Is your basic cloth mask so loosely woven as to be not effective?
Why would they only require masks on Thursday?
—oh. Never mind.
Life in 2020 has long been too shocking for those.
Why did they wait so long?
This, so much! I see so many people with big gaps around the nose. Clue: if you can feel exhaled air tickling your eyes, or your glasses fog, you’re not sealed. Another problem is men with beards whose masks do little good around the entire beard area. The HVAC company which services our lab’s cleanroom has their bearded techs wear some kind of approved gaiters that are well-sealed around the nose and are tucked into their shirts. These gaiters look much more comfortable than my disposable surgical mask, as there’s more area for the moist exhaled air to disperse in.
Several of the cheapo cloth masks I have are much too tightly woven, which encourages people to leave gaps so they can breathe easier. It’s a trick to find the right balance between too tight and too loose. I stick with the disposable surgical masks for now, but staple an extra pleat into each mask side edge to take up the gap for a tighter seal.
Nope. I had more fogging than usual in the donut shop this morning. I find I fog up on the first few breaths immediately after putting it (so the first few steps inside a building), but it generally clears pretty quickly.
Yeah. It’s weird out in the dry West, where a cold glass is dry on the outside (no condensation).
When having prep for cataract surgery, I wore a surgical (paper) mask, but they used surgical tape to close any gaps above the nose. If there’s something critical for which you need both a mask and glasses, let me suggest that - it really works well.
Central Switzerland has had very few cases, so after the initial (soft) lockdown, most people went back to their normal lives and didn’t wear masks.
At the therapy center the people working there have always worn masks, but only this past week they started to require the patients to also wear masks. This is because in the last few weeks there has been a dramatic increase in the number of infected people.
There was a yodeling musical in the neighboring canton on September 23rd and 24th (2 performances with 300 people in the audience each time). It is now recorded as a superspreader event. Yes, it was sing-along.
If only people had known that could happen.
Heh. Yodeling sing alongs are a thing? I’m dying here.
Because of all the covidiot behaviour, I think we’ll be stuck in some version of this for a long, long time, even if there is a vaccine.
It almost seems like now’s the time for the human species to turn stupid.
This current thread amounts to a similar observation:
https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-good-news-regarding-covid-19-is-there-a-vaccine/923216
IMO COVID will be part of humanity for decades, vaccines or no. It may eventually get to be like flu, where most people most times sort of ignore it despite the tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths year in and year out.
We’re not “turning stupid”. As a collective, we’ve been stupid all along.
But this is the first recent test where the minimum passing grade is more like 95% of us getting it right rather than just 20%. That 75% shortfall is gonna prove decisive; the virus will win.
And as wiser folks than I have said: COVID is the quiz; human-caused climate change is the final.
IMO we gonna flunk that one big time.
Nobody ever tells you about the dangers of yodeling.
I’m working at a college in the UK. For some reason, in this country, masks are not being required in schools and colleges in classes; the official position is that damage will be limited by keeping students in small ‘bubbles’. So, of course, it’s the perfect time for me to get signed up to a compulsory one day a week teacher training course that not only includes people from other departments, it includes about 20 people from 4 different campuses around the county, plus random extras. All in one classroom, in person.
I’m the only one wearing a mask, and most of them aren’t even pretending to keep distancing- during actual class they’re sitting all spaced out, but then break comes and everyone clusters around the vending machine. The person leading the course is even doing stuff like getting everyone to hand stuff round…
Oh, and they’ve already had one confirmed case on that campus.
What exactly does “the virus will win” supposed to mean?
The cases are resurging all over Europe. To some degree we have to accept that this is just a natural disaster that we can only partially mitigate.
I just travelled from the DC area to Vermont by car. I had self-isolated at home for 2 weeks before going, per VT rules. My daughter said that she sees relatively little in the way of mask-refusers - as Vermont is pretty left-leaning, that doesn’t surprise me.
The only time I saw true cluelessness was last night - I stopped for the night halfway home and people at the hotel (7 stories, and I had to use the elevator). The elevator arrived while I was waiting. One person was already on it and I headed in. A bunch of new arrivals started to get on as well (with all their luggage; no WAY could any distance have been maintained). I quickly said “If you’re getting on, I’ll get off”. They looked startled - and waited for the next elevator. On another trip, 2 people got on after I did. I stepped to one side. As we arrived at the ground floor, I realized neither was wearing a mask. I actually spoke up - and they were startled but not nasty.
I’m quite sure the concept of mask-wearing was not a new one - you couldn’t move 10 feet in that hotel without seeing a sign saying MASKS REQUIRED. I suspect they had simply forgotten.
Now I’m home, I’m actually self-isolating here as much as possible. I’m using my daughter’s bedroom for at least the next 4-5 nights, everyone in the household is wearing masks when in the kitchen / dining room. I’m eating separately as well. Dunno if I should call the doctor to ask about getting tested later in the week. I was careful during the entire trip, but all in all I was out and about more than I had in the entire past 6 months.
I don’t know if this is due to smaller elevators here, but even public elevators, such as those in parking garages, are limited to single users. That means, if someone’s already on it, you’re supposed to wait until the elevator comes back empty.
These had footprints on them, suggesting that 3 people could ride at once. The time I nearly did not ride, there’d have been at least 5 people (including luggage).
I rode an elevator a month or so back, that said “no more than 2” (I think). But I assumed that it was OK to have more if they were household members; it was in a parking garage and we’d already spent 3 hours in the car together 
From what I’ve heard, this sort of precaution is widely ignored - a friend lives in a condo in a heavily-touristed beach area and she says none of the covidiots pay any attention to that.