The published “flu” numbers were usually “flu and pneumonia”, and actual diagnosed flu deaths have always been well below where covid deaths are today.
I haven’t looked recently, but last time i did, which was after all Americans who wanted to were vaccinated, covid was about an order of magnitude more deadly than flu.
Of course, but my point was that the flu wasn’t not a threat to immunocompromised people. There is some threshold greater than “no threat” where the precedent is for the public at large to take no action.
Remember the context of what I was responding to:
It’s not necessary for the flu to be anywhere near as deadly as covid for my point to stand. The flu (and pneumonia) was always some amount of threat to the immunocompromised. As far as I’m aware, nobody ever factored the immunocompromised into their decision making process on whether to go out in public or not when they felt sick. Certainly a mask was never even a consideration before covid. In other words, pre-covid, society looked the immunocompromised directly in the eye and told them it was completely on them to keep themselves safe.
I did. I was careful about what I did if I thought I might have the flu. As a manager, I urged my staff to stay home if they might be infectious, even if they felt well enough to work. And the nursing home where my grandmother lived had signs on the wall about not visiting if you might have flu symptoms. I once wore a mask when visiting my father because I had a very mild and stale cold, but he was recovering from surgery, and therefore fragile.
And all these things are even more important now, since covid is so much more contagious and deadly than the stuff we used to carry around.
The only reason I didn’t wear a mask in the before times if I had a mild stale cold and wanted to go grocery shopping is because masks were socially unacceptable, and it would have freaked people out. Now I feel I can do that.
A few weeks before Wuhan became a thing we were on a flight to the Caribbean. Obviously, nobody was wearing a mask on that flight . . . except for this one guy. He was masked and had a bottle of sanitizer he was using to wipe down all the surfaces around his seat.
Everyone was whispering and pointing at the dude. Two weeks/a month later, his actions were the norm. Looking back I wonder if he was a time traveler with more knowledge than the rest of us about what was in store.
I have worn a mask on airplanes since the original SARS. I wasn’t trying to avoid disease, I was trying to keep from dehydrating. I bought a case of masks during SARS, thinking that if it wasn’t contained, it was going to become hard to find them. (boy, was I right about that!) A while after, I had a mild cold and had to fly somewhere, so I wore a mask to protect others. I was astonished at how much more comfortable I was in a mask than I am naked-faced on the airplane. So I kept doing it.
I carefully explained why I was doing it to my seatmate, on the theory that I didn’t mind if they thought I was a nut, but I didn’t want them to be nervous. Now I don’t need to explain my mask to my seatmate.
But yeah, in the before days, when I thought I might be a risk to others, I did take precautions, like wearing a face mask. I hope more people pick up that habit now that it matters more.
Don’t think that I was using the term “immunocompromised” in my mind, but I was careful about going out and who I was around even if I had a cold, never mind the flu. I would go do something relatively essential, but avoided random visiting or errands that could easily be put off, and would warn anybody that I was sick if I was considering being around them. I remember specifically not going to see a friend who was in the hospital with breathing difficulties, and also postponing a visit to my medically fragile mother, because I had a cold.
I don’t think this was common practice (although I was taught it by my mother as a child as being normal polite behavior) – there was for one thing way too much push in the workplace for people to show up even if sick, and I think this influenced the likelihood that ill people would go do something else, since they’d had to show up at work anyway. But it certainly wasn’t something that “nobody” paid attention to.
And I didn’t mask if I did have to go out because I didn’t think of it – because, as @puzzlegal says, it wasn’t customarily done; if I had thought of it and had done so, I would probably have had to deal for weeks with people asking what horribly serious condition I had, and would have risked getting arrested or at least hassled as a possible robber.
The ‘nobody’ was bad wording on my part. I was still referring to ‘society at large’ from the previous paragraph, not specifically ‘no person ever.’
I’m not saying I disagree with either of you; I haven’t formulated an opinion yet. But to be clear, for all the people who are wondering when things will ‘get back to normal’, you’re both arguing for ‘never’, yes? The world is forever changed?
I’m guessing even if you tried, the medical staff would have said you shouldn’t visit.
I’ve heard “the world is forever changed” so many times by now, about so many different types of things, that I’ve taken a dislike to the phrase.
The world, in particular human society, changes all the time. I don’t think that we’ll never have crowded indoor gatherings, concerts and such, again – people are doing that right now. I don’t think nobody will ever go visit their aged aunts again. I strongly hope that working from home will (for multiple reasons) remain more common; that staying away from other people when possibly infectious, with whatever disease, will become a whole lot more common; that workplaces will quit trying to make people show up when sick; and that masking in public will remain socially acceptable, and will be common both for anyone who does need to go out when ill or possibly ill, and for people at higher risk.
At the hospital, very likely; and also at least possible when my mother was in a care home, though I don’t know that they’d have noticed if I had shown up and not said anything. My mother was in her apartment at least once when we postponed visiting.
I endorse everything in this post.
Even the crowded indoor gatherings like concerts?
The way I’m reading your posts is that you would definitely not be down for that, and kind of wish that society at large wouldn’t be down for that either. Am I misreading you?
If you witnessed a time-traveler, he wasn’t from very far in the future. We now know that sanitizing surfaces doesn’t do much against an airborne disease.
I’m not personally down with that at the moment, but I observe that many people are, and I don’t really feel that we need to put the world on hold just because old people like me are uncomfortable in large unmasked indoor gatherings. (I recently attended a large masked indoor gathering, fwiw.)
I do hope that:
Those would all represent permanent changes from the before days.
Additionally, I would like to see more regulations around indoor ventilation. I’d introduce them gradually, probably just for new construction and significant renovations, much as the handicapped accessibility rules were introduced.
I wasn’t endorsing so much as pointing out that they’re happening.
In the long run, I suppose I’m endorsing, because I can’t imagine humans permanently ceasing to have gatherings, at least unless so many of us die that there aren’t enough left to gather; but I sure ain’t going to any right now. But then, I’ve got three or four risk factors; plus which, if I get sick, there’s nobody to go to market for me.
And I more or less agree with @puzzlegal’s list; with the addition that I think even people who can’t work from home should avoid going to work with other people if they think they’re sick, and I sure wish that not only managers but also the pay setup for all types of work encouraged this.
I think everyone is probably on board for staying away from people if you feel sick. I see a high probability of that becoming a permanent change. Beyond that? Maybe a higher rate of working from home for white collar jobs, but then again maybe not even that.
I don’t see any other meaningful changes to society at large sticking for the long haul.
The wording here implies all people, even the ones who don’t think they might be contagious. I see a 0% chance of this happening. Pretty sure we’ve already left it behind.
I’ve mentioned here on the boards in my super blue Connecticut county, where we have tremendously high vaccine and mask compliance rates, masks are already pretty much done. You see maybe 10% of people at the grocery store wearing them, tops. Almost nobody anywhere else. And we are as liberal as you’re going to find.
With our community level now listed as low, I happily did my grocery shopping mask-free. While it was high and medium, I was one of those precious few still masking. But you’re going to have to bring out the hard sell to convince me to mask up in public when the community level is low.
ETA: Come to think of it, people in the pharmacy don’t even mask anymore, or at least mask at the same rate as the grocery store.
Doctor’s office waiting rooms may be the only place that lingers as a public place where everyone masks. (Ugh, terrible wording. That’s what happens when I dictate instead of type.)
Manhattan subways had a bit more than 50% masked recently. I assume it was mostly people afraid of catching something, not people trying to avoid spreading something.
But given how many people hate wearing masks, i assume we aren’t going to have 100% masked in many places. My hope is more that it will be normal to wear a mask most anywhere, and people who might feel under the weather or be immune compromised or anxious not to catch something before upcoming surgery can mask without attracting negative attention.
With the price of gas, my gf is soooo happy to not be driving 50 miles each way every day in rush hour traffic.
She initially volunteered to take a a pay cut in exchange for working from home, but she’s so much more productive that she’s making more than before, plus some nice bonuses.
I’m just not sure that works with Covid Omicron, though. So much of the spread with Covid is with presymptomatics or asymptomatics, “people who might feel under the weather” really is only going to provide limited protection. I have to say that I really doubt the ability of masking up to impact Omicron and forward very much. Vaccines are our best bet by several orders of magnitude over masks.