When did you stop?

I have been wearing N95s everywhere since the pandemic began and I don't think I've been infected yet, but according to the wastewater data, it seems the virus is still very prevalent in population.

In fact, it seems another wave is building right now.

We were both in our 60s when this crud began, the low end of the high risk group, so could be were more cautious than most.

My wife and I also have worn masks a lot - but we also tend to avoid crowded indoor events almost entirely now, and use hand sanitizer whenever we leave a public place. We were also quick to get each of our vaccinations.

Wearing a N95 mask correctly and washing your hands consistently is _quite_ effective at protecting you (and others).

Wearing a nonsense cloth mask, not terribly well fitted, protects you a little bit but mostly protects others some.

In between those it varies.

Nothing does much if you're not washing your hands before touching your face.

People also ignore that initial viral load can be a lot lower from masks (depending) even if you do get infected, which can help with severity.

If the sequence is: 1- study that shows correlation between X and Y 2- someone says "X causes Y" referencing the study

then it is appropriate to point out that correlation does not imply causation. X may cause Y but you can't claim it based on the correlation study only. The burden of proof is on you. Nobody needs to disprove causation here.

One of our adult daughters refused to get vaxxed and came to visit for Christmas in 2022 and just 5 days after she arrived she got sick af here. She was in bed for 5 days. Her 2 children, who were 15 and 11 years old and not vaxxed didn't come down with any symptoms at all though and they stayed very close to her.

That same daughter has been infected 2 or 3 times since then and is now dealing with "long covid" issues.

I expect we will see another wave soon as well. People will be gathering and sharing it again. That happened last year and nothing much has changed since aside from the severity of infections, and that probably had do so with natural immunity from prior infections, and folks are still dying from it.

The vaxxes have worked for us though so we'll keep up on them.

Growing up in skateboarding and bmx, there was a similar anti-helmet anti-pad sort of sentiment, perhaps a similar sort of anti-authority culture.

I have two shots, no boosters, and selectively wear a mask when a situation seems to call for it, and haven't yet tested positive, but I figure it's fairly likely I will eventually, or have and just haven't tested positive. Many many people I know have got it by this point, unless they're particularly isolated, as would be true in the general population.

My impression is that many vocal people vehemently picked one extreme take or the other, likely in opposition to each other.

I wore it in the outdoors for like a week, and then on transit and in cafes etc.. I never felt particularly strongly one way or another, and still don't, but just as tiring as hearing anti-mask people go on their rants were my interactions with people who clearly wanted to be seen wearing it more than they actually believed it to be useful, along with those who were/are adamant that not wearing a mask meant you're trying to kill people.

For example, doing outdoor sports without a mask, and then putting one on to post a video on Instagram, or finding a way to bring up covid long after 2021 for the purpose of trying to bait a conflicting opinion out and subsequently beating that horse to death.

Getting stuck in any of those situations/conversations was perhaps most convincing in that I should continue not really being concerned with the opinions of others, quite the opposite of being persuaded to either wear or not wear a mask. Getting both sides of it, somewhat regularly, indicated to me that everyone has some inane axe to grind and mostly just wants someone to listen.

What I'll remember most about the pandemic was how much pointless and tiresome division it brought forth, how unhealthy the reaction was for me personally in terms of shutting everything down, and just hoping none of the vulnerable members of my family succumbed to it. The only thing I'd do differently in retrospect would be to have engaged those people less, because it never made the day any better, and good days were tough to come by.

I never reacted any different at all to those who were not wearing them. I understood early on wearing those masks were not for my protection and I really did not want to infect anyone.

The N95 masks were a way to protect myself and others at the same time so I kept up with when they'd become available and got them as soon as I could, and made a point to use them, and we gave quite a few to others. My wife brought them to where she works and handed them out. They'd been wearing cloth masks there up until then.

You're spot on about the division. Like I said, I took a lot of guff early on for wearing a mask here. Honestly, I think no small reason that stopped happening here is because so many got infected here and after dealing with it themselves they settled down on shitting on those wearing masks or getting vaxxed.

I see a few people wearing a mask when I go to the big box stores in town now and no one pays any attention to it.

> I see a few people wearing a mask when I go to the big box stores in town now and no one pays any attention to it.

I think something to this effect happens quite frequently in a bunch of different domains. Some level of emotional intensity, hype, or posturing one way or the other, until we settle on something more reasonable, with only a few still holding onto a pitchfork or whatever, it's an optimization problem.

I do have a suspicion though that these extremes will re-surface if it happens again soon, rather than be more moderate, and I hope I'm wrong because it's exhausting. At the very least I hope people and local governments remember which part of their conduct wasn't evidently helpful to the people they ostensibly serve or want to be around, but some portion of the population will be encountering that for the first time.

Based on various interactions I had during and after, I'm cautious about the people I spend time with now, because sometimes I'll get the subtle feeling that even though there haven't *yet* been extremely polarizing opinions about some inane issue, I feel like I can sense when a person is susceptible to being extremely sensitive toward something I'm not.

I think people need a break from their phones and Internet tbh.

There are some really great ones, and there are plenty that are quite difficult to breathe through. The N95 standard for breathability would pass some pretty bad ones.

Most places sold all sorts of badly quality controlled masks and it was a crapshoot what you got. And less breathable didn’t necessarily mean better protection.

Plenty would also collapse onto your mouth or not etc.

Some people definitely had a nicer time than others with them.