• DjMeas@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I still wear a mask when going out to stores because I’m immunocompromised due to a kidney transplant. It’s ultimately up to me to protect myself from others but what bothers me most lately are people who either laugh or think I’m stupid for still wearing a mask. Some even go as far as to call me out and shame me for it. Can people just mind their own business? I’m not trying to get them to wear a mask so why are they so fixated on me taking mine off?

    • library_napper@monyet.cc
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      1 year ago

      I still wear a mask because I stand in soldiartiy with folks like you.

      Not only do I want to prevent the spread of the disease that could kill immune compromised folks like yourself, but it also helps normalize mask wearing.

    • Blake [he/him]@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      Genuinely, I think it’s probably because they feel a little guilty when they see you wearing one, and that’s uncomfortable for people, so they respond by taking it out on you.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        A while lot of liberalism and liberal brainworms involves feeling uncomfortable about someone else caring too much in a way that isn’t convenient for treat consumption.

        • phej@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          “feeling uncomfortable about someone else” that’s what fascism is dear. Conservatives so are so uncomfortable about what people have in their pants and what they do with it that they want to ban people from talking about transgender and sexuality topics

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            1 year ago

            Maybe you’re new here, but fascism and liberalism are two sides of the capitalist coin. Liberals stopped masking almost the instant Biden set foot in the White House, despite the fact that 2/3 of covid deaths occurred while Biden was office (liberals will also excuse Biden’s “inaction” while claiming that Trump, who occupied the same office, was a tyrannical authoritarian totalitarian dictator who ran roughshod over the hallowed institutions of our precious democracy). Capitalism is a death cult, workers should run the world, not bourgeois scum and their running dogs.

                • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  It’s actually embarrassing seeing what garbage the human race has produced where we actively try to regress instead of progress… but yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night sweetheart. 😂

                • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  It’s actually embarrassing seeing what garbage the human race has produced where we actively try to regress instead of progress… but yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night sweetheart. 😂

            • ɠισƚԋҽϝʅσɯ@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              despite the fact that 2/3 of covid deaths occurred while Biden was office

              yea yea fuck capitalism, eat the rich, etc., but this “statistic” is disingenuously presented. The pandemic has existed for much more of Biden’s elected years than Trump’s. If your only criterion is that we’ll pretend both prezs were equally apathetic (they weren’t). Do we have to count the years for you? Don’t let ideology make you forget basic arithmetic.

              • RustyVenture [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                Nothing disingenuous about it. Biden’s entire shtick was about following the science and doing the right thing (and being able to win over Republicans on controversial issues, that was the whole reason why we couldn’t gamble on anyone else) and he almost immediately tossed that out and adopted his predecessor’s “ignore it and it’ll go away” attitude. The White House pushed a vax-only approach which was proven to be ineffective before he even took office and then went out to brunch. For fuck’s sake, the man had to be publicly shamed into sending out masks and tests during a surge his feckless ass engendered because he pretended the pandemic was over in April 2021, when less than half of the adult population got their first round of shots.

                I’d be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt considering how poorly even the states that did give half a fuck in 2020 were managing and there is no doubt that it is a complex job, but once you start mimicking the guy you lambasted a few months prior for exacerbating the problem (not to mention spending the next year and a half prematurely stripping people of basic protections and the ability to reliably test and track within their own communities), you lost what little sympathy I could muster. For all intents and purposes, he owns all of the deaths from the day he stepped into the Oval Office. Worst of all, it’s both set the tone for how future leaders will be able to respond to crises, as well as reinforced the notion that our government is ontologically incapable of providing anything for its own citizens besides more terror.

                As for which one of these shitstains is more apathetic: Trump gave me more cash (and it wasn’t means-tested), suspended my student loan payments, afforded me a rent moratorium if I had lost my job, and didn’t end federal mask or testing mandates for traveling because his buddy at Delta Airlines whined to him in a letter. Nothing spells “apathy” like going on 60 Minutes amid yet another surge in cases and saying “the pandemic is over,” or cutting off extended UI prematurely, or instructing cities to use their unused Covid funds to give to the pigs.

                If Trump was smart enough to even utter the words “wear a mask” at any point in 2020 he would still be in office today. This is not an endorsement, for the record. I don’t doubt Trump would have done all of this and worse eventually as well, but the difference is that his callousness was consistently met with resistance and vocal opposition. For Joe Biden, whose callousness is every bit as harmful, there is no effective resistance, no organized campaign to combat the president’s anti-science blathering. We all have to get over it and live even more precariously in this shithole lest we be accused of helping Trump win again.

                • Hexadecimalkink@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  Trump was actually very pro mask at the beginning of the pandemic until the CDC told him they didn’t have enough stock for everyone. The CDC first said not to mask up so that they could secure enough supplies for government workers. This is all recorded fact.

              • duderium [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                The pandemic has existed for much more of Biden’s elected years than Trump’s.

                Wow I wonder how that could be 🤔. It’s almost as though Biden’s covid “policy” has been criminally ineffective! He can’t even claim credit for the development of the vaccines, since Operation Warp Speed began under Trump!

                Biden said that he would listen to the scientists, but forgot to add that they would be eugenicists 😉

            • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Biden’s been in office 2.5x as long as US covid was a thing under Trump.

              I agree Biden has decided to throw some lives in the chipper to keep REITs and employers happy, but the “twice as many deaths under Biden” stat is empty ragecalories.

            • Farman [any]@hexbear.net
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              Im not sure; while fascism is certainly the logical conclusion of lieralism. And we can observe so in the protofascist regimes in early 20th century mexico and turkey. i think liberalism is paraphiletic to fascism sort of like reptiles are to birds. The material conditions that enable one over the other are distinct enough, and the core ideological asumptions seem to be different.

              • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                fascism as an ideology is still at it’s core a defense of capitalism. liberalism has many flavors but it includes everything that exists to support, reinforce, and defend the capitalist project. fascism is only different in that the violence liberalism wreaks in the colonies are turned inwards, towards the nations of the imperial core. but violence itself is a central pillar of all ideologies and it does not differentiate liberalism from fascism.

            • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 year ago

              fascism and liberalism are two sides of the capitalist coin

              Oh, look, a HexBear dipshit in the wild! I wonder how we can figure them out so easily!

              This is “both sides are bad” bullshit, a destructive force from apathetic people. Don’t listen to this shit. Vote every year, twice a year!

                • RustyVenture [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  Gaslighting is telling people that Covid isn’t a threat even though you know it’s not and you deliberately cooked the books to sell that delusion. Gaslighting is telling people you’re supposed to be responsible for governing that a vaccine that was never shown to stop the spread of a disease does, in fact, do that. Gaslighting is telling people that you must personally assess your own risk to a collective, public health crisis with the paltry tools that have been provided, then strip away or sabotage every last one of those tools so they cannot provide even a sliver of usefulness to anyone but the most bad faith interpretations.

                  All of these things are things both Amerikkka’s fascist wing and liberal, fascist-enabling wing have done and are currently doing (if they’re not outright ignoring it). To anyone with a pulse, there is no meaningful difference, and indeed they are so often intertwined.

                  Also, Marx was based.

                • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  You’re gaslighting. His post was bookended with political critiques on how fascism and liberalism are the same thing, with a poor attempt to use COVID to prove his point.

                  Also, he’s a Marxist, a political ideology so successful, it’s produced countless fascist regimes.

              • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                There’s more than two political ideologies. The person you’re replying to isn’t talking about American political parties.

                There’s a lot of history and theory about how different ideologies, especially liberalism and fascism, interact with each other. This is what they were making reference to.

              • Shortstack@reddthat.com
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                Man I was reading his comment and I was like what is this whataboutism nonsense he’s talking about, then it made sense when I read your comment. Guess I gotta start looking at usernames again before reading comments

                • duderium [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  Guess you need to put down the Harry Potter and read actual theory/history before discussing topics about which you are willfully ignorant.

              • duderium [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                The fact that we care about life more than the blood altar of capital tends to make it easy to find us. And remember: losing ideological battles online is but a prelude to losing such battles in the real world.

                Edit: imagine thinking that voting every few years for bourgeois puppets equals democracy. Real democracy is practiced in every home, school, and workplace every day by every person. Liberals don’t want to hear this, though, because they tend to do poorly when everyone everywhere is able and willing to participate in a truly democratic society 😉

                If you want to really see how democratic the USA is, try forming a union in your workplace. Try protesting in a way that inconveniences capital. Try going to a city when you have no money or connections. Try speaking publicly about how Biden has given $75 billion+ to Ukrainian Nazis. Then see just how amazing and democratic life in the USA really is.

                And yes, both sides are definitely bad, as evidenced by the fact that by any objective measure, everything in the USA is worse than it was when Trump was president. But thankfully there’s a third side called Marxism. If it didn’t work and it was really such a failure, then you wouldn’t be panicking daily about China’s rise. And if China is not actually communist, I assume you would have no issue with the CPC taking over the USA, since the result would be the same, right? Whatever human rights issues they supposedly have pale in comparison to the multiple ongoing genocides perpetrated by the USA’s ruling class. The Iraq War alone—supported by both American liberals and fascists—is far worse than anything the Nazis in the CIA say that China has done.

    • Polar@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Same. I never stopped wearing a mask because I’m immunocompromised from my lung transplant. People call me names all the time. Even here on Lemmy.

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        I find this hard to believe. Especially considering that your post history shows you calling others names like ‘simp’.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      It’s real bad. Fun fact: I am very big, and I’ve worn straight up gas masks at some points during the pandemic, and no one has ever said anything to me. Plague rats are real brave as long as they’re pretty confidant there won’t be consequences. It’s gross.

      • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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        Yes, I wouldn’t describe my as very big but I’m not small and the number of people who look like they’re going to say something and then reconsider it when they take a second look at me… cowards. These are people used to bullying those they can bully without consequence.

    • TheKaul@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      This is the same issue the LGBT community suffers from, as well as people of color, people with accents, etc. People always find ways to make themselves feel superior to others by pointing out something different. You choosing to wear a mask just makes those kinds of people laugh because they either 1. Feel better than you for not wearing masks or 2. They are uneducated/ignorant and follow others’ opinions without question.

      I suppose the only way to turn it back around on them would be to try scaring them by saying you have something contagious like strep throat, or worse, so they’ll shut up and leave you alone. Otherwise my only other advice would be to just do your best to not engage with these types of people.

    • Shortstack@reddthat.com
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      This is why I started exclusively wearing kn95s because it became clear after a time that people simply don’t give a shit about anyone except themselves, they don’t care if you or I get covid and die.

      So I stopped pretending like I’m doing my part since we all know surgicals and cloth masks are only truly effective if everyone else is wearing them. They know too but choose to fuck us anyway. So fuck them too and protect yourself first. Wear your p100 respirator with the exhaust vents that filter nothing for extra vindictive points

    • Piers@beehaw.org
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      The thing that bothers me more is when they seem actively annoyed to see someone in a mask. Like somehow me wearing a mask in a shared public space in order to prevent someone from dieing horribly is unfair to this rando but this rando doesn’t think that them hacking and coughing everywhere in a shared public space without a mask on is unfair to anybody.

    • Lifted_lowered@beehaw.org
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      I was refused service at my bank the other day for not taking off my mask when they asked. They never had a problem with me being masked up before, even when I opened the account. I went and used mobile deposit instead, but it was a really disturbing precedent. I wrote in asking about their policy and instead of a straight answer I was dodged by management.

      I don’t want to sue them or anything, I just want them to come to their senses and not prohibit me from making a deposit to my account because I don’t want to get sick.

      • Piers@beehaw.org
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        I wrote in asking about their policy and instead of a straight answer I was dodged by management.

        I feel like over the last few years organisations in general have become far more likely to try to just brush off an issues someone raises than just cleanly and easily address them.

    • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
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      Honestly, I am not immunocompromised and I still wear a mask because I haven’t gotten sick since the pandemic started, and it even helps my sinus’ when I’m cleaning the house. I’ve never been one to worry about what someone thinks of me, so I’m sorry if this comes off as tone deaf, but fuck ‘em. Why should you care about what they think about you? When was the last time you thought about that person who was doing something you thought was strange in the local mart? I will assume not until I just made you think about them. Live your life as safely as you want. For every moron out there trying to make fun of you (they can try, but ultimately they themselves just look foolish and stupid) there are more like me and the others who wear masks alongside you. Stay safe and have a good rest of your day!

      • macabrett [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        it even helps my sinus’ when I’m cleaning the house.

        One of the best parts about having a bunch of cloth masks from early in the pandemic is they’re great for cleaning. I wear one when I clean my cats’ litterboxes every day.

        I wear N95s outside the house, but cloth masks have still proven useful.

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    1 year ago

    The lesson I’m learning is that we should have worn masks during “flu season” all along. In crowded and poorly ventilated spaces at least. It’s a cheap and easy measure and I don’t know what the BFD is with masks.

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      That’s the damn truth lol. I wish I would’ve known and used masks more appropriately before; could have avoided a bunch of little respiratory infections. The most I would have had to deal with is people asking “are you sick?” because I’m wearing a mask

    • Saneless@sh.itjust.works
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      What crosses over into idiot territory is the people who think it’s a conspiracy that the flu kinda went away as we all tried to stop getting covid

      As if it’s for some other reason other than stopping the spread of something that has identical transmission

    • Piers@beehaw.org
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      Masks just aren’t inherently a big deal. It’s just been made one by people seeking to politicise what should be a universally accepted good (trying to stop the spread and harm of a pandemic/epidemic disease.) People have reframed it as “they” are trying to control you! So vote for me/buy my tat/give me attention and I will protect “us” from “them”! and just about everyone has been influenced in their response to this simple practical health issue in some way as a result. Some entirely buying into the message and insisting there’s some insidious reason we’re being asked to take simple actions to prevent infection, others simply being a little more lax in their action than they would be if there wasn’t a fairly large vocal minority insisting that no action should be taken at all.

      • TheWheelMustGoOn@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        They are a big deal. Acting like it’s not affecting your life is just as stupid as people saying the bill gates is creating a new world order it whatever. It affects our immune systems, it affects our social life’s and it’s more than annoying in certain climate conditions, if you have a runny nose etc.

        I will always wear a mask if it’s necessary but not just out of pure precaution

    • Marxism-Fennekinism@lemmy.ml
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      That’s been pretty common in Asia and elswwhere for a long time now. No excuse for the West to not replicate it.

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      The lesson I leaned is that as long as it’s not a COVID everyone is dying, we need to save our healthcare system from collapsing situation we shouldn’t wear masks because we need to be able to fend off common colds with our body or we are artificially creating a pandemic. For example we almost had a new collapse of infant care because way to many babies for a certain flu type after everything opened up again which would normally spread out over longer periods.

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    Wear a Mask. Get vaccinated. Stop spreading misinformation

    Since the anti-mask/vax comments seem to be flooding in, figured I’d make my opinion known too… as obnoxiously as I can, because apparently that’s how it’s done

  • Syldon@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    I hate scepticism over vaccines, but when it has just been announced that vaccines can be sold to the public for around £100 each, and then this comes along. They say ignore how many are being admitted to hospital as other consequences are more dangerous.

    I have followed the hospital rates as a metric for over a year now. I don’t see any other metric as valid. The death rate is reduced as the most vulnerable have been seen off. The reporting rate is non-existent because people are not interested anymore. People are under pressure to attend work with covid now, so why would they bother with the testing kits. Patients in hospital is the most sensible data point to me.

    Why are we not being told of which areas are showing the most cases? Covid cases are drastically reduced now. Which hospitals are taking in large amounts of cases?

    It would be stupid to take unnecessary risks, but this has a bad smell of fear mongering to sell vaccines around it for me.

    • Shinji_Ikari [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I’m left to wonder what is more likely, a company taking advantage of a public health emergency to turn a profit, or a company manufacturing an entire public health scare to sell their product.

      To be safe, I’d go with the former. Stay healthy.

    • starlinguk@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      The vaccines are still free in many countries. PS the latest booster vaccinated against the wrong variant.

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      Christina Pagel was urging locking, masking, and caution since early 2020, which is well before vaccines were even available. And she’s taking the time to present the evidence, which you can clearly interrogate. Your unsubstantiated conspiracy theory is as dangerous as it is embarrassing.

      • Syldon@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        I don’t argue against taking precautions. I agree that people should not take things for granted and protect themselves. I even added the proviso:

        It would be stupid to take unnecessary risks

        Vaccines work, I am far from anti vaccine. If the government procured the vaccines and were using them across the population, then I would be all for it. When you add a £100 price tag into the equation then you take more time to consider your options.

        There is one thing that is indisputable regarding the drop in cases which can easily be matched against hospital admissions. When everyone was tracking covid infections with tests hospital admissions went up at the same time as positive covid infection went up. We do not have a credible method of tracking infections because of the reasons I have already stated, with the exception of people who are suffering so badly that they need to be admitted in for professional care. We are being asked to ignore what I see as a credible data source at the same time as vaccines have become available at a cost.

        If you wish to track the data then by all means fill your boots: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

        If you want the advice she is given to be taken with more ardour from myself, then give me something to see with infection rates, deaths or recorded issues.

        • ButtBidet [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          but this has a bad smell of fear mongering to sell vaccines around it for me.

          This is rude and dangerous af. This is what I’m concerned with. Dr. Pagel has no connection with the pharmaceutical industry, so this is also just entirely misinformed. It must be nice to just shoot from the hip and not have to back up your assertions.

    • bjfar@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      If the government was trying to funnel money to vaccine companies they’d just make the vaccines free and pay for them with government funds, forever. That makes a lot more money than having the companies try to get people to fork out 100 pounds for them.

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    1 year ago

    Unless the strain is killing a sizable amount of people getting it it’ll be hard to get people to wear masks en masse again.

    • Cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
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      Even if it kills (which it likely will), our track record shows that didn’t care enough about that, and in a decreasing manner. So it’ll only be worse.

      • Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Pretty sure every virus has killed people, from the cold, to flu, and of course covid. It feels like now the death rate for the latest variants of covid are pretty comparable to the flu, the virus has lost a lot of its killing power over time.

            • eatmyass [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago
              1. the sheer number of Covid infections has made long Covid into a global crisis

              2. amazing that you recognize the existence of not only long Covid, but other post-viral illnesses, and think it gives weight to your “Covid is no big deal” argument

                • eatmyass [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  Yeah, I misspoke in my initial comment. I was under the impression the percentage was lower, but I looked it up and it’s about the same (based on the first thing I read)

                  So to me there’s two conclusions: Covid, which infects people at a much higher rate and for which the vaccine is not really that effective, is a bigger problem since it will end up giving a larger number of people long Covid. The flu is not infecting people twice a year (or more), and it’s possible to go years without catching the flu, even without masks

                  Or, what I think is the correct conclusion, we should be taking flu more seriously. We saw how little flu there was during the years of the highest mask compliance. Very weird to say “oh we’ve always had post-viral illness, let’s just have even more.” How about we actually take public health seriously for once?

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          Pretty sure every virus has killed people, from the cold, to flu, and of course covid.

          False equivalency intensifies

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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          Death rates aren’t a feeling. I want some hard numbers.

          I feel like we just don’t care if we live or die anymore.

          • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            Fun fact: the CDC readjusted what the ‘normal’ rate of deaths is to include the years of the pandemic so now it’s harder than ever to find hard numbers because “excess deaths” was one of the last ways to get any information at all!

            • rjs001@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 year ago

              For the love of god: everyone should ignores what the CDC says. You can see for yourself how many people died from Covid under their watch. They have no morals and they made it obvious by downplaying Covid

          • Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I know I’ve read reports about the latest variants being much less deadly. I did see one study recently which for patients presenting to hospital covid was a few percentage points more likely to result in death compared to hospitalized flu patients. There were a lot more covid patients though.

            Found it:

            death rates among people hospitalized for COVID-19 were 17% to 21% in 2020 vs 6% in this study, while death rates for those hospitalized for influenza were 3.8% in 2020 vs 3.7% in this study

            https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2803749

            So there is some data backing up the feelings I’ve gotten from everything I’ve been hearing and seeing.

              • Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                I mean, that’s one way to look at it. I looked at it as only a couple percent higher death rate than the flu. Either way, a little less than 2x is way better than like 5x worse.

                • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  Obviously it’s better than before, but it’s also worth keeping in mind these deaths are in addition to the flu.

                  Also, there are good and bad flu seasons. I see no reason for COVID to not be the same.

    • Chipthemonk@lemm.ee
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      Get over it. COVID is a lot more minor than anyone made out to be. Have you not had it yet? You will if you haven’t. And then you will get over it like a cold. COVID is over for good.

      • cnnrduncan@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Covid put my healthy 26 yo friend in hospital when he caught it last year, and I have friends who took several years of suffering before they recovered from long covid. It’s definitely not as harmless as you’re implying.

        • Chipthemonk@lemm.ee
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          Yeah, okay. Read the Cochrane review.

          I guess Lemmy is filled with a bunch of folk that like to live in a pandemic dystopian state. Fuck that. I love people’s faces and read the fucking science on it.

    • June@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I wonder how much of the wave is due to return to office

    • Misconduct@startrek.website
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      Well yeah. If we don’t the landowners will lose money on all their ugly and useless office buildings and that would be sooo awful :(

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      Lol for real, can’t wait til I find a new WFH job. The brain drain that my “return to the office” job has on the way is going to be monumental. EVERYONE that doesn’t have a direct report in my department is looking for a new job.

  • macabrett [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    I want to share my experience as a disabled person, because I think it’s very easy to simply not notice our non-existance:

    I don’t exist anymore. I’m a hermit. It’s been years since I’ve done anything in public. I go to the rheumatologist, I go to a lab to get blood tests, and once a year I get an x-ray to make sure I don’t have TB. I don’t do anything else. There’s about a two week period where being outside isn’t some unbearably high or low temperature that exacerbates my condition.

    Please care about covid. Just, please. Do it for people like me if that helps you, but mostly do it for yourself. This virus can make you like me and it’s miserable (I was sick before Covid, but Covid is known to trigger autoimmune conditions which are the primary cause of my suffering).

    • neutron@thelemmy.club
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      1 year ago

      I’m so sorry for you, man. I had to take care of my parents when covid started (they’re all fine now) and couldn’t stand the mouth breathers thinking only they and themselves mattered.

    • MDKAOD@lemmy.ml
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      Covid is known to trigger autoimmune conditions

      *waves* Hi, I’m new here. Recent owner of (currently) 12 different autoimmune markers. 😭

        • MDKAOD@lemmy.ml
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          Scariest part is the discovery and uncertainty of it all. "oh well if it’s scleroderma, you’re dead in 10 years. If it’s just scleroderma Ana, maybe it’s lupus. It could also be this weird ass thing that less than 1000 people in the world have. Well, I mean you have the marker, but it could also be lupus. Maybe MS. Are you still having dysphagia and have you choked on food lately? "

          Excuse me while I gently sway back and forth in the corner over here.

          And don’t get me wrong, I’m not a antivax person, like at all, I have 5 rona shots now. But if someone tries to suggest with 100% absolute certainty that either covid itself or the toll the vaccine took on me didn’t unlock an underlying autoimmune disorder, I’ll kick em. I’m not saying that the vaccine gave me an autoimmune issue. I’m saying it likely existed prior but was the catalyst.

          • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            I’m not in quite as bad shape but I also reacted badly to the vaccine. I get awful migraines after every shot/covid exposure lasting months and it’s become permanent since the last one. I quite literally have not had a single day free from migraines in 6 months and I’m completely intractable to every medication we’ve tried. like they’re talking about burning out various nerves in my face and neck to try and prevent them but it feels hopeless. I no longer get to have a social life and I’m struggling to keep a wfh job - I’m effectively bedridden all the time because of the side effects of migraines (dizziness, vertigo, muscle weakness, primarily), and I’ve been getting seizures for the past year.

            I wish people would just do the bare minimum to protect people like us but I’ve mostly given up. just trying to get used to my new, extremely small world.

          • macabrett [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            The uncertainty is awful. It took me ten years to get diagnosed with anything. I had so many doctors that thought I was just seeking pain pills. I had to beg a primary care physician to refer me to a rheumatologist. The rheumatologist guessed what I had within 5 minutes. A few blood tests, X-rays, and an MRI later and I had a diagnosis. Ten years and then someone guesses it in 5 minutes. Autoimmune diseases are weird like that.

            I’m also incredibly pro-vax, but those things knock me on my ass for days. Seems pretty common for people with autoimmune diseases.

          • starlinguk@kbin.social
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            My shit started about two months after having Covid. Longgg before I got vaccinated. I think some people think it’s the vaccine because problems don’t tend to start right away when you have covid. It takes a while.

            • MDKAOD@lemmy.ml
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              I never tested positive for covid. I was sick once, but repeatedly tested negative across multiple brands of at home kits. My wife was sick a couple of weeks afterwards, and tested positive at the first sniffle.

              🤷🏼‍♂️

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      100% with you. Haven’t taken my mask off in public in years, and making regular attempts to goad my friends in to putting theirs back on.

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        Thanks for looking out for us. I wish more people looked at it the way you do. It’s been really weird seeing headlines since 2022 that excitedly proclaim “hey its only old people and disabled people dying now!”

    • mcteazy@sh.itjust.works
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      Hi there - I am also immunocompromised and have 2 exciting autoimmune diseases. I work in an office every day (actually a lab, but regardless).

      Your behaviour is not normal, and you should seek therapy so you can enjoy your life!

  • MJBrune@beehaw.org
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    I didn’t know lemmy was full of anti maskers. Wear a mask ffs. You should have kn95s or n95s. They work and prevent all sorts of illness. Even a regular mask works better than nothing. They did plenty of studies.

    • MrShankles@reddthat.com
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      The anti maskers/vaxxers are just loud and like to make their opinion known. I don’t really give a fuck anymore who wears a mask or not, I just stay safe and try to keep others safe. People are gonna be dumb no matter what you do. Just wish they weren’t so fucking vocal about pushing misinformation, while being so confidently incorrect.

      I really like the KF94’s personally, they’re more comfortable for me. Definitely look into them if you haven’t already!

      Edit: By looking at your upvotes vs the loud minority, you can tell what people around here think lol. A lot of instances don’t allow downvotes (mine for one), so upvotes are the only option

    • Chipthemonk@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      You are not up to date. The science on whether mass masking is effective is far from settled and the biggest reviews of the literature strongly suggest that masks are not effective in preventing or slowing the spread of respiratory viruses. See below.

      https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses

      The Cochrane Review is highly respected in the medical community. The authors, after a massive study, write the following:

      We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed.

      There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness, and although this effect was also present when ILI and laboratory-confirmed influenza were analysed separately, it was not found to be a significant difference for the latter two outcomes. Harms associated with physical interventions were under-investigated.

      • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Stop posting this all over the place. Masks clearly work, unless you like randos sneezing and coughing all over you. It catches all the phlegm.

        Also, it prevents the smells of anti-maskers from reaching your nose. They can be pretty bad. You wear clothes over literally every other part of your body. Why do you think your face is different?

        • Chipthemonk@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          “Stop posting something that, while scientific and deeply rigorous, goes against my deep seated and unchangeable views. I can’t handle it with my weak, feeble mind!”

          • DarthVader@discuss.tchncs.de
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            You’ve been corrected multiple times with excerpts from the authors of the study you’re parroting all over this thread. And yet you just keep posting the same shit, not acknowledging the people who are refuting your claims.

            • Chipthemonk@lemm.ee
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              I haven’t been corrected. The farthest anyone has gone was post the editorial comment or highlight that the Cochrane review said “we don’t think masks made any difference but we don’t really know because we need more studies”. Don’t you think it’s pretty damning that, after 2 years, they still don’t know whether masks are effective at the population level? So you are just gonna argue “just to be safe!”

              No. I don’t live my life by that mantra. Read Haidt’s The coddling of the American mind.

          • Piers@beehaw.org
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            It is scientific and rigorous. You’ve not understood it correctly and Cochrane have been explicit about the fact of that misunderstanding. They are not saying the things you think they are saying.

            • Chipthemonk@lemm.ee
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              The editor in chief was covering her ass due to the political nature of the results. All she attempts to say is “we don’t have conclusive evidence that masks are not effective”

              No shit. The review said the same thing. The point is that the large scale study showed no effects of masking. That is, they weren’t sure if they helped or not. That means there is no conclusive evidence, still, after 2 years, that masks are an effective population level intervention.

              “But I wear my cloth mask just to be safe.” Okay. You do you. But just know there is no conclusive evidence that it works. Might as well stay in your room, locked for life. Just to be safe.

      • Macros@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        I don’t understand people downvoting without correcting. This way this wrong information stands here, seemingly scientifically sound as a study is linked, contradicted only by votes and words.

        Thank you @SigloPseudoMundo@lemmy.ml for looking at the study and noting its limits here.

        If somebody wants to check for himself I suggest to take a look at https://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/full/10.2217/fvl-2021-0032 A study which looks at many different studies and metastudies.

        To summarize:

        • Some studies exist that measured no benefits of masks under certain circumstances. E.g. only evaluating complete protection. But few also seem to be sound at first glance. E.g. one looking at effects of a mask requirement in Bexar County, TX.
        • Many of the negative result studies focus on cloth face masks, one even suggesting they increase risk.
        • Many studies and metastudies with generally more sound methods suggest mask are effective at preventing spread and limiting mortality.

        Conclusion: Masks, excluding simple cloth masks, are likely quite effective. More research is needed.

        • Chipthemonk@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Your conclusion, in respect to the highly detailed Cochrane review, is extremely wrong. I don’t know how people like you come up with this logic. It’s bizarre. Cloth masks have been proven to be in effective time and time again and you keep promoting them. It’s ridiculous.

          It’s not seemingly scientific, the study I linked is the best study we have and it came up with “masks don’t seem to help for reducing the spread of respiratory viruses.” Yet you spew the same bullshit we had at the beginning of the pandemic that wasn’t researched.

          Luckily I live in a place where it will be highly unlikely for some ridiculous mandate. Hopefully you live in a place that will mandate this shit for the rest of your life so you can live in the dystopia you want to live in. Leave the rest of us alone.

          • Macros@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            It seems you have not read my post or the study in detail.

            Indeed it seems that cloth masks are not very or even not effective. But, and that’s a big but: FFP2/KN95 Masks seem to be quite effective.

            The Cochrane study authors themselves note the low confidence they have in their results. The sample size is quite small (e.g. only 8407 people in summary over all studies they evaluated for FFP2 masks) They even got the result that handwashing has no benefits.

            In Contrast the studies in the metastudy I linked work with far larger sample sizes.

            I won’t respond anymore after this comment as you seem agitated and resort to personal attacks which won’t lead to a productive discussion. I hope you find a calmer moment to consider the evidence studies have gathered and overthink your position.

            • Piers@beehaw.org
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              Largely what the Cochrane report appears to say is that these studies aren’t actually suitable to draw firm conclusions from (which is what all the talk of “evidence” are about. They mean that the studies they read don’t have sufficient evidence to support their own claims and that while Cochrane can therefore tell us “study X had conclusion Y” they and we shouldn’t assume that’s actually correct as “study X” wasn’t actually very good.)

              • Chipthemonk@lemm.ee
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                My whole point is that the scientific consensus on whether masks make a difference at the population level for respiratory illnesses is inconclusive. So why should governments continue mandating them? “Just to be safe” is not a sound argument, especially when the intervention is so drastic against the human condition.

                I love showing my face and seeing other people’s’ faces. It angers me that so many people don’t care about faces. I find these folk to be expressively anti-human and it angers me. Masks limit human expression. They dull human life.

      • BigNote@lemm.ee
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        I love this bit; “The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited.”

        So why, exactly, would you not err on the side of caution?

        This makes no sense.

      • Durotar@lemmy.ml
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        The science on whether mass masking is effective is far from settled

        Be kind and wear a mask until it’s settled that they don’t help. What we know for sure is that it’s very hard to measure whether they’re effective or not.

        • Piers@beehaw.org
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          FWIW, they definitely do work. The issue is that it’s quite hard to produce effective studies to confirm if they work one way or another to point to to say “see, we’ve proved they work, now put one on!”

    • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      I’m not an anti masker, wore mine for 3 solid years, but definitely tired of it. And we can’t wear a mask forever.

      I can understand if I’m sick or regularly near someone who is sick, but day to day is too much. Especially in my line of work, where I’m working in the heat doing physical work.

      • foo@programming.dev
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        Why can’t we wear masks in public forever? Do you wear pants in public? Shoes?

        If you are in an open space outdoors distanced from people, like most hard labor, you probably don’t need to be masked. But white collar jobs in coffee proximity to each other?

        • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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          I should ask this, how long do you typically wear a mask for when you do wear one?

          I had to wear it for 8-12 hours a day while at work. My sinuses were clogged up by the end of the day, acne all over my face, and the mask venting into my eyes was causing an stye to develop on my eyelid.

      • MJBrune@beehaw.org
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        Lol not really how it works in a society with choices that kill people. Driving without a seatbelt is illegal. Drinking and driving is illegal.

    • rab@lemmy.ca
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      My issue with them is the plastic waste

      I think the newest Cochrane medical study rated n95 as 18% effective and regular masks 5% effective against covid, btw. Better than nothing, yes, but worth it?

      • JeffCraig@citizensgaming.com
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        Other studies show that in health-care workers, n95 vs medical masks made almost no statistical difference.

        However, the use of masks in the public is not necessarily to protect yourself. It’s to keep you from spreading germs in a wide range if you cough. It’s the same concept as herd immunity with vaccinations. We all help protect each other.

        So with that in mind: wear a washable cloth mask.

        • Chipthemonk@lemm.ee
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          That’s not what the science says. It seems logical, but the mask is supposed to protect the wearer from external shit. It seems logical that it would slow down the spread if an infected individual wears a mask, but the science is far from clear on this after a multi year long pandemic. If a mask makes you feel better, then wear it, but it’s not evident that it plays a big role when it comes to respiratory viruses.

          https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses

          There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness, and although this effect was also present when ILI and laboratory-confirmed influenza were analysed separately, it was not found to be a significant difference for the latter two outcomes. Harms associated with physical interventions were under-investigated.

    • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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      Is there no risk to weaken your immune system by continuously wearing masks even outside epidemic waves?

      • MJBrune@beehaw.org
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        No, your immunity to viral infections doesn’t last forever. Cultures around the world wear masks when they are out in close proximity or if they are sick and you don’t see higher infection rates among them. Japan is a culture famous for wearing masks and they have a lower infection rate overall.

  • MarkG_108@lemmy.ca
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    I saw on the CBC last night a story of a restaurant worker who was fired because she wore a mask. That’s how bonkers we in Canada have become lately.

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    I saw a study a while back that claimed that good filtration and ventilation systems in indoor public places were more effective than masking. If that’s the case, what I’d like to see is subsidies for businesses and public buildings to get.new systems installed, as well as new minimum air quality standards for public spaces with inspections for enforcement.