I’d say that pretty well summarizes what I and pretty much everyone I know thinks. Whether they’re age 30 or 75 or even older.
I was down for 3 weeks in Nov with RSV(?) that led to sinusitis(?). My worst day of COVID in June was less bad than any of the RSV(?) days. If I was an office worker I could have been at work the last 2 weeks no problem w no evident risk of contagion. But for my job, even a hint of head congestion means stay-at-home.
Voted no. Will wear them in doctors’ offices when asked but not otherwise. Vaccines may not provide sterilizing immunity, but masks don’t either. If you need sterilizing immunity you should maybe be staying home if at all possible. And masking up there if you live with anyone else. Which has other costs.
I don’t really find comparisons to seat belts or condoms relevant to the burden of permamasking.
Fully vaxxed and boostered, WFH, live in a rural area. The only time I wear one is at my hematologist’s office: apparently all Mercy Clinic locations across the Midwest will require employees and visitors to be masked until further notice.
I voted, ‘Yes, personal preference.’ But I’m only masking on public transit and performing arts venues. Basically anywhere where I am not interacting with anyone, but am seated for a long time next to strangers.
KN95 masks only at this point.
I’m masking according to local conditions similar to what’s described in this YLE post below. When cases are low in the area, I mask less and do more things involving crowds, but when cases are up, I mask often and avoid crowds, especially indoors. I stay up to date with boosters, but am still concerned about even a small chance of a lengthy sickness or long covid. I really can’t afford to be impaired or out of work for a significant time right now.
That expert’s article from February is very interesting and quite logical.
What’s also interesting is to look at the current CDC map for now, Dec 1 4 2022, versus the one from Feb 2022 embedded in her article:
As of today, many areas with high transmission are pretty uninhabited. IOW, there’s not many people for the size of the red area. Yes, there are some significant population concentrations contained in those areas too.
I mask for doctors’ and dentists’ offices, otherwise no. I’m fully-vaxxed, and avoid indoor situations where people are closely packed for a long time, like movies, bars, churches and music venues. I do go to restaurants, but I choose small mom ‘n’ pop places and go early when they’re not crowded.
I didn’t answer because my option isn’t there: “Sometimes.”
Before early November, I masked whenever I went anywhere, except while eating at restaurants (and I usually tried to go to those during off times or use outdoor seating). Then I went to a conference in Las Vegas and didn’t mask except at the airport and on the plane.
A couple days after coming home a week later, I tested positive, as did about 30% of the people at the conference. I’d never had COVID before, so I didn’t know what to expect.
It was…meh. I was really tired the first couple of days, had a stuffy nose and a cough, but the whole thing basically felt like a medium-strength cold. I’m fully vaxxed and boosted.
The spouse got it too (he went to the conference with me), a day later than I did. He’s vaxxed and has a single booster, but didn’t get the bivalent one. His symptoms were basically the same as mine.
We diligently isolated until we tested negative, finally learning how to use things like Instacart and Doordash, but since we’re pretty hermitty most of the time, it wasn’t a huge problem.
So, bottom line, I’m not as scared of COVID as I used to be, so my masking has gotten more spotty than it was before. I still do it most of the time, but I don’t get as nervous as I used to when I don’t.
Nope, except when I have to like in Dr’s surgery.
I’m fully vaxxed, including 2 boosters, I’ve been in close contact with people who were positive and infectious at the time with no mask on and to the best of my knowledge I’ve never caught it, though others present did.
In theory, I mask in crowded public places when local COVID transmission is high and during cold/flu season. In fact, I stopped during the summer and now I’m having a hard time getting back into the habit, but I’m trying.
Surprised to hear people report that health care facilities in their areas are slacking off on mask requirements. Almost everywhere else is, but every medical facility I’ve encountered in Chicago is still holding the line firmly.
You can get long covid even if you had a mild case. You can wind up sicker from long covid than from the original infection. You can get it even if you were young and healthy when you caught covid. You can be significantly impaired by it.
Repeat infections appear to increase risk rather than reduce it, both for the acute stage and for getting long covid.
So I wouldn’t assume that having had a mild case means not having to be careful about trying not to get another one. And I don’t think we’re anywhere near out of the woods yet; in part because a lot of people do seem to be assuming that.
I think that’s true. But what’s the way out of the woods?
Partner and I mask any time we’re indoors with strangers: shopping, post office, etc. I teach and attend meetings masked; when I meet with individual students, I mask up. Don’t mask in our condo when, checking for mail or riding the elevator. We rarely eat out and don’t go to bars. We’ve had 2 shots, 3 boosters, and had Covid a year ago. Too old for this virus crap so play it very safe.
That’s that same crappy VA dataset they keep using again and again. Not representative of overall population.
Are you looking at the Community Levels map (which many cynically think the CDC created to make things look better than they are)? Because this is what the current Community Transmission map looks like. Pretty much all the major population centers and most of the country are in the red. There’s some orange (for now), but the pockets of low or moderate transmission tend to be rural.
I did indeed look at community levels, not community transmission. The former is essentially a measure of hospitalizations, and the latter is a measure of new infections. The red color code for transmission indicates more than 1 person per thousand in that county caught COVID last week.
Anecdotally, for months I have known of friends here and there who have gotten Covid, none serious. It was just spotty, no trend. Don’t really see the point in tracking community levels, it’s always out there.
Went to my PCP today for my periodic well-baby checkup.
Her office still insists on all masks all the time for everyone. She also sees a lot of respiratory infection cases. Has a couple COVID cases in the hospital now and has had for months with rare exceptions.
Her comment: the value of your mask is greatly enhanced by all the other masks nearby. If the public won’t cooperate we’ll keep losing people unnecessarily.
Basically masks forever then.
At the Dr.s office? I don’t see the problem.