Almost no one is wearing masks in this portion of the US. My wild guess is 5% of people you see in public or at events are wearing them. I’ve been at events where I couldn’t find a single person wearing one.
No, I meant relative to pre-pandemic. I’d estimate NYC at more like 15%, and less if you exclude the tourists.
It’s been holding pretty steady at a bit less than 400 a day since Memorial Day, 2022. Flu is about 100 to 150 a day. No spikes Compared to last fall and winter, things are a lot better, but 400 a day is not really “good”.
Ah, okay. I parsed the sentence incorrectly. Yeah, then that’s about what I see here.
The thing with masks, if I understand correctly, is that they only work if most people are using them, so if other people aren’t using them… Why bother? Kind of a self-perpetuating problem.
I didn’t wear mine for a while, until I got sick (probably RSV.) Even though I was past the point of contagion, I wore it so other people didn’t have to worry about me coughing on them. I’m glad that it’s not so unusual to see someone in a mask, I think that’s a good norm to have if you’re sick.
COVID is not over. But I think we are entering a new phase of learning how to live with it.
As an example of how attitudes about COVID are different, Saturday Night Live ran this parody commercial last week about getting COVID as an excuse to isolate yourself for a few days or two weeks… Very different from attitudes about COVID a year or two ago.
My understanding is that the respirators still help the wearer. So do the surgical masks, but to a lesser extent.
Agreed.
Cloth masks help other people some, but do nothing for the wearer. Surgical masks, worn properly, give other people a great deal of protection and help the wearer some. N95 masks, and to a lesser extent, kn95 and kf94 masks, offer a great deal of protection to the wearer, as well as protecting others from the wearer.
Whether or not Covid is “over”, pandemic fallout will be with us for a long time.
There’s a great article over at Respectful Insolence about a major legal catfight (quackfight?) that’s broken out at America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), the organization featuring such stars as Simone Gold (who went to prison for her role in the Jan. 6th Capitol invasion) and Stella Immanuel, the “demon sperm” doctor beloved of Donald Trump.
The current dispute involves charges of misuse of funds, defamation, a struggle for control of AFLDS, an insurrectionist underwear model, an erotic wolf romance novel and much, much more.
I haven’t seen a mask in public in weeks, maybe months. (other than the hospital, where they’re required) I’m surprised when I venture over to Seattle, and see mask wearing (maybe 10-20%)
Hell, I would have to search to find any of mine if I needed one.
I went to an NFL game last month. I’d estimate mask wearing there at about zero percent.
I think my 5% estimate was high. People aren’t wearing them. It’s the odd sight to see one worn now.
There is definitely a subset of the population who now wear masks all the time because they believe it helps with allergies and other pathogens. Whether they actually help or not is one thing, but I don’t know if all mask use is even directly related to COVID any more. In NYC, I see way more mask use outdoors on the street than I do in my office building, or even in mass transit.
ETA: for me, most of my mass transit time is on an NJ Transit train. When I do take the subway, the mask use is definitely higher than the commuter train.
It can - but flu is typically a few months of the year. COVID just keeps going, and going, and going.
COVID is more contagious - I think the latest R0 figures I’ve heard are something like 8, for the latest variants. Flu’s R0 is more like 1 to 1.5.
The mortality rate of COVID is believed to be higher than that of flu, though figures are hard to come by.
My hope is that COVID’s evolution will eventually lead to a variant that is overall less dangerous - and that eventually people will have been exposed enough to enough different variants that their immune systems can do a better job of fighting off new versions. much as seems (to my unscientific mind) has happened with the common cold: if all the viruses you bump into are close relatives of ones you’ve met before, you don’t get as sick, but if you are exposed to something new to you, you get sicker. As I said, that’s unscientific… but years back, a colleague went to Germany on vacation, caught a cold there, and spread it around the office. I was sick, to some degree, for 2 months.
Anyway, IF things go that way, then I’d be prepared to say the major risks are reduced enough to go somewhat back to normal.
We don’t go out and about much at all - but I’d say 5-10% is about right for when I grocery shop. I definitely see a drop in mask-wearing when I go to Costco, for example - even 6 months ago, better than half the shoppers were masked, now it’s much lower. Both times we went to Florida this year, mask-wearing was virtually nonexistent; few people wore them on the train back or in the waiting room afterwards (to my household’s regret, as that’s when we believe we lost our COVID virginity).
Nothing that’s gone on here is really that much of a surprise. Covid is certainly transitioning to endemic status. I note that the new variants are much less likely to become dominant themselves as they compete in the Covid marketplace with other similar variants. Much like the Flu, there will be many similar varieties of Covid out there.
IMO mask wearing is on the continuum towards lockdown. Example, I still work from home 100%. There have been feelers from the company about doing more things in office to build more community. I do totally understand that, understand the negative mental health aspects of so much isolation and I do feel that mask wearing fits into that and the mental health aspects of mask wearing are non-zero. Anyway, if I had to wear a mask in the office I’d see virtually no reason for me to be there. The social benefits would be gone and having to wear a mask would make the situation negative. Rather work from home and Zoom meeting then. Which is why I consider masks on the continuum towards lockdown and disapprove of their adoption towards any “new normal.”
I do lots of socializing with friends where we all wear masks. It feels like very real social contact to me. I think of wearing a mask as an extremely minor inconvenience. Like wearing shoes.
In my very-high-mask-compliance state (MA), there’s plenty of people who are wearing masks inside public buildings. My neighbor was just released from the hospital after a terrible bout and is still recovering. Half my choir was out with it. Yeah, not over. For most vaccinated to the max people, it is more like a bad flu, sure.
And I think we are going to be dealing with long COVID for a long time. That’s definitely not over, and continues to be an issue even for those with mild illness. I have a friend with it, he wasn’t all that sick, went from running everyday to taking a three hour nap every day. Eight months in, he’s seen some progress but is not fully recovered and still can’t run. A lot of people are in the same boat, and will continue to be, possibly forever.
Can’t agree. I communicate with my face, not my feet. Comparing them to shoes is an overreach.
My family and I attended church services masked, while masks were required in my county. My experience was definitely lessened by having to speak and sing through a mask. It was better than nothing, better than watching the service streamed (I get a lot less out of that and it was a lot worse for my kids) but others disagreed as attendance was lower than when the mask mandate was removed. This is why masks are on the continuum to lock down for me. If you need to wear a mask, why not cancel the event or stay home as you’ll be safer that way?
Right now the province of Ontario’s chief medical officers are weighing a return of some mask mandates this winter, at schools and elsewhere. I’m fine with that; I still wear a mask most places indoors. I’ve had two shots, two bosters, and COVID, so I feel I’m relatively well-protected, and I’ll get my bivalent booster once my summer infection is four or five months behind me (six months is recommended for most effectiveness, but I don’t want to put it off too long if there’s a surge.
I couple of weeks ago I came back from a trip overseas, on which I walked the streets and rode the subway in three major cities. In Berlin, masks are (according to signage) mandatory on the U-bahn, and I’d guess 30% of the passengers were wearing them. In Paris and London, where I think they’re “recommended,” my rough guess would be 5-15% of passengers were wearing them. Aside from shops offering walk-in tests, and home tests available for sale in London pharmacies (they give them out for free here), I barely saw or heard anything about the virus for two weeks. The public has moved on, but this winter’s variants may not have.