A Question About Mask Wearing During COVID-19

@mikewhy: Man the drastic difference between Atlantic provinces and out West. Here in rural Alberta, Canada and man oh man. It's not as bad as some of the more ignorant stories and videos you see in some select places of the US, but it's pretty bad. I'd say general consensus among the public is that either Covid is fake or overblown. Despite being mandated mask wearing is sparce, like maybe 20-30% of the people sparse (at best). It's a crapshoot when it comes to even businesses regarding employee's wearing them. Some grocery outlets have adopted full sale wearing and it's been good that way but others have none at all.

Even the social media surrounding most people I know and people I know know etc has been a circle of people claiming it's government control as a huge talking point. It's...hard to deal with to be honest especially when you hear stories of better rural towns and area's across the Country that are dealing with a lot less ignorance. But yeah I live across the street from a Community and Activities Center that is mostly outdoor facilities for basketball, soccer baseball etc. Kids and parents are regularly congregating there to make up missed sports games and nobody is wearing a mask. Nobody is social distancing. People have invited family up in RV's and parked them around to create a hub as if nothing is going on. It very much feels like the ignorance here is to the point of presuming that the numbers went low so life got to return to a some previous normal; which is beyond ignorance to me because it presumes that previous normal even exists anymore when I highly doubt it very will. The pandemic has given people en masse ample opportunity to spot various cracks in how we operate as a society so to say things just "won't change and return to how we did it" is...mind boggling. To blindly go out and just force that return and then watch as cases uptick is even more wild.

As @north6 so accurately points out in the end of his post, I think a lot of people really underestimate or do not understand the logic behind the fear of the situation with this. It's not just how little we know about the virus, it's the ability for it to rapidly spread that is hugely the concern. I see some accounts even in this thread of what I'm presuming is even a positive posting of low amounts of people in hospital beds. I don't think people understand, that's a good thing. That's what you want. The idea that because you have a low number of people in the hospital that one should "return to normal" because of it is absolutely wrong. There are countless stories of near empty hospitals filling up in a weeks and even days. That is how fast this thing spreads. Deaths get avoided because we keep our hospitals empty and ready to deal with the crisis the moment they discover it. That the cases are low, that the hospitals are empty is a sign that lockdown procedures and social distancing rules and masking is working. So the thought that we'd use it as evidence to stop doing any of those things is...insanely illogical and I do not understand it. Not calling anyone out for those things in this thread, as I don't think that was the case, I just kind of feel it needs to be said y'know?

But yeah I totally expect a spike up of cases and another wave specifically in Alberta. We have our Gov here embracing more of a Trump style strategy of getting the economy open. They want to open all schools for all children with no restrictions and little time for teachers to even form a covid prevention strategy. Oppositions parties have called hard for limited classroom attendance mixed with digital to allow for less children but that was instantly shot down as too harmful on economic recovery. It really makes me wonder what the provincial government here will do when economic recovery gets hampered anyways because there is just enough of an overall percentage of people who are logical about this that they'll likely choose homeschooling or keep their kids home anyways. On top of the fact that teachers who don't feel safe can y'know, strike? It's why so many businesses have closed shop or opted for work from home procedures where available. They recognize the collective will of the people is as such that people are still being exceptionally cautious, so it's inevitable that the economy takes a hit regardless of what anyone does. People are simply choosing to be cautious.

Anyway I hope people out there are staying as safe and informed as possible. I know there is a lot going on in the world and right now there are tons of bad faith actors trying to troll and manipulate information to make a lot of these issues seem "political." This couldn't be further from the truth. Your seeing a litany of legit human rights and overall humanitarian issues that debating as such has nothing to do with the constant toxic political landscape. I appreciate the OP trying to push past the "is it right to wear masks" part of this debate to avoid those issues and let people share some stories about what's been going on around them.

@mikewhy: Some states have slightly different rules if you're there for less than 24 hours actually; I'm mostly through NY's quarantine now (they send me text updates, it's surprisingly competent), and their paperwork on the plane specified different procedures based on your context.

I'm not sold that brief visits and stuff are okay (the same way I'm not sold that a 50% capacity restaurant is all of a sudden safe) but also work.

@nightriff: This is some wild shit. At my school, if a student or teacher has even mild fever of 37.6 (99.6 F) or mild cold like symptoms, they're immediately sent to the medical center and then home, where they have to stay until they have at least three days in a row with no fever and no symptoms. And that's with masks being mandatory and enforced (or at least, in the students case, as enforced as possible). Stay as safe!

I'm from Iceland, and we actually got rid of infections inside the borders completely for a while. We didn't go into strict lockdown like some other countries but gatherings of over 20 people was banned and a lot of services were shut down (gyms, hardressers, cafés and the like). People were also restricted from staying closer than 2 meters from each other. What really made the difference was a strict testing and tracing system with widespread quarantining and daily very informative public health press briefings by our head epidemiologist, director of health and director of civil protection within the police (along with guests).

We have a population of about 340'000 and well over 20'000 had to be quarantined. 1872 people got infected (counting those who got sick while outside the country, about 350) and 10 have died. People here never really wore masks much in public as it was understood that people in the healthcare system were prioritized, and there was also hesitation whether people would use them correctly or change their behaviour from our chief epidemiologist. People were on guard at the beginning and staid home for the most part as the worst was going over, but when cases died down, people got much more relaxed and started traveling more as restrictions were relaxed. Our borders were also open to tourists from the 15th of June, though you had to be tested at the border or go into quarantine. Around 70'000 samples have been taken here, excluding the border (where over 60'000 people have been tested). We had very few cases (never more than 2 a day) from Mid-May and no cases for three weeks from the beginning of July. However, there has been a big spike this last week, with around thirty cases in the last week, including ten yesterday and (reportedly) around ten today. Restrictions were also tightened today and the mood is shifting. People are getting worried again and some stores are running out of masks as they will be mandatory on public transport and some other places where you can't keep your distance. Otherwise I haven't seen anyone wear a mask outside of the airport.

Germaine information for all, but specifically for anyone who needs it, @nuttism

https://ragmask.com/

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-to-make-cloth-face-covering.html

(Disclaimer: I haven't used either of these. Yet.)

@sethmode: It's not really taken seriously here in Idaho. It's frustrating. Very much a it hasn't happened to me or I don't know anyone with it so it must be bullshit (obvious largely MAGA country too). My direct boss, who is taking it semi-seriously, will come to be every few days or say complaining about the pandemic and how its stupid or that more people die from "x" then people have died from COVID. Time and time again I rebuke him and prove him wrong or he's not looking at the whole picture.

An example is he was saying that more people die from TB in the world every year than COVID at 1 to 1.5 million people. I then asked him do you know where the worldwide death count is for COVID, which he did not, it was (at this time) near 600,000. COVID is also brand new and only had 8ish months to spread so yeah, it isn't killing that many people, YET. And this is from someone who is somewhat taking it seriously, wearing a mask 60ish% of the time.

Sorry for bitching but this is what I have to deal with everyday, it's so infuriating.

Coastal New Jersey, almost universal mask usage inside grocery/retail where it’s mandated, probably 1/2 to 3/4 outside in town or on the boardwalk. Closer to zero on the beach itself, naturally. Many people (not enough) seem to be taking it seriously since we got hit hard early along with New York but we’re already seeing an increase in cases linked to indoor gatherings and parties recently after a few weeks of some of the best progress among the states.

Thankfully our state government is taking it pretty slow and my job is taking it even slower. Indoor dining is still not allowed and with things trending in a worse direction I hope it will not be for a while. I have already had multiple guests ask me why I’m wearing my mask when it’s “just them” and I’ve known them for years and several picking up orders deride the mask requirements over “a hoax”. I want to stress it’s by far the minority of people that are like that but it’s wild reading about potential long lasting heart or lung damage in recovered COVID-19 patients in the morning and then getting that thrown at you while you’re trying to make rent for the month.

It feels awful hoping restrictions like that stay in place with so many of my coworkers and friends in the industry still unemployed and the extra UI benefits running out tomorrow but I sure prefer that over many of us getting sick and possibly dying! What a ridiculous country we live in.

This is the part that I wish would sink in more for people. It has become so binary for some, especially when trying to argue that it isn't that deadly and/or is overblown, and I feel like those still on that train are just stuffing their fingers in their ears when it comes to the more we learn about what ELSE the virus does. Like, sure, great, it doesn't kill many young people, but only doing lasting heart and lung damage isn't something worth say, rushing to open schools over.

As a random aside, I have fairly severe asthma, and one of the wildest experiences in all of this was hearing my step-mother (who spends WAY too much time on Facebook sharing memes that include this all being some sort of hoax/overblown) tell me I shouldn't wear a mask because it could be difficult for me to breathe (we don't really get along and never have). Like, seriously? You don't think the virus that attacks the lungs and can be fatal or at least severely damaging maybe would be a little MORE of a risk for me? Just, you know, guessing here.

@sethmode: As a response to your random aside, believe it or not the CDC hasn't listed asthma as a known co-morbidity factor, only a possible one. The thing that confuses me the most is how little it seems like we know after so much time. For instance, I am pretty sure we still don't know for sure if someone can be re-infected... this seems like it should be an answerable question after 6 months.

I am encouraged by the improving treatment options, for instance, I know an older person (in mid 70s) who got covid, felt horrible, got plasma and was feeling fine 2 days later. Still low energy, but fine otherwise, and they were in rough shape. There is good news in all of this, we're learning what actually does work to treat people, thankfully.

I live in rural-ish arizona and its very hit and miss regarding masks. I don't go out much anymore, but when I do its usually to pick up takeout from a restaurant or go grocery shopping. Now, my county hasn't been hit super hard by covid, we've had about 1700 cases over the whole pandemic so far, but its definitely here and spreading (and we're only 90 miles away from Phoenix where covid *has* hit hard, Maricopa county where Phoenix is located has had 115 thousand cases, with 1571 reported since yesterday) and when stores like walmart mandate masks, almost everyone is usually wearing one (and yes, its literally been like 3 times now where I've seen people in trump 2020 shirts/maga hats just openly ignoring the rule) but when I go to restaurants to get take out its pretty crazy to see so many people hanging out and eating inside (socially distanced from other parties, but still like 2-4 people sitting down together), or go to stores that don't mandate masks (or before stores like walmart did) where sometimes close to half of people aren't wearing them. Luckily, all staff are masking pretty much everywhere, with the exception of one restaurant that I...think I won't be ordering from for a while for obvious reasons. Shame, they make baller burritos.

Overall I'd say masking has gotten better and most people are wearing them, but there's still quite a few people who aren't.

edit: I just want to echo what I've seen a couple of other people say here and yeah, I felt like I was going crazy for a while here too because it took a while for most people to start masking, and towns in the county let two very large (for the area ofc) events happen in june/july without requiring masks, Prescott literally made the national news because of its packed july 4th celebration where almost no one was masked, utterly infuriating.

@sweep: Not to mention the two morons who went to Victoria; attended a party (illegal given the number of people) then flew back to Queensland via Sydney (so they could lie about their point of origin) and, shock horror, brought Covid back to Queensland which had no cases for a while.

Numbers in Victoria are pretty concerning - hopefully though people are complying a bit more. Here in Sydney we're on the teetering point - could go either way - hopefully being managed reasonably enough - but still very few masks up here (but also not a lot of cases *fingers crossed*)

@north6: I've heard that the volume of antibodies in the blood drops quite fast after you've had it. But luckily that's not the only protection we have against viruses. T helper cells, T-killer cells & memory cells are also part of the defense, and although you might not have any antibodies in your blood anymore, these are part of the defense mechanism against viruses and what can make us 'immune'.

It's quite hard to figure out how effective and long-lasting this defense is, because it varies widely between viruses. They probably also need to study people that get reinfected after having no antibodies left in the blood, to see whether these memory cells are still present and doing a good job of cleaning up the virus mess. I guess there's also the possibility that the corona virus could mutate enough to the point where the old corona virus defenses are no longer compatible with this new strain.

So yeah, given all these unknown variables and the weight placed on experts saying 'once you've had it, you're good to go' i can see why it's quite hard to give a definite answer to that question. We don't know enough about this secondary defense in relation to this virus to make conclusions about long term immunity and probably need to study a bunch of folk after they've fully recovered and no longer have the antibodies in their blood.

I feel like we're being brought down by people who are simply ignoring the rules and I'm keen for the governments in each state to crack down on that shit pronto. $200 for not wearing a mask? Make it $2000. Make it a punch in the dick. I literally have no sympathy or patience for anyone who can't manage a couple of weeks in isolation when I've been doing it for almost half a year without issue, predominantly alone and with very few trips outdoors, in a country that i'm not a citizen or permanent resident of (which means i'm not entitled to any government support or permission to re-enter the country should I need to leave for any reason).

Fuck those people.

Basically, Corona is the end result of "American individualism" i.e. You're on Your Own (YOYO).

Our healthcare is fucking beyond broken because we made intentional decisions to not have the country be responsible for the health of their own citizens. We still have no cohesive plan because far too many government officials are too focused on their own political prospects, and rapid misinformation combined with the anti-intellectual adage "my ignorance is just as valid as you knowledge" ensures that people will resort to bullshit conspiracy theories than actually take the time to research.

Basically, we've dropped the ball so hard and we're going to see the effects of this for years to come.

@theflamingo352: Interesting, thanks for the insight! Sheds some light on the cases we've had here of people coming from out of town and going out to restaurants claiming "it's fine cause we're here for less than a day". Maybe where they're from it actually is somehow ok.

San Fernando Valley here, I'd say masks in public have been fairly prevalent in my experience for several months now. I try not to go out but I'd say for a long stretch of this time period 99% of people I see in public wear masks though lately that's been getting pretty lax, mostly with joggers, bikers, etc. Take-out places have been good about social distancing markers and it seems like generally people are fine with following them without much fuss. However certain dine-in chains have been serving people pretty frivolously that makes me worry.

I stock grocery overnight and while we all have been wearing masks as part of policy I still see like a third of my coworkers with the mask down under their noses which is concerting to say the least. Also a handful have a tendency to put it under their chin when, I don't know, when they've had enough? It's not like I'm jumping for joy to wear a mask at work but I wear one damn it aside from when I eat or drink on my breaks. And social distancing between my co-workers seems unreliable in general as many of them tend to be more outgoing than a "cool" recluse like myself. A lot of them are smokers as well so who knows what they're getting up to outside. If you've been paying attention to the news then you've heard that numbers in California have been sky rocketing so I can't say what the hell is going there aside from the combination of protests, easing business restrictions, and just people generally craving a steady social life again.

In the greater Boston area in Massachusetts. Most folks where masks, but you do get the folks who don’t and ducking dead eye you if you look at them. I’m general folks are ok. (For those non US GB members Massachusetts is considered to be a “Nanny State” by the “freedom” loving US. We are the exception.)

The main problem I have experience is at work where clients from out of state don’t understand why we can’t give them answers on when the courts will be resuming regular business. I had to get real with one client and tell them “This isn’t retail, it’s a court of law. We can’t call them up and demand things.”

@mikewhy: This is something I weirdly see on social media. Friends from HS (because it is always friends from high school) will be talking about how "We traveled to West Virginia because there you can get your nails done and eat in a restaurant!" and I swear my brain broke a little bit. Some of you are coming from places that have enough cases that they advise against these things and you think...what, the virus respects state borders? *sigh*

I really want to thank everyone that has contributed, it has been really informative. Especially those outside the US. It's easy for even us folks that don't live in the US anymore to slip into the whole "The United States is the center of the universe" thing, so it's been really great seeing contributions from other places. I love this community!

@sweep: I wonder how strict the enforcement is on those kinds of fines because that would be the real deciding factor in changing behaviors. Like some large businesses in the US that are issuing mask requirements but then you hear that that those places like Walmart are not requiring employees to turn away customers that refuse to wear them. Like what's the fucking point then?

Currently living in a medium sized city in Finland. I've seen maybe 2-3 masks since the start of Covid, except when travelling via plane. Everyone HAS to wear one to board the planes at the moment and most people were wearing one at the airports.

Generally I feel pretty good about how the pandemic was handled here, and how it is currently being handled. There wasn't any real noticeable panic at least in my part of the country, and I've not seen anyone be opposed to the measures necessary to contain the virus like distancing, increased hygiene and shut-downs for large events etc.

For the past 3 months or so there has been very little to no change in my daily life beyond working from home 100% instead of 50% of the time. That is also why it is sometimes wild to listen to the GB staff and other folks in the US talk about how dire everything is.

I'm in suburban England. I'm not getting out much at the moment as I am working from home, but it seems that most are complying with the mask thing at last.

I edit a newspaper, and the amount of letters we get from people seeing it as an infringement of their rights is incredible.

In a normal situation the government telling us what to do would be something to push back on. But we are clearly not in a normal situation right now. The reasons for wearing a mask are pretty obvious, and anyone deliberately refusing to do so is showing a disregard for other people's health.

My wife was selected at random last week for a Covid-19 antibody test, which told us she hasn't had it. That pretty much tells us the whole family hasn't had it.

Most people aren’t wearing masks in public in my area, but they are social distancing and avoiding being close each other and since there outside, It isn’t ideal, but I don’t see that much wrong with it as long as everyone stays the fuck away from each other. I’m still wearing mine out in public, fuck Covid.

The disease is a fair bit harder to catch outside, than it is indoors and as long as you keep your distance or don’t live in a heavily congested area like a city you should be ok... I’d still wear a mask though personally. Avoid large gatherings of people obviously and don’t stick around in one area for too long. Stay moving.

I do see people at the very least, putting masks on before they head into a store or business which is good (and I think a law at this point in my state)

I think the restaurant stuff being open for dining is still super fucked and I wouldn’t risk that, period. Drive through and take out are ok as any interactions you have are limited and brief, especially if masks are being worn (they should be.)

You can’t eat with a mask on and a bunch of people sitting in one area for prolonged periods of time, in a building with limited air circulation is a recipe for disaster and I can’t believe they are still allowed l to be open for dine-in right now.

I'm in South Dakota. The cases have been generally low, but most businesses are mandating masks. Majority of people are listening to it, but it's still a strong likeliness to see people who aren't wearing them out in public.

I will say that I'm VERY concerned that there could be a major outbreak soon here. Starting next friday is the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and... they didn't cancel it. The big thing during it are the MASSIVE concerts during the weeklong fest. They are outdoors, but I'm pretty confident that social distancing there will be at a minimum. I imagine the numbers will somewhat lower than normal, but there's usually HUNDRED OF THOUSANDS of people who come into state for it. Anecdotally, most of the bikers/attending appear to be older. There are young people there to party, but there are lots of 30 to 60 year olds around for the rally, certainly a fair bit of older folk, too.

So needless to say, I'm VERY worried it's gonna hit this area HARD next week when it started. I hope we're prepared.

@colourful_hippie: It's a politically prickly subject to discuss actual enforcement of mask policies at the law enforcement level, as a lot of people on both sides of the aisle are theoretically for mask mandates, but realize the hardest hit people would be minorities and poorer people in general. Anything that increases the encounter rate with law enforcement is tough.

Some interesting ideas around this, such as cops carrying masks with them and offering them before citing a ticket (which is probably what I would go with). I don't know what the right answer here is, but anytime there are rules that are not enforced it's pretty quickly going to be overlooked. I don't think there have been any documented arrests or fines for mask violations in the three months our state has had a mandate, at least I couldn't find any.

I live in a city on Vancouver Island, where our case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths have been quite low (we're still at less than 200 total cases so far for a million people,) and provincially there's been a lot of talk about masks but nothing enforced. I am happy to see the number of people who go to the grocery store or otherwise with masks on increasing, but it's still easily 30-40%, sometimes 1 member of a couple wearing a mask one not.

I stick to wearing one when really required: if I'm in an enclosed space. If I'm out for a walk with the dog or at the beach by myself and can avoid people, I don't feel the need to wear a mask - that's been the messaging we've been given so far and I'm going to stick to trusting the docs in charge, otherwise I'll just be overwhelmed with what the internet thinks

Very rural Montana here, in a county with about a thousand people. Masks are supposed to be mandatory across the state, but here in our community, it's a crapshoot. Only a few of the businesses are taking real precautions, such as the hospital (obviously), the major gas station in town, and one of the grocery stores. The rest, this might as well be just another year, or that's how they're acting. Another grocery store in town hasn't worn masks at all, and at least one bar and one restaurant in town were openly flaunting getting together and throwing parties on their property during the lockdown.

My mom and I are generally the only ones I see out wearing masks. Every time I've been in a grocery store, people come right up to me. There have only been three cases in town, two of which were from out of state. Given that the state is so dependent on tourism, we've got a lot of people passing through looking to get away from the world. Which I get, but it worries me.

@ntm: No stop

I live in rural Pennsylvania and i will be honest i do bitch and moan about wearing them, but mostly because the heat and the fact that i have a very physical job so it can really take it out of me to wear it for a long time. I do get the importance of it though. In my area i see a 50/50 split of people wearing them, but what really pisses me off is all the idiots screaming about how there taking their "rights" away and all this other bullshit. I swear to Cthulhu i dont know how people jump from wearing masks to gun confiscation but they find a way.

@sanity: Amen brother, from one rural Pennsylvanian to another. My dad thinks everything will inevitably lead to someone coming for his guns.

And yeah, wearing a mask sucks. It's hot and annoying and itchy as hell. And I just say that as a teacher, can't imagine having to do anything physical with the thing on. My wife goes for runs with one on and I don't know how she survives.

@efesell: On a serious note, it's not funny at all... but it still made me laugh in a 'wtf, are you serious?' kind of way. That happened in Kentucky. I don't know if she sees mask-wearing as political, but it seemed as if she thought it was okay to do what she did as she said it was 'easier to breathe'.

I see most people wearing masks, but I've had a few service people come to the house to fix the air etc not wearing them. A month ago nobody working at Home depot was wearing masks, I was going to not go there anymore but ended up there again and everyone had one (someone probably complained or got sick). Also see a few people not wearing them out and keep as far away from them as possible, but almost all employees are wearing them.

It's crazy that such a simple thing that could have gotten us back on track and saved a bunch of lives became a hot button issue to some people. The age of information warfare is hitting us hard as fuck in the states.

Nebraska here, one of the two cities. Masks are about 50/50 from what I've seen, but I only go to work and go home really so I can't really speak too directly to that. All my food is either via Instacart or GrubHub, and I work at a restaurant so I just buy my booze retail from there.

So far, we haven't adopted a policy that a mask is required, and as a staff I'll be honest and say that we don't wear masks around each other or when we're 6 feet away from a table. We've only had one customer complain about it, very early on, and it was mostly about touching surfaces with gloves on. The Atlantic published an essay last week titled The Scourge of Hygiene Theater that was really illuminating for us and put us a little more at ease with how we're going about things. As service industry professionals we are already always washing our hands after doing menial tasks, and beyond that the science really does seem to be coalescing around wearing a mask, good personal hygiene and not touching your face being super important.

I think the total deaths in the state is around 200 and mostly related to some issues at a meat packing plant in rural Nebraska followed by a few large gatherings for funerals and children's birthdays. My boss is a real liberal's conservative, so he's constantly waffling between taking this super seriously (he does wear his mask more often than his staff does in private conversation) and quoting statistics about car crashes and flu deaths.

Again, though, being a restaurant means we pivoted to delivery and takeout as soon as we shut down, but we also opened as soon as the state said it was okay to do so and haven't looked back. We run a super lean staff and real long days (generally 10 to 12 hours a day with a staff of six up front and five in back) so we have some misleading information online to keep from getting our asses completely destroyed the way I read about sometimes on Tales from Your Server. We list our closing time at two hours prior to our actual closing time and we still indicate that we're only available for delivery and takeout. Business has been just fine for the most part however, and the tips have generally been great to outrageous; working in fine dining and being a neighborhood staple has its benefits, I suppose. Sometimes it feels like people are just coming in to give the staff a huge windfall more than have an eating experience and it can make you pretty emotional sometimes, especially when all you can outwardly express emotion to people with is your eyes.

We are also, I personally think unfortunately, a pretty popular event venue, and we've hosted four wedding-type events in the past month or so. Nobody's gotten sick, but as a relatively flexible space that hasn't let paranoia stop us from conducting business as normally as we can, we are arguably more popular than ever for 30-50 person gatherings and have a ton of them carrying us through September. I get a little nervous about that, but restaurants are all I know and the only type of work I've ever loved, and I love the core team we have right now and don't hate at all spending so much time with them every week.

But as a heavy smoker and drinker who does go out to the industry bar for a couple hours every night after working and interacting with 20 to 60 strangers whose activity outside our building I have no awareness of and whom often are not wearing masks other than entering and exiting the building if at all, I do feel like I'm not so secretly an idiot and I'm not going to come out of this thing on the other side without at the very least some major health issue. Fingers crossed, I guess.