@mindstalk

If the unknown risks turn out to be quantified and the risks are higher than we thought I am happy to potentially wear a mask **if** wearing a mask presents a potential for a long term solution and is only a temporary thing.

We wore masks for 2 years, more than 2 years... I am more than happy to take my risks rather than wear a mask for the rest of my life, even unknown risks, as there are plenty of those.

@LeneBe @erictopol

@LeneBe @mindstalk @freemo @erictopol Hazmat?! Oh good gad. Wearing a mask is no worse than putting on a hat or wearing shoes. The only two things they prevent you from doing in public are eating and putting your mouth on display. Viewing masks as temporary measures to be endured for extraordinary events instead of just basic wear for everyday life is probably why folks like you haven’t gotten used to them or bothered to find ones that are comfortable.

@shawrd773

If wearing a mask is convient for you, go for it.

When I wear a mask I cant see (I wear glasses), I have a lot of trouble breathing (I used to be asthematic) and feel very claustrophobic... While it may be fine for you not everyone response the same, I find it quite miserable to the point where I'd rather not go out. They also give me a headache long term.

@LeneBe @mindstalk @erictopol

if air escapes from the mask towards your glasses, that mask is not a good fit for you, and it's not protecting you as much as a mask should

you may be vaccinated, and somewhat lucky to not have developed a bad case, but there are young children like my granddaughter for whom there aren't vaccines yet, and there are plenty of people who, even vaccinated, still develop pretty severe chronic conditions after even mild cases of covid-19.
is the inconvenience of wearing a mask is too burdensome to avoid transmitting to others the virus you're more likely to catch?
say, had you been HIV-positive some 30 years ago, would you also have abandoned condoms after a short while protecting your partner(s?), because they're too uncomfortable?

@lxo Thankfully young children are pretty resistant to covid and they are very low risk.

That said there are plenty of peple int he world with compromised immune systems who would die from a cold, the flu, or even covid and tons of other diseases... Their situation is extremely unfortunate. But I dont think its reasonable to expect an entire world to live their life wearing hazmat balanced on the risks.

wearing masks would help protect the vulnerable from several such diseases indeed. it's a bit like blocking in the fediverse. we may be thick-skinned, privileged enough to not be part of any vulnerable groups, but when we moderate, we block instances that would hurt the vulnerable, even if doing that work is a little inconvenient.
why should the conclusion be different when it comes to blocking a virus that could kill them?

@lxo by that logic if you wear full hazmat gear, including at home youd spread even less disease and save even more lives. People draw a line where it becones an unhealthy trade off (hypochondria).

For me that line is wearing half hazmat gear (just a mask), for you its wearing the full suit. We can reasonably protect the vulnerable by wearing masks in old people homes and in high risk enounters.

personally I'm in favor of the minority of people who are disproportionately vulnerable or afraid of microorganisms to wear hazmat suits, or to take other unintrusive measures to protect their health. they have every right. what they don't have a right to do is force others to follow suit, much less sentence the whole rest of society to house arrest and to be unwilling participants in a medical experiment for the sake of their own paranoia.

IIUC the implications of what you're saying, one could always do more to protect oneself and others, so everyone has to draw the line somewhere, and different people may legitimately choose different spots, even down to zero, when exposed to similar public risk profiles. I can't disagree with that.
it strikes me as odd, however, to suggest "long enough" should play a role in this assessment. absent changes to the risk profile, it seems illogical to me to decide "I've sacrificed long enough; no more!". if it made sense to wear masks (or hazmat suits) before, and the risks didn't change, it would still make just as much sense to wear them.
but the risk profile hasn't remained the same. you and others you care about have aged (not much, but that risk is going up, not down), and there's a new wave spreading incredibly fast, and without any evidence of lowering the risk of long-term chronic disability to as much as balancing out the increased risk of catching, passing on, giving rise to mutations, or getting your immune system weakened against opportunistic infections (which some new variants seem to do). so I find an "enough!" decision quite illogical at this moment. if it was reasonable to wear a mask before, now it would be a time to wear a better mask, not to drop it.

@LeneBe @mindstalk @erictopol But that’s the core of it, isn’t it? To make that adaptation requires admitting to oneself that covid is both dangerous and not going away.