Should you ‘forever’ mask in some settings?

I am no longer on Twitter so I have missed this conversation.

Twitter has been an invaluable resource for me during the health crisis, I am sad to let it go.

I mask on any form of public transit and in airports. I also mask in my office building's lobby and elevators.

I mask on public transport and in supermarkets and stores in which old people and breeders with their unhygienic children gather.

No. Masks are stupid virtue-seeking talismans. This has been proven and was always the case.

If you’re a sneezing snotty mess, sure - wear one to be polite and so you don’t blow your gross everywhere. But no one should be forced to wear one just because.

It’s as real as being forced to wear a pronoun button in “some settings.”

I still mask in every indoor situation and at some crowded outdoor ones (e.g. farmers' market).

I think even once COVID's numbers shrink to a more seasonal flu level, I'll still do it during winter/flu months indoors for sure.

R4 is an easy block.

I listen to myself and act accordingly. Generally, if it's Winter and I go into a crowded space, I mask on. Never outdoors.

R6 Anyone who uses the term "virtue signaling" always is an easy block.

Antivaxxers = Pro covid

Your only post, r4?

Yes, as mentioned, definitely on public transport. I always disinfect my hands after using it too.

We would not be forevemasking if we had followed the health recommendations three years ago. This is the most infuriating thing about this.

Thanks, I also blocked four. I don't want to read a magat screed of filth!

I doubt I'll ever enjoy a concert or play maskless. You really become aware of the sickly sounds of sniffing, sneezing and coughing in groups that size.

[quote]We would not be forevemasking if we had followed the health recommendations three years ago.

Why do you say this? There is nothing we could have done at any point that would have eliminated the virus entirely. Once it was introduced, it was here for good.

Mask have been proven over and over again not to work. Please read the most up to date scientific findings. Science changes people!

If you want to wear a mask, go for it, but I refuse to associate with these nut bags.

To my regret, work from home is no longer available as an option for me. I work in a large office. The hair on my neck raises when I hear people coughing in their cubicle. Last week a colleague explained his absence as a result of being so ill with the flu he required treatment with antibiotics. He was masklass when he offered details of his illness. I will be in a mask until all this bullshit passes.

[quote]Mask have been proven over and over again not to work.

Thank you, Tucker.

Meanwhile, in the real world, a CDC study found that wearing an N95 lowered the chance of testing positive for coronavirus infection by 83%, while surgical masks did so by 66% and cloth masks by 56%.

Medical offices and public transportation should stay masked up.

Medical offices can and will enforce it. Public transportation is a lost cause.

Masks work to significantly lower your risk, as R18 describes. Neither was ever promoted as 100% effective. Anyone still claiming "masks don't work" because they aren't 100% effective against infection is a RWNJ and likely a MAGAt. Block these idiots on sight.

The virus disappears when it run out of hosts to infect. R15

Three years ago, procovid activists immediately began a campaign of disinformation even going so far as to state the infection just doesn't exist. They started working against the cause of containing the virus, even before the vaccine was developed.

They send DEATH THREATS to public health officials.

You always wonder why these liars spew antivax and antimask bullshit constantly. Are they true believers and repeating this nonsense comforts them the way an autistic child rocks back and forth or does Uncle Vlad slip them some bitcoin or what?

I expect mask requirements to continue indefinitely in some settings (mostly medical) and have no problem with it. One of my doctors shares an office with a transplant surgeon, for example. The check-in counter provides a mask if you don't have one. It's a low-cost, minimal hassle way to help protect vulnerable patients, and not just from COVID.

BTW, the WHO this morning declared that COVID is still a "global emergency" but they believe the pandemic may be nearing an "inflexion" point where higher levels of immunity can lower virus-related deaths.

In medical settings, absolutely.

Otherwise, probably not.

Yes. COVID is airborne. So I mask in enclosed spaces like buses, aircraft or in meeting rooms, but not outside in the fresh air.

COVID will be with us forever, it will keep evolving so, yes, I'll keep masking.

So, far, touch wood, I've not had it yet.

[quote] BTW, the WHO this morning declared that COVID is still a "global emergency" but they believe the pandemic may be nearing an "inflexion" point where higher levels of immunity can lower virus-related deaths.

When you still have long Covid to worry about and otherwise healthy people dropping dead of heart attacks and strokes after being infected, this isn't much of a comfort.

When you state masks don't work, what do you mean?

[quote]When you still have long Covid to worry about and otherwise healthy people dropping dead of heart attacks and strokes after being infected, this isn't much of a comfort.

Yes, I'm still wearing a mask when I'm indoors in public or any appreciable length of time.

This poll indicates 60 percent of people do not mask. This number is consistent with the amount of people in real life I observe wearing a mask.

I don't understand people. They say the virus is fake, masks don't work and the vaccine is poison that alters your pure Nordic DNA.

Then, they get sick with covid and demand horsepaste to treat this infection. I don't get it.

R31 Because most people are as dumb as dirt and will believe whatever someone tells them to think. They're too busy spending 7 hours a day on their fantasy football leagues, or Pinterest, to watch their kids, read a book or learn the basics of anything.

So if Cucker Fartleson tells them BAD! NO! they all believe it.

I'm still doing it on public transportation and was going to stop on March 20 (3 years), but I apparently recently passed it on to my mother who was homebound; so I may to reconsider.

R24, I wouldn't believe a goddamned thing said by the WHO, which is under significant Chinese influence.

I've had Covid, I'm up to date on my vaccines (including the bivalent), I know from experience that Paxlovid works. So no, I'm not masking anywhere except medical offices. I no longer feel a responsibility to protect other people when we all have the tools to protect ourselves. If other people want to mask up, I say go for it.

I read an article that suggested that an unintended consequences of the lockdown and frequent sanitizing, coupled with ongoing avoidance of people and crowded situations, is that people's immune systems are weaker, making them more susceptible to things like common colds.

According to this article, our immune systems need to get regular exposure to various threats in order to remain at their peak responsiveness.

The article was NOT arguing against continued mask wearing or avoiding crowds. It was highlighting that the severity of once simple diseases like colds has been on the rise since the lockdown due to our lack of regular exposure.

That seems reasonable, R36. Something to think about.

During the time we were living with mask mandates, social distancing, and disinfecting everything in sight, I went for two years without a virus, bronchitis, or even the sniffles. That's the first time that's happened in my entire life.

So I'll probably wear a mask from now on in crowded situations, especially during the winter months.

"Many people have heard of the “hygiene hypothesis” — the idea that individuals who are exposed to a variety of microbes (i.e., germs) in childhood build better immunity. In fact, there is evidence that young children who have early exposure to different types of germs are less likely to develop allergies and autoimmune disorders such as hay fever, asthma, or inflammatory bowel disease.

However, by the time you are an adult, you have already spent years being exposed to many types of bacteria and viruses. You’ve created a robust immune system that can respond to these microbes. Your immune system “remembers” viral and bacterial markers, and as soon as one of these markers shows up, your body starts making antibodies to destroy that intruder."

I mask on public transport, on planes, in theatres

That's about it. I tend not to do stores anymore because people tend to be far away from one another.

The transmission level around the US is at the medium level and falling for Covid, flu, rsv. I assume it'll be low by spring. Once it's officially low, I may take off the mask in the theatre. I'll keep masking on public transport and planes for a while.

Immune debt is a fantasy for pro-covid activists.

Shania Twain has broken her silence after being airlifted to hospital during the pandemic suffering from both Covid and pneumonia.

The Man! I Feel Like a Woman! hitmaker recounts the time she was so sick that she struggled to breathe in a new track titled Inhale/Exhale Air on her upcoming album Queen of Me.

The 57-year-old said she was “so grateful” that she made it through the “dangerous” and “scary” situation, when her illness took a turn for the worse at her home on Lake Geneva in Switzerland.

Colin Farrell reveals he suffered long covid symptoms for six months. The actor said he plans to lie low while recovering from his second bout with #COVID.

R42. I don't recognize Shania Twain in that pic.

R36, post the article or STFU. You're spreading misinformation that's been debunked. Also R37 is obviously your sock puppet account. Troll.

R38 R37 That theory has been debunked in eleventy thousand recent reports.

“Immunity debt as an individual concept is not recognised in immunology."

I don't mask anymore, but I do use two products anytime I'm going to be indoors (restaurant, shopping, etc.) or at a large gathering indoors or out. Xylitol nasal spray and a throat spray called Oasis, formerly called Halo. I've been using Halo since 2012 for travel and large gatherings. In clinical trials, it was shown to kill 99.99% of viruses inhaled through the nose or mouth for up to six hours, even after eating or drinking. And XClear, a xylitol nasal spray, may be effective against Covid.

I live in New Orleans, which was a Covid hotbed more than once, and never got it. I'll continue to use both, probably for the rest of my life in those circumstances. I recommend them both to anyone concerned.

The only people wearing masks anymore are criminals.

r39 - thanks for that article.

The article I read did not refer to the situation as "immunity debt" so it wasn't fully propaganda. It really was a relatively balanced discussion on the topic with multiple doctors, seemingly reputable ones, providing opinions on whether this had a part to play.

Good grief!

You wouldn't get it r31. You're a frightened Fanny.

It's not about fear. This is about protecting my health as best as I can with the tools I have available.

For years before COVID my doctor’s office was asking anyone who had flu symptoms to wear a mask and they provided them.

My doctor is still wearing an N95 mask. His specialty is infectious disease. I will keep wearing a mask indoors as long as he does.

I’m flying to Florida to see my elderly parents this weekend. I will wear an N95 mask in the airport, on the plane, and in the Uber, as well as any place we may go while I am there. Doesn’t bother me one bit.

No. I’m a teacher, and we were required to wear masks until March of last year. I took mine off the first day it was allowed.

I’m vaccinated and I’ve had COVID. I’m not preoccupied with it on a personal level.

I respect other people’s decision to mask, but I won’t mask now unless it’s required, as in a medical facility.

meow

Personally, I haven't worn a mask since March 2021 unless it was required in a particular setting. I don't plan to ever go back to wearing masks, unless they are required in a particular setting. Everybody else can do whatever the fuck they want. Masking is a personal health decision, no one needs to weigh in on anyone else's personal health decisions.

If you get anywhere near me, I recommend you mask-- maybe even double mask.

I wear a mask in most public situations. I'd rather be safe than sorry or dead.

I avoid people who are rabidly anti-mask. If they're that careless with everyone else's health (including their own) I don't need them to be anywhere near me.

No mask, no vaccine, no staying home. Stayed home the first two months, then Wisconsin noped out and so did I. Never had covid. People with type O blood are least likely to be affected.

I don't mask outside. I do mask indoors when social distancing is not possible. I always mask in supermarkets and on public transportation (Ubers, buses, subways, etc.). I have migrated to "forever masking" during travel (airplanes, rail, airports, terminals, etc.) and for mass events (conferences, indoor sporting events, symphony, etc.). I'm up to date with my shots, and I did catch the omicron variant last June after relaxing my protocol. Unfortunately, I also passed it to my mother, who is in her late 70s. I see her several times a week. Her health is now the lens through which I view all my covid-related decisions. If anything has the potential to harm her, I will take action to remove that thing or action, or seek to ameliorate it to the best of my ability, from my physical orbit. I stay healthy so that she stays healthy.

Stupid people will literally be the death of us all.

I suspect exercise is the single best way to protect yourself from serious cases of Covid. My asthmatic 90-year-old mother, who takes walks and swims on a regular basis, got over an omicron Covid case in a few days (with help from Paxlovid).

WOW I am shocked of the number of queens will STILL wear masks. I am not anti mask by any means but it's time to move on. We have a vaccinne now. I think gays are so fastidious, and cleanly it makes sense that they are more afraid of germs. It's kind of girly lol

R62, you sound like a moron. A lot of people have elderly or immune-compromised family. Many also have pre-existing conditions.

Also, nothing about your post screams masculine so you might want to shut the fuck up on that front, girlina.

The complete disregard or total erasure of people at risk for complications or even death from Covid is depressing and scary. When did we become so callous?

I have an autoimmune disease, so I wear a N95 mask everywhere

[quote] I think gays are…

Tell us you’re a frau without telling us your a frau

[quote]WOW I am shocked of the number of queens will STILL wear masks. I am not anti mask by any means but it's time to move on. We have a vaccinne now. I think gays are so fastidious, and cleanly it makes sense that they are more afraid of germs. It's kind of girly lol

Here's the more important point: why do you care what OTHER people are doing when it doesn't have any impact on you.

So what if other people feel more comfortable wearing a mask. Even with the vaccine, it is possible to get covid. Even if the case is not severe, they're still finding evidence that people may have long-term side effects. Of course, there's also the fact that many people are themselves or are in close contact with people who cannot afford to get sick due to having compromised immune systems.

But, even with all that, why does it matter? The reality is that taking such precautions also allows people to avoid regular colds and flu. Even if wearing a mask part-time reduces your chances of getting sick by something as paltry as 15%, that is statistically equivalent to removing one bullet from revolver before spinning the chamber and firing at your head.

Yeah, if I forget to put it on before I look in the mirror I call 911 right away.

R61 I think exercise propping a person up might be true. I made a 3 week trip to Italy last November, and walked 20,000 steps a day, up and down too many stairs etc. I don't do that much at home, but am a faithful moderate biker and walker. Over Christmas I got the flu, and 3 days after partial recovery the covid, and believe if I hadn't been in decent shape it would have been much worse with a longer recovery period. No long covid signs so far, fingers crossed.

"Exercise protects against Covid, so ditch those masks and hit the gym" is a deeply Fascist line of thought that sees the sick and disabled as expendable and worthless, and the able-bodied as the only demographic worth caring about.

Stay KKKlassy, DL.

[quote] "Exercise protects against Covid, so ditch those masks and hit the gym"

You put that into quotation marks, but whom are you quoting?

Everyone can exercise in some form, including the sick and disabled.

This is excellent guidance, but I--like most people--are too stupid to take it.

I mask at the gym when I go twice a week. It’s seriously not that hard. I spend two days a week at the office I have yet to get Covid.

I mask up at work and crowded places like transport and theatres, only eat in outdoor restaurants and bars, wear outdoor clothes only once and shower and shampoo my hair every time I return from leaving the house. When my bf had Covid, I slept on the pull out couch in the lounge room and he stayed in the bed.

I went to a "team building" company function in Texas about a week ago. I did mask during the flight and in some areas of the hotel, but for the group activities at a comedy club, country music club, and restaurant/bars, I did not mask but did try to avoid close contact with people outside the Team. Took some big risks, but happy to say that I did not catch Covid and, as far ask I know, nobody else on the Team caught it either.

Back home, I am back to my general habit of making indoors (stores & such), but not outside. I am still avoiding crowded indoor places like theaters.

I'm not opposed to masking if everyone is doing so, which creates the safest environment. But if it's optional and only a few mask up, there's no point. The maskless guy next to you can cough his germs into your eyes and even your nose if you wear your mask the way most people do, which is incorrectly and ineffectively.

[quote] wear outdoor clothes only once and shower and shampoo my hair every time I return from leaving the house

Oh my

Why asians, Karens and gay men wear them/

Karens don’t mask up.

Karens rip masks off other people’s faces

[quote]I'm not opposed to masking if everyone is doing so, which creates the safest environment.

You have an odd understanding of risk reduction.

Karens do not wear masks. Someone got the glossary of terms from the troll farm mixed up. Karens are extreme anti-maskers.

I wear a mask, battered wife sunglasses and a hoodie when I want to be incognito.

I haven't worn a mask since last April. I was very careful about following restrictions at the height of the pandemic, but now that most people here in the UK have been double-vaxxed and boosted, it's time to get back to normal.

Even before Covid, I'd wear a mask when repotting plants as I'm allergic to some molds (yeah, I know, but I like having plants in my home), or when weeding flower beds.

Also, masks really help when walking outside in the cold weather, as they warm the air when breathing.

[quote]Even before Covid, I'd wear a mask when repotting plants as I'm allergic to some molds (yeah, I know, but I like having plants in my home), or when weeding flower beds.

I'd always have allergy symptoms when raking leaves in the fall – runny nose, itchy eyes, run-down feeling. Since I had masks laying around in 2020, I figured I'd try wearing them for fall yard projects. It made a HUGE difference.

^For cutting grass too

Masking while boarding an airplane and while taxing on the runway when the air circulation in the fuselage is not running.

[quote]wear outdoor clothes only once and shower and shampoo my hair every time I return from leaving the house

Anti-maskers are assholes, but this is a bit extreme, hon. Has your OCD been formally diagnosed?

one good thing about the mask in winter, keeps your face warm LOL

When one gets a bad case of Covid one realizes the utility of a mask. It's like getting into a one car wreck where wearing a seat belt could have prevented the loosing of a limb. Only then, realizing wow I should have worn my seatbelt. Education is supposed to make it so you don't have to learn the hard way. It doesn't work on many people. They have only the hard way available to them. Then there are those that just don't learn even the hard way. They say to themselves man this car was poorly designed it caused me to loose my limb. One could probably divide these groups politically and come out with a decent prediction of who would end up where. Some people just get a mild case and without the capacity for empathy jump to these people are weak whiners they deserve to die. What a crazy ass world we live in.

[quote] wear outdoor clothes only once and shower and shampoo my hair every time I return from leaving the house

I do this, also. But I am currently going through chemo and radiation and am constantly in medical facilities. (And am shocked at how many cancer patients and oncologists either wear their masks incorrectly or don't wear them at all. In places where they have signs requiring masks.)

Re: clothing and showering after being out and about, I did this in the beginning. Several years ago, my bf's mother had open heart surgery and there was a MRSA outbreak at the hospital. The nurse told us to go home and put all of our clothes right in the washing machine on hot, and to spray our shoes and coats with Lysol and leave outside over night, and to go right into the shower and scrub using the hottest water we could stand. That freaked me out but it was my basic Covid protocol for most of 2020.

Anyone still treating this like it's April 2020 has a screw loose.

I really do wish it was the norm to wear when you have a cold, a cough, a runny nose, etc. Like they do in Asia. Maybe I need to look into becoming an expat. I'd like to live in the kind of place where people care very much about decorum and respecting the public space.

[quote]the loosing of a limb.

[quote]it caused me to loose my limb.

[quote]Education is supposed to make it so you don't have to learn the hard way. It doesn't work on many people.

Clearly.

Oh, fucking dear!

NPR aired a short segment about covid, President Biden is removed from virus from emergency status.

The expert guest confirmed there was an uptick of infection in January and there are 500 deaths per day from covid in the United States, down from a peak of 2 thousand deaths per day three years ago.

Is removing the emergency status

I wore a mask and still got covid, so..

Fully vaccinated people have also been infected with covid. We are trying to minimize risk.

I caught Covid in the very early days, before the vaccine. I have been vaxxed and boosted as soon as it was available to me. Caught it again a year ago during the Omicron wave. It was severe enough to put me in the hospital for a week, but I do feel it would have been worse had I not been vaxxed/boosted.

I would wear masks at work even if I weren't required to. I mask in theaters, medical facilities and transport. Don't tend to in markets or restaurants. Will eat outdoors if it's an option but am fine indoors as well.

It's all about mitigated risk. I always carry a mask, If I feel like masking, I do.

[quote]Fully vaccinated people have also been infected with covid. We are trying to minimize risk.

In fact, the majority of the 500 Americans who are dying of covid each day now (still!) are vaccinated .... but you're still much more likely to die if you're unvaccinated.

Removing Covid from emergency status means you have to pay for vaccines, Paxlovid and testing. Boooooo!

The expert featured on NPR said if you're infected with covid take the antivirals you are prescribed even if you feel well. He said when you start feeling bad it may be too late to successfully treat the infection.

He also said we can look forward to getting boosters each year, same as getting the flu vaccine.

And I dutifully wore my mask. While sneering at those who did not.

The next time I am having a medical procedure, I will inform doctors that masks do not work and are performative.

"[T]he analysis does not prove that proper masks, properly worn, had no benefit at an individual level. People may have good personal reasons to wear masks, and they may have the discipline to wear them consistently. Their choices are their own.

But when it comes to the population-level benefits of masking, the verdict is in: Mask mandates were a bust."

Magat double speak. I need someone to translate magat, it is not my native language

It ain't over till it's over

The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 — was published late last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is its lead author, were unambiguous.

“There is just no evidence that they” — masks — “make any difference,” he told the journalist Maryanne Demasi. “Full stop.”

But, wait, hold on. What about N-95 masks, as opposed to lower-quality surgical or cloth masks?

“Makes no difference — none of it,” said Jefferson.

What about the studies that initially persuaded policymakers to impose mask mandates?

“They were convinced by nonrandomized studies, flawed observational studies.”

What about the utility of masks in conjunction with other preventive measures, such as hand hygiene, physical distancing or air filtration?

“There’s no evidence that many of these things make any difference.”

These observations don’t come from just anywhere. Jefferson and 11 colleagues conducted the study for Cochrane, a British nonprofit that is widely considered the gold standard for its reviews of health care data. The conclusions were based on 78 randomized controlled trials, six of them during the Covid pandemic, with a total of 610,872 participants in multiple countries. And they track what has been widely observed in the United States: States with mask mandates fared no better against Covid than those without.

No study — or study of studies — is ever perfect. Science is never absolutely settled. What’s more, the analysis does not prove that proper masks, properly worn, had no benefit at an individual level. People may have good personal reasons to wear masks, and they may have the discipline to wear them consistently. Their choices are their own.

But when it comes to the population-level benefits of masking, the verdict is in: Mask mandates were a bust. Those skeptics who were furiously mocked as cranks and occasionally censored as “misinformers” for opposing mandates were right. The mainstream experts and pundits who supported mandates were wrong. In a better world, it would behoove the latter group to acknowledge their error, along with its considerable physical, psychological, pedagogical and political costs.

Don’t count on it. In congressional testimony this month, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called into question the Cochrane analysis’s reliance on a small number of Covid-specific randomized controlled trials and insisted that her agency’s guidance on masking in schools wouldn’t change. If she ever wonders why respect for the C.D.C. keeps falling, she could look to herself, and resign, and leave it to someone else to reorganize her agency.

That, too, probably won’t happen: We no longer live in a culture in which resignation is seen as the honorable course for public officials who fail in their jobs.

But the costs go deeper. When people say they “trust the science,” what they presumably mean is that science is rational, empirical, rigorous, receptive to new information, sensitive to competing concerns and risks. Also: humble, transparent, open to criticism, honest about what it doesn’t know, willing to admit error.

The C.D.C.’s increasingly mindless adherence to its masking guidance is none of those things. It isn’t merely undermining the trust it requires to operate as an effective public institution. It is turning itself into an unwitting accomplice to the genuine enemies of reason and science — conspiracy theorists and quack-cure peddlers — by so badly representing the values and practices that science is supposed to exemplify.

It also betrays the technocratic mind-set that has the unpleasant habit of assuming that nothing is ever wrong with the bureaucracy’s well-laid plans — provided nobody gets in its way, nobody has a dissenting point of view, everyone does exactly what it asks, and for as long as officialdom demands. This is the mentality that once believed that China provided a highly successful model for pandemic response.

Yet there was never a chance that mask mandates in the United States would get anywhere close to 100 percent compliance or that people would or could wear masks in a way that would meaningfully reduce transmission. Part of the reason is specific to American habits and culture, part of it to constitutional limits on government power, part of it to human nature, part of it to competing social and economic necessities, part of it to the evolution of the virus itself.

But whatever the reason, mask mandates were a fool’s errand from the start. They may have created a false sense of safety — and thus permission to resume semi-normal life. They did almost nothing to advance safety itself. The Cochrane report ought to be the final nail in this particular coffin.

There’s a final lesson. The last justification for masks is that, even if they proved to be ineffective, they seemed like a relatively low-cost, intuitively effective way of doing something against the virus in the early days of the pandemic. But “do something” is not science, and it shouldn’t have been public policy. And the people who had the courage to say as much deserved to be listened to, not treated with contempt. They may not ever get the apology they deserve, but vindication ought to be enough.

A new response to the above copy and paste from R108/109:

When this study came out I planned to write a post about it. But then I read through the whole thing and discovered that although it reviewed 13 mask studies, only two of them were for COVID-19. All the others were pre-2020 studies of how well masks worked for various other respiratory diseases. The two COVID masking studies produced the following results:

Bangladesh: "Villages where in-person reinforcement of mask wearing occurred also showed a reduction in reporting COVID-like illness [about 10% overall, 35% among the elderly]."

Denmark: "Although the difference observed was not statistically significant, the 95% CIs are compatible with a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection."

These are not spectacular results, but neither are they zero results. Nor are these the only two masking studies ever done on COVID.

all the Asians are still wearing them here in LA in my building. They wear them when they are outside BY THEMSELVES. It's so odd and strange. They wear them in their cars BY THEMSELVES. Strange people.

Never!

yes, but only in public restrooms and not for Covid. Public restrooms are the #1 spreader of diseases and I will therefore, always use one in a public restroom.

Masks are effective but here's how a study from a respected group was misinterpreted to say they weren't

I think there are some levels of crowding that I’ll just avoid altogether, mask or no mask. The one time I caught COVID was in mid-January this year, the only time during the pandemic I was in an EXTREMELY crowded shopping mall. Vaxxed and boosted but stopped wearing masks around the end of last year. Wore one again for two weeks while I was actively infected.

I will NEVER voluntarily wear a mask in ANY setting!

It says right on the box that they don't protect against coronavirus.

Only if you are a paranoid doofus! Which is apparently a lot here on DL.

I mask on public transport, medical facilities and if I feel I am surrounded by Trump Trash (which is not often).

I am a completely selfish, hostile, unpleasant, ill-tempered all-round cunt, so I don't feel this is "virtue signaling" (a phrase that always makes me want to go full-on Patrick Bateman).

Anyone who claims otherwise can take a flying bang at a Boeing jet.