(no subject)

[conuly]

https://www.metafilter.com/198935/Our-failures-here-could-last-a-generation

Selected comment quote: I, too, continue to mask, but it is getting harder and fucking harder when I’m in environments where I am literally the only person (in 10, in 100, in 1,000) wearing a mask. I continue to do it because I don’t want goddamn complications, but I’m currently doing some traveling in areas where few or no people are wearing masks.

You know, I understand this sort of comment in principle, but sometimes I hear/read stuff like that and I just think "geez, maybe more people should be autistic". Or openly LGBTQ, or religious minorities, or physically disabled, or freaking something so they can get some perspective on this "Gosh, I'm the only one wearing a mask!" thing.

Of course I also don't like to garden in the front during the day because people might see me, so let's not claim that I don't have layers. Anyway, since other people are like that about masks, that's all the more reason to wear one so that those people will say "Okay, there's somebody else, I'm not all alone here".

Comments

[profiterole_reads]

I don't care if I'm the only one, I'm still masking because I haven't caught a virus (Covid, flu, stomach bug or even a simple cold...) in 3 years and I dig that.

[the_siobhan]

Same. I used to get bronchitis every winter. This is my new normal and I will fight anybody who tries to make me go back.

[austin_dern]

Ah, yeah, I used to joke that for all my obsessive hand-washing, I would get 50 colds a year, each of them lasting three weeks, often stacked one on top of each other. Which is a bit more than I really had, but not far enough more. But since the pandemic? Nothing. A couple weeks ago I thought I was getting a fever and thought this is it, my first cold, and no: my temperature never got above 97.6 Fahrenheit.

I concede that if the pandemic were over and the Covid-19 risk comparable to what it was in October 2019, I probably wouldn't bother masking. Maybe a lighter mask, certainly not the bother of an N95. But with the world as it is? None of you need to see my mouth that much.