COVID. So I don't either. But every person can make that determination for themselves.

I've thrown away my stockpile of masks too, I had a lot of them because I was always looking for some that met the minimum requirements but we're nevertheless easy to breathe and soft to wear. That was hard to find.

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It seems like everyone thinks that wearing masks is only to protect themselves from other people, and completely forgot (or never learned in the first place) that it's actually arguably even more important to wear a mask to protect others from your own cold, whether it's COVID or not.

This is something I really love about Japan and Korea. People are very considerate about not spreading their germs around in public places, by wearing a mask when they're sick.

It really feels like the rest of the world missed that part of the memo, even though we all wore masks for an entire pandemic. It actually boggles my mind.

It was indeed to protect others in the days that covid was not abundant in the air.

Now it's everywhere and there isn't really any point to limit the spread. Sooner or later everyone is getting it anyway. There are no peaks overloading the system anymore.

If I'm sick I'll just stay home instead, whether it's covid or something else.

I'm really glad we don't have a formal society like Japan though.

what do you mean by a formal society?

The way people are so regimental. People are very formal, you can see it in everything. The way they queue even, how they are so traditional and don't like people deviating from the norm. It's a very strict society.

It would not work for me as I really embrace individuality and casual norms.

No mask wearing isnt really a thing in the US anymore. Last year was different. In big cities today, you mostly only see masks on elderly, people who are sick, or other special situations. There is a tiny percentage of healthy, low risk neurotic people who wear them all the time, but they're rare.

While I am neurotic, I take issue with that label. Nothing irrational about wearing masks on cramped public transit, for example.

There’s a small, extremely online fringe of dedicated, fanatical holdouts. I very rarely see people masked in real life anymore.

> Personally I think the quality of life loss of wearing masks is heavier than that of getting COVID.

You will lose way more DALYs catching COVID (especially multiple times) than you will wearing a mask. We are already seeing the emerging auto-immune effects at a population level as well (rising fungal infections, etc) :\

Yet most people have caught Covid anyway.

But that's exactly my point. I don't care about the number of life years. I care about the ones I have being fun and interesting.

Shying away behind a mask and avoiding to busy night clubs etc defeats that purpose. That I will die a few years early when I'm old doesn't really bother me because that time will be less valuable anyway.

One way or another I will catch diseases and I could die at any time. Might as well make the journey interesting and without too much worries.

If I cared so much I wouldn't be obese either :)

But like I said this is a tradeoff for each of us to make, I'm surprised though that the US is still like this, here the masks are really over and done with and everyone is trying to forget those horrible years as much as possible.

I could care less if people wear masks to protect themselves, but I do wish that people who are in public spaces coughing extremely aggressively and loudly, would think about the others around them and wear a mask. It comes across as extremely inconsiderate to me now whenever I witness this.

At this point everyone is going to get it anyway. And when someone coughs it may not even be covid. Personally it's only ever given me the sniffles rather than coughing (I mistook it for hayfever once).

But even if you're vulnerable, you're gong to get it sooner or later. This is why the vaccines are still being offered to vulnerable people. As healthy individuals can't even get it anymore here even if they want it.

The problem is that you can keep getting it. And the risk of long covid does not go away.

I appreciate that these conversations have the same futility as trying to push for condom use during the aids/hiv crisis. The next 5-20 years hold a lot of unneeded suffering that will be difficult to witness and experience. :( It doesn't have to be this way, and we can make far better choices.

The rational, self-interested strategy right now is to minimize viral load, minimize exposure, and minimize infection count. well fitted, high quality masks and respirators are a component of that strategy. if empirical appeals to the literature do not motivate adopting that strategy, nor do emotional appeals to those currently suffering with long covid; that's fine. at some level i'd hoped the detailed vlogs about physics girl's suffering with pasc would have helped people stay safe, this has obviously not happened. it's perhaps Tragic, but it's certainly A Choice One Can Make.

As for myself, i'm not looking to rawdog with people i'm not fluid bonded with. I'm certainly not looking to swap aerosols unprotected with people i don't know. The costs are far too high for a payoff that is far too low. solidarity and may the odds remain ever in your favor.

Well yeah, the kind of night clubs I visit are the kind where aerosols are really the least of the risk, and physical contact is ubiquitous. It's not for everyone. But of course that factors into my risk analysis.

And also that nobody else uses masks there, so there is little point. But condoms are something I do always use and are commonplace in the community I frequent. HIV is a totally different matter than COVID though. It was a terminal disease for decades (and even now it's extremely difficult to deal with)

But HIV has a major difference to COVID: The effectiveness of condoms in preventing it is almost absolute, and is only really negated by unfortunate accidents. They also don't really have serious downsides like masks do (the lower sensitivity is something I in fact like). Compared to the masks which only delay infection, they are by no means a prevention method on a personal scale.

But if the lockdowns have taught me anything it's that a life without human contact is no life, and I've been making up for lost time.

If catching covid multiple times breaks the human immune system, then humanity is screwed. Anyone who lives a non hermitic existence is inevitably getting it multiple times.

I know you think masks are no big deal, and they're not if used temporarily, but long term they're a huge deal for huge swaths of people. I'm an introvert and I'd be delighted to never socialize in person ever again, but I understand most aren't built that way.

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