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Comment by 0898 | Hacker News Reader

It’s noticeable that everybody in this protest is wearing a face mask, to the point it feels political.

Could anybody explain what’s going on there?

It is weird to see people still wearing facemasks, but "it feels political" is an odd reaction to an essentially political protest.

I understand the protest is political. I'm wondering why they're wearing masks.

Same reason they all attach pronomins next to their name: ingroup signaling.

This is true, but is again to be expected in a political context.

I still wear a mask in public places for a mix of covid not being totally gone, h1n1, common flu, and enjoying getting colds/ailments less.

Wait, isn’t every protest political? And given the fact facial recognition exists, as well as recording devices, and power regimes tend to rise and fall, so what’s fine/legal today might make you a traitor tomorrow, or be used to cancel you or sabotage you publicly, a face mask is bare minimum deterrent for anything imo.

If you're likely to be looking for a job in the near future it's probably a good idea not to have your image easily searchable?

Anonymity + non-threatening nature, and nobody would want the optics of suggesting that people shouldn't be free to wear a facemask

There are anti-mask laws on the books in many parts of the US because of the use of masks by the KKK while they were intimidating people.

Lol, they just intersect with the people who are still thinking about COVID. That's all.

At least in the US, wearing a mask while protesting is common in order to avoid harassment.

It wasn't until 2020, that's a recent change.

Uh, protestors have been wearing face masks since protesting first became a thing. What is so weird about it?

I’ve never seen a protester in person (in my 40s) so I was actually genuinely curious about this and asked a similar question elsewhere in this thread

um.. what country do you live in, if you're comfortable sharing? I didn't even know this was possible

If someone grew up in the American Deep South or even rural Midwest, it’s completely possible here in the states.

I grew up in the deep south, I don't think it's possible to have not seen protests in the city I grew up in.

Maybe by deep south you're talking about more rural areas? I suppose that's entirely possible, though that might be more of a rural area thing than a deep south thing.

I've pretty much only lived in large cities so maybe my perception is off, but I'm under the impression even small towns have politics and protests

edit: The reason for my shock was that I assumed this might be a thing where protesting is actually illegal, but having lived and traveled in the U.S. I've come across so many protests that I was surprised that there are people in the U.S. to have never seen a protester

Is Vicksburg a rural or urban area? Honestly, many of the places in the Deep South defy rural/urban classifications. Surely they have politics, I just never saw a protest. Not having a well defined city center to protest at helps.

I'm not too familiar with Vicksburg though I'd say it's more on the urban side.

Googling quickly shows there were a lot of George Floyd protests there in 2020, though I'm sure you could miss them.

Related to the topic at hand, there have been ceasefire rallies there more recently.

Ya, I left the south in 1991 (30+ years ago, I'm getting old), so my info could be out dated and they are more politically active now. Although when I was there I heard about the civil rights movement 20+ years prior where protests were a lot more common.

they're indoors, dude. COVID is still here.

Serious question, what percentage of people working at a Google office wear a mask during work? I'm at an office in NYC of a smaller but household name tech company a few blocks away that used to do in-office mandatory nasal swab testing and masks at one point but now there are no precautions taken at all other than "if you're sick, you have to tell us and not come in".

Curious if there's been a big bifurcation of covid precautions at workplaces that I'm just unaware of (since I only regularly enter one office).

> Curious if there's been a big bifurcation of covid precautions at workplaces that I'm just unaware of...

It's almost certain that nearly all workplaces are doing nearly nothing in regards to COVID precautions. (After all, (because of the nature of stock investment market) COVID precautions don't generate shareholder value, and certainly have negative ROI for their parent-company's/owner's/whatever real estate investment portfolio.)

The variance will be due to a mixture of each individual's level of acceptable risk, and how clued-in they are about their local COVID situation, and COVID more generally.

COVID is here to stay, it is now an endemic virus like influenza or the array of "common cold" viruses. You are free to wear a mask and socially distance for the rest of your life, I'm sure in 1930 you could still find holdouts from the influenza pandemic of 1917 still freaking out about it.

But society at large has just accepted it and is back to carrying on like normal.

This sentiment is just as useful as "Nah, don't bother wearing a condom or any other barrier protection, those STDs are just all over the place." would be in the mid-1980's (and onwards).

Just to be clear...your position is that wearing face masks when around people indoors is the prudent choice in perpetuity? I honestly don't understand your perspective. What is it about covid19 that makes that necessary as distinct from all the other communicable diseases that humans have passed around for millennia? Or is it your position that wearing masks was always the smart thing to do?

> What is it about covid19 that makes that necessary as distinct from all the other communicable diseases that humans have passed around for millennia?

Neurological risks of long covid combined with the fact that 1 in 5 covid infections result in long covid in some form.

If you are a knowledge worker, long covid should be terrifying.

Are you going to wear a mask indoors forever?

Masking/distancing doesn't have to be workplace mandated to be a good idea. Especially indoors.

At this point, it's personal choice to protect yourself against Covid (and the flu, colds, et.al.).

For reference, since this is a private company, I work for a federal agency. My department is roughly 80 people. No one wears a mask.

I work for a local government agency and only come in once or twice a month but I probably haven’t seen a mask in the office in over 2 years.

Yep.

It's the very least you can do to protect yourself (and everyone else you come in contact with later) if your work cannot be done remotely and your boss (or the nature of the work) obligates you to remain in close contact with other people's untreated exhaled air, or if your work can be done remotely, but your boss obligates you to not do it remotely.

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