Or constructing something like the sealed face-shields with incorporated filter. You could probably do it with a face shield, a plastic bag, a surgical mask, and some clear packing tape. If you do this, you should replace the surgical mask part from time to time.
Yes, I am recommending you put a plastic bag over your head. 
My mask makes the shield curve around my face at the sides so the plastic is touching my face but no seal. I don’t think it’s necessary because I can still wear the mask most the time. Then I tuck the shield under it when I need to. I can’t tell if the think I linked has an actual seal on the sides. I have seen shields that have cloth all the way around the head. I wear a tennis cap on the top.
Back to the topic, simply wearing shields outside is more than enough protection for outside gatherings because airborne particles won’t accumulate. The shield will simply prevent people’s droplets from going straight at each other when you get too close (and people generally do get too close).
The minute people go inside, even just to go to the bathroom, they should be wearing a mask (unless they got a contraption like I have). Oh, and close the lid when they flush.
These are little things that seem goofy but minor inconveniences that allow small groups of non-bubble people to get together. Obviously, things will get more complicated with the weather gets too cold. But, masks with windows should cut down the risk to some extent even if their is minor leakage out of those windows (I don’t know of any studies in this regard).
Yes. Tons of stuff out there. These were especially designed for teachers and those working with the hearing impaired.
Excellent. I’ll check out the thread. Meanwhile, I should read the rest of this thread before replying. I did three replies in a row here.
Not really necessary since I’m usually wearing the mask. However, I’ve been thinking about buying some masks with window. That wasn’t a thing when I first started doing this. Now they’re all over the place.
Certainly that is your (plural including your mother’s) right to make that decision. You’ve decided that the increased risk that your set up incurs is small enough since you are usually wearing the mask and that the importance of her seeing your face is worth that level of risk. Not a decision I would make given a 90 year old‘s risk level but the decision is not mine to make.
My 84 year old mother in law is making comparable choices: she knows having visitors at her beach house increases her risks but chooses to accept that risk over living in isolation.
Meeting outside distanced by 6 feet or more is pretty definitely less risk than inside within 6 feet of a very vulnerable individual, wearing your face shield and mask on usually but not always. Worrying about others closing the toilet lid before flushing while doing that seems a bit misplaced.
FWIW.
I will repeat. Again. I wear the mask with the shield while I’m doing housework and cooking. On rare occasions, like “Hi Mom!”, “Bye Mom!” or when she addresses me and a simple nod or shake will not suffice, it takes seconds to tuck the mask under the shield to say a few words and put the mask back on. There are only two small places on the each side of the shield that are in contact with my face but not surgically-taped there. Any aerosols (with a much lower amount of viral particles) that seep through will be directed away from her and will be diluted away since, again, the time is short and the distance is over 6 feet.
My husband and I work from home and we don’t socialize. I’m essentially a bubble person who is taking extra precautions.
You don’t need to, and won’t convince me that your shield mask on chin set up is safe enough for close contact exposure with a highly vulnerable individual. You and your mother together make that choice.
There are some choices that are clearly way outside the pale, that contribute to others’ risks broadly. Neither your set up or socializing outside distanced by more than six feet without masks are those choices, even if I would be scared to do one and you the other.
Following this thread, I am interested to see that several people apparently don’t feel being outdoors does much to limit COVID-19 transmission. My personal reckoning (formed via evidence and experts) is that being outdoors has a quite large mitigating effect on transmission.
It’s a shame the book club folks in the OP won’t do masks, though. Outdoors with appropriate social distance AND masks is virtually without risk IMHO. Admittedly, I also don’t think the risk increases markedly without masks in the same situation … though if I were hanging out for a spell outdoors with unmasked people, I’d (arbitrarily) still want more like 10 feet of distance from anyone else if everyone’s unmasked.
The opposite of ‘being outdoors’ is what gives me the COVID willies – cramped indoor spaces with little to no air exchange and/or poor/underpowered HVAC. Hanging out in a virtual broom closet with strangers? Heck no! An elevator? Little better, but at least it’s brief. Stuffy bar? Nope.
Seems pretty common - across the spectrum - that people feel that their personal choices are reasonable, whereas anyone who chooses differently…
For the past few months, most weeks I’ve been playing music w/ 2-3 other people in one person’s backyard. Distanced, no masks. Today it is raining. I sent an e-mail to the others asking what they feel comfortable with, not only today, but as we enter fall/winter. Knowing the people involved and how we interact, I am personally comfortable with meeting inside unmasked. I suspect one of the people might be somewhat more cautious, but I don’t know how she’ll weigh it against her strong desire to continue meeting.
Lots of tough choices we each have to make.
No doubt about it. See also: Everyone driving faster than me is a reckless maniac! Everyone driving slower than me is an idiot that needs to learn how to drive!
Definitely.
I agree that being outdoors is the one biggest thing one can do. I would even go so far as to say that I’m comfortable being outside, unmasked, and distanced from other people whom I know are taking things seriously, and I’ve done that. (Almost always one-on-one except for the one small group described above.) I also agree with you that underventilated indoor spaces are the thing that make me really worried. I don’t do that!
In a small group such as OP describes, I feel like it’s not the not wearing masks so much as not being willing to wear masks makes me believe that they’re not taking it seriously. Like, even though I am comfortable myself being with another friend outside and unmasked, I am always more than happy to wear masks if a friend requests it. Because I take it seriously and I know that other people’s risk assessment is not the same as mine. And also with two people it is much easier to judge distances and not get too close, whereas with more than two it becomes harder.
If OP’s group had been like “Oh, OP wants us to wear masks? No problem. We’ll try to make it safe for everyone, let’s try to make sure everyone distances as well!” then my response would have been that it was then up to OP’s personal risk assessment.
Yeah, that’s hard to comprehend. One time we had 2 couples over for dinner, and we asked if people were more comfortable outside. When 1 guy said he would be, we spent the evening outside (even tho it was in the 90s.) And with the small group I play music with on Saturdays, we all have masks available and don them readily - if briefly next to each other, for example. My wife is in 2 book clubs. 1 has met outdoors. The other prefers to meet via Zoom.
Agree completely. The general mindset is more the issue than the actions. Once people agree to drop masks, the other measures are easier to skip over, too. Theoretically, outdoors with no masks BUT ALSO fastidiously maintaining 6 feet (or better, 8-10 feet) should confer almost perfect protection from COVID. But the next thing you know, “no masks” registers in the brain as “back to pre-COVID normal!” and people start doing a lot of innocuous things that, little by little, add up to significant extra risk.
Yup.
I’ve got a friend who’s rather annoyed that I won’t have him over to visit. I would be willing to have him over outside and staying distanced – but he’s made it clear that he doesn’t think covid’s really a problem and that he doesn’t believe asymptomatic people can be infectious with it. And he says he’s been hanging out with other people who he ‘trusts’ – which seems to be, who he trusts to tell him if they’re actively feeling sick.
So the problem is, on this one particular issue, I don’t trust him; though I’d trust him entirely, and have, on a batch of other stuff.
It never crossed my mind to ask the group to wear masks just because I want to. I feel like a minor cog in this wheel. I did say, “I’m not comfortable in a group where people aren’t wearing masks,” but that didn’t effect a change of attitude. Also I think the outdoor deck in question is pretty small. I don’t want to take a chance.
[aside]I just started listening to the book this morning, and it promises to be wonderful. Paris in the Present Tense by Mark Helprin.
It’s read by Bronson Pinchot-- does anyone except me remember him in a goofy, late 80s sitcom called Perfect Strangers? His character, Balki Bartokomous, moved to America from some unnamed Eastern European country to live with cousin Mark Linn-Baker. Clueless immigrant encounters American ways and hilarity ensues.
Anyway, Pinchot spoke in a high-pitched voice with a foreign-ish accent. I couldn’t imagine him reading this book, but wowzer! Deep, expressive, resonant delivery, almost hypnotic… impeccable pronounciation of many foreign names and phrases. <swooooon> Listen to a sample. The book is long: 14 hours for the audiobook.
I’m planning to attend by Zoom. The person who’s quarantining will be zooming, too. [/aside]
Exactly. Outside is fine only if keeping physical distance. If one is not taking it seriously, distancing will lapse. If you go inside to use the restroom or something, people might follow and strike up a conversation while inside.
This, actually! I feel like the onus is on the group/organizer to make sure everyone feels comfortable with the risk being taken, and if they’re not willing to do that then that tells me something about how seriously they’re taking things. Especially since I feel like women in general (if it’s a group with women, like yours is) are socialized “not to make a fuss.”
(Well, that, and the comments you posted in the OP about how they’re all “we should just take the plunge,” which also register to me as not taking it seriously – or perhaps they did in the past, but aren’t now because of lockdown fatigue. If the comments had been more along the lines of “How can we do this so everyone feels safe?” then I’d be more inclined to attend, if it were me.)
Thanks for your thoughts.
There really isn’t a leader. We each pick a book and host the group at our own house. It was the Oct hostess who said let’s sit outside and don’t wear masks. She did say that if cases jumped up after Labor Day and after school starts (which was yesterday), she’d rethink. And frankly, that’s what I think is going to happen.
Are they taking it seriously? Yes… up to a point. They’re not like those bikers or people who go to trump rallies who believe it’s all a hoax. And they probably regard me as too cautious for their comfort level. But I’m the second oldest and I’ve had breast cancer. Also I’m the only one with no family bubble, so if I get sick, I’m totally screwed. There is NO ONE to help me inside my house.
There is also pandemic fatigue going on. I get that. With no family comfort bubble, I suspect my pandemic/isolation fatigue is waaaaay worse than anyone else’s in the group.
I think there was also some of this at work. I spoke on the phone later with one of the women whose husband has Parkinson’s and she’s pretty much decided to skip the in-person meeting. But she’s the sort of Nice Girl who’s not likely to express a contrary opinion in front of the three outspoken women who want to eschew masks. Group dynamics, eh?
If someone is following me to the restroom we got some other issues to deal with! I’m a married man!