A Concerned Scientist @BE@qoto.org

@trendless

So much of this is individual, though, and that's why some fit testing is important for anyone who's serious about it. I never double masked, but, I did find in fit testing that with some N95/KN94 masks adding a neck gaiter over the top improved the seal tremendously, with others not so much.

@TenPastTwo

I reply to people way more than I post myself. I do boost a lot of things without commenting, though, particularly if whatever I may have said has already been said.

I also will unfollow anyone who spams out a bunch of posts without ever interacting with people who reply. I feel like a lot of mastodon is curating your timeline appropriately for yourself and your specific likes.

@DavidKarban @ralf @knottedthreads

And this gets to the real problem, in the end. Even if you do know, and I've been lucky enough to read good science about it from the very beginning, eventually there comes a situation(or many) in which you have no choice but to be exposed.

I'm lucky in a lot of ways, and one of them is that I worked for myself before the pandemic, and I'm married to a teacher. We've been able to keep our kids home and they actually love it. Eventually, though, something will get to us. Driver's license renewal, jury duty, etc. The only hope is to hold out as long as you can and get infected as infrequently as you can and hope that eventually your local government comes around to sanity on the issue.

I sincerely wish you luck staying healthy going forward.

@ralf @knottedthreads

My wife's boss(thankfully) basically decided the same thing for her. Everyone else has to go to mandatory meetings occasionally, but for now she doesn't have to. She said they'd re-evaluate next year, so we hope they decide the same thing going forward.

@zephyrleifrenner

I don't believe there's any way that it can go on like this indefinitely. No immune system can handle constant infection of any kind.

@begrudging_recluse

I hear this "bad luck" thing all the time, too. Like "Oh man, this was a rough year. Just a lot of bad luck with our health. Thankfully it's almost over and I'm sure next year will be better." It's hard to just nod and go along and not give them a deep dive of COVID, but, I know they wouldn't listen anyway.

@begrudging_recluse

This is so much a description of my in-laws as well. My wife has really noticed it, but they don't seem to notice at all.

@MartinFarrent

I will never know whether I had it in late 2019, well before testing existed, but I assume I did. Everyone in my children's school was sick, and the school kept saying it was a "really weird flu" going around that they couldn't get a hold on. Anyway, I was sick for months and my fitness levels really suffered as well.

I just hope that was all that it did to me and anyone else in our family who had it at the same time, but that's also the point....there's no way of knowing at this point. Why keep playing Russian Roulette with it?

@artisanrox

That it is. I didn't want to write a novel and include all of the people around us who are sick, etc. but it's exactly the same here.

For example, my son's best friend's dad died of "pneumonia" but they firmly believe it couldn't have anything to do with COVID. They never tested, so they keep that level of denial. They're still doing everything like it's 2019 and sometimes I just want to scream "He DIED during a pandemic!!!'

@Npars01

There's always an angle....and if there's a profit for someone it'll be exploited as rapidly as they can.

@daraghhayes

It's truly baffling to observe. Shout out for the FloMask. We're big fans in our house.

@auscandoc @lzvolk @pixplz

One of my all time favorites from Gary Larson and so apt for the discussion!

@auscandoc @EverMama8 @pixplz

This is a really good point. I keep going back to the idea that most people in first world countries today have spent their entire lives in a bubble of sorts, mostly safe from disease thanks to public health. Our ancestors who survived(or didn't) prior plagues would be ashamed that we seem to be running towards the plague instead of away.

@EverMama8 @auscandoc @pixplz

I feel this so much @EverMama8. It's exhausting and I gave up as well. It's hard to watch people you care about continuing on as if nothing were wrong.

@auscandoc @pixplz

Sincerely thank you everyone for all of the great responses. It's been very enlightening. There's really no need for any COVID cautious person to feel "alone" as there really are a lot of people out there doing their best.

Watching so many people talk this week about their current holiday experiences with COVID ignoring/denying family has been interesting. So much denial out there.

@neroden @pixplz @whn

It's pretty sad that we are all on our own, but, you're right. Communication and organization are the only ways the discussion of how we get out of this mess can begin.

@natureworks

Loved looking through your sites! We're in the process of moving to some forest land and are pretty deep into learning about growing food there, but there's so much more to learn!

@JEmphatically

Absolutely. Plus a dash of commercial real estate holdings in a lot of company's cases.

@fhaedra We are! We bought an abandoned property in the woods that we've been traveling to and rehabbing when able. This was always an intended project before that incident, but(alongside others) it brought clarity and focus to our plans for sure.

@marynelson8 I absolutely understand where you're coming from. I'm speaking more of the people who have thousands, or tens of thousands, of followers but don't follow anyone else or ever respond to their comments.