Huh? “maskless again”? Are there places that still have mask mandates?
Some places have been encouraging but not mandating indoor masks
A mask mandate was recently reinstated for New York City’s public hospitals due to an increase in flu/COVID/RSV infections.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently warned that respiratory illnesses are on the rise across the country. Just before Christmas, national COVID-19 hospitalizations jumped 17% in one week.
“I think that’s a major reason why we’re seeing this rise in not only cases, but also hospitalizations. Because we’ve just had Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, so a lot of people are gathering from all over the country,” Roy told NY1.
Pretty ridiculous that they’re not permanent in hospitals
Agreed!
Meanwhile Japanese people, for all their faults, put a fucking mask on when they get a cold because that’s seen as a decent thing to do.
I just stay home when I’m sick ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Haven’t they been seeing a rise in anti mask/vaxxers since covid misinformation during initial lockdowns?
I don’t know. But I do know masking up when sick was a thing even before covid.
It’s an ugly fact of human nature that we see way higher levels of social responsibility in relatively ethnically homogeneous societies like Japan.
yeah. it’s a cultural norm. I don’t want that norm. I want actually thinking as the norm, not tying a rag on your face for cultural reasons.
Imagine believing consideration for people around you is not “actually thinking”
If it weren’t for the work culture, I would love to live in Japan.
And the racism
That’s true, they hate us*.
*Anyone that isn’t Japanese
My boyfriend is in nursing school, and they have some sort of program where you can move there and get a house for cheap, if not free. I’m sure they’re not great houses and would need some work done, but still a great deal. We considered it for a hot minute…
But then I started thinking about that stuff, and did some more research into what it’s like to move there. Some really awesome aspects to it, but I think we are gonna pass.
Yes, but they’re still expected to come into work even when they’re ready to fall over.
Sounds like America then
If you think America is bad, you really need to look more into Japanese Black Companies. They really take the cake on toxic work cultural. Imagine being socially obligated to get black out drunk with your boss.
True story: Stalin did this every night with his inner circle. Attendance was mandatory assuming you wanted to live.
Behind the bastards did a great episode on it.
hmmm. Death or all your coworkers slightly judging you? White collar work sounds annoying.
‘If you think America is bad’ is wholly unnecessary when you consider that socialized healthcare hardly exists, public education is a living corpse of severely underpaid teachers, mass shootings (I’ve been in one), mandatory cost of car ownership, and so many other fucked up things.
I’m not saying that Japan is a good place to live, because it has a myriad of it’s own problems and I personally wouldn’t want to live there. I just think we should give people some credit for the shit Americans put up with too.
Can’t we just all be happy that those mandates are over?
Are you seriously feeling nostalgic about THAT?
As someone with autoimmune disorders it will never be over for me until covid is gone. Lost a friend with muscular dystrophy to it in 2022. There are still millions of vulnerable people out there fighting this thing to the literal death. When you take precautions the life you save may not be your own.
Yeah man, take a deep breath, real deep.
This actually came up recently. Was playing Battlefield and saw all my teammates jump off the bridge we were on, so I just jumped off with them.
As I parachuted down I saw the helicopter crashing where we’d just been standing. It made me laugh realizing I’d just lived out that little saying.
If all my friends jumped off a bridge, there’s probably a good reason. I keep pretty intelligent friends. The bridge is probably collapsing or some shit.
Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1170/
“So what, now I’m just supposed to do anything that Rosa does? What if she… jumped off a cliff?”
“If Rosa were to have jumped off a cliff, she would have done her due diligence regarding the height of the cliff, the depth of the water, the angle of entry… so, yes, if you see Rosa jump off a cliff, by all means, jump off a cliff.”
"You jump off a cliff."
“Gladly. Provided Rosa did first.”
Pretty much. Always is. Now that I think about it, I probably got that from this lol.
The FOMO would be too much. I’d jump
If all my friends jumped off a bridge I’d assume there is good reason AND hell now that they’ve jumped I don’t need to ignore that intrusive thought that’s been telling me to jump.
I’m with you my dude, let’s do a flip.
We lived in a small town with the bridge being one of the best spots to jump off of into the lake. So after the first time our parents used that saying we pointed that out and they never did it again hahaha.
It’s 2024. Covid is no longer that much worse than the flu. Unless you have some condition, you don’t need to mask anymore. Covid is still a thing, yes, and masks still help, but it’s not going away, we’re better prepared for it, and it’s evolving to be more infectious and less lethal.
It’s really hard to find data by year, but the second graph on this page is close enough: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm
So yeah, wear a mask if you want, but don’t shame others for refusing to do so.
Covid is no longer that much worse than the flu.
People bandy about that it’s no worse than flu as though that’s like saying it’s no worse than a bad cold. Flu still kills thousands each year and will knock you on your arse for a fortnight.
evolving to be more infectious and less lethal
It was already around 3 times more infectious than the flu. If it’s getting more infectious and is still just not that much worse than the flu we’re in for a rough time.
And let’s not forget about playing long-covid roulette every time you get infected!
Covid is not entirely over, though. People can still die from it if unvaccinated
Yeah, and the death rate is still higher than the flu, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was in the first two years.
Covid is not over, but the pandemic is.
No doubt
People die from obesity but we don’t talk about that.
We can’t prevent everyone from dying, and wanting to force everyone to wear a mask is not the answer. We’ve lived out whole lives not wearing them, and I’m not going to start now
I think one of the better cultural shifts, at least in the US, to come from the pandemic is the number of people wearing masks if they feel even slightly ill and have to go out in public. Better yet, a number of businesses seem to actually mean it when they tell employees to stay home if they’re sick, rather than perversly commending those who come into the workplace when they are quite obviously suffering and contagious.
Get vaccinated, wear a mask if you feel ill, you just want to, or you’ll be visiting someone at high risk indoors. That said, and I know I will lose most of you here, it doesn’t seem necessary for the general populace, when they’re not ill, to follow masking guidelines when in public. I’m not a medical professional, so I simply follow CDC guidelines. To my knowledge, there isn’t a mask recommendatiom for the general populace at this time.
Purplely anecdotal, but since our hospital system is no longer critically overburdened, and folks are mostly vaccinated, it has been my observation that the negative impact on people’s mental health, that the isolation of masking and social distancing induces, is a greater risk to the health of the general public than Covid and its variants. If you choose to take additional precautions, that is absolutely your perogative and you should feel empowered to do so. It’d be great if we could have it all, but people have to do what’s right for them to make it through another day.
I got banned from Lemmy.world for saying that the main purpose of the masks were to protect others from you instead of protecting you from others.
It’s like everyone forgot that masks were part of the “stop the spread” campaign.
oh god. you’re an idiot.
Explain.
kay. “you’re an idiot”
Why are they an idiot?
I haven’t seen anyone wear a mask where I live for a very long time
The good news is that studies have shown masks aren’t all that effective so no one needs to worry about this anymore. If you want to wear a mask, ok, if you don’t want to wear a mask, ok. Also, COVID mortality is way down. Any concerns about masks or COVID can be relegated to statistical insignificance when it comes to trying to control other people’s behavior.
great! I guess surgeons and doctors can stop wearing them all together now thank fucking goodness for these studies please share them.
Effective at what though? I thought the main point of wearing a mask was that you were less likely to spread your sickness to others, especially if you weren’t symptomatic yet.
Is it so effective that you need to be concerned if other people are wearing a mask? Also, that would be quite a different concern than this submission is hinting at.
I’d sure hate to spread a disease so serious I don’t even know I have it yet!
so serious I don’t even know I have it yet!
I know you mean this to be facetious, but most diseases do work like this. Shit incubates, you feel mildly shitty for a bit, it spreads, then you either get better or you die. Ever notice how it takes a few days after encountering someone with the cold/flu before you develop symptoms yourself? Or how people with cancer never know they have cancer until they get themselves properly tested?
this is the daftest comment in the thread. congrats.
It’s still surprising to me that so few after 4 years of this still do not understand the airborne nature of respiratory illnesses especially Rona with all that has gone on.
Then again I might be expecting too much from people…
