How Is Covid-19 Impacting Life in Your City?

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

These kinds of arguments apply to serious issues like shutting down the economy, restricting people to their homes, limiting their ability to travel and so on. They seem petty when the issue at hand is, as I said above, keeping a mask in your pocket and slapping it on for a few minutes when going into a store.

You can still have unmasked social events with people whose vaccination status you trust. You can go indoors without a mask when whoever controls the space actually checks vaccination status (as some sports venues have done).

But to run into Walmart or the supermarket, it shouldn't be a big deal to ask you to slap it on your face for a few minutes until most of the developed world (at least) has no new cases most days and very low positivity rates on testing which is a place we can reach in a few months.

Pedestrian, I think Covid has fried your brain.

No new cases most days? What kind of measure is that? We don't have that measure for anything else, so why this? Should we stop driving if a certain amount of people die in car wrecks over a certain time frame?


I've tried to stay respectful towards you because you are older and were in the medical field, but you have lost your mind. YOU need to stay locked up and isolated because you simply aren't ready for the world again.

[chris08876]

New Year's Eve Celebrations 2020 vs. 2021 from EarthCam


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[glowrock]

I've come to the realization that we've all been fighting incessantly for over a year now. Over a goddamned fucking MASK!!! I still can't really fathom it, quite frankly. We've all been so obsessed with ourselves and not giving a damn about others that we've made wearing a mask a social, political and most importantly a "muh freedum!" issue. It's been ridiculous to say the least.

As someone who's had to wear a mask every day for 9+ hours working in a very public-facing retail environment, of course wearing one gets annoying at times. Let's face it, everyone lip-reads to some extent, therefore people tend to sound muffled when you're talking to them and can't quite understand everything they're saying. But you know what? It's been a MINOR inconvenience at best in the overall scheme of things.

The store I work at is still requiring employees and customers to mask up, at least within the Chicago city limits. I presume that will change very shortly, of course. And you know what? I'll bet maybe half of the customers will actually take off their masks, maybe a quarter of the employees, at least the ones in close contact with lots of customers at any given time.

Yeah, I agree it'll be nice to no longer feel like we have to wear masks, but honestly I'll probably go back to wearing one again for flu season, given that the flu basically was non-existent because you know, masks preventing its spread.

At any rate, I just think the chest-thumping, hyperbolic responses from so many of us here have been utterly ridiculous. Especially the ones essentially saying the poor young people have had their lives ruined. RUINED, I tell you, over the last year or so. Put on hiatus, perhaps? Sure, but ruined? I think not!

Aaron (Glowrock)

[MolsonExport]

^I share your frustration at the outright selfishness underlying much of the maskless movement

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

No new cases most days? What kind of measure is that? We don't have that measure for anything else, so why this? Should we stop driving if a certain amount of people die in car wrecks over a certain time frame?

I think the state governments just need to ask everyone to leave their guns at home until there is a certain amount of time without a mass shooting...

Not the way things are going to (or should) work in a society that is predicated on placing individual liberties above all.

[jd3189]

Not sure why states like FL and TX are bent on making masks illegal when they could easily just tell folks that masks are simply not require.

Why would anyone care about whether someone decides to wear a mask or not? People have various reasons to wear them, all mainly linked to safety and precaution during a pandemic in which a relatively new virus is running amok.

I personally don't care, and wouldn't stop people from wearing them, especially if they have not been vaccinated yet and still at risk of getting it and spreading it to vulnerable populations.

[the urban politician]

^ I don’t think masks are illegal, think they are just saying that businesses cannot require them.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ I don’t think masks are illegal, think they are just saying that businesses cannot require them.

And that cities/municipalities can’t make their own laws regarding masks.

[10023]

They are making mask-wearing a personal choice, like it has always been in East Asia (a practice that so many here seem to approve of). Pedestrian could still wear his mask in Florida or Texas until his dying day. What’s wrong with that?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ I don’t think masks are illegal, think they are just saying that businesses cannot require them.

Which should not be any of their business.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

^I share your frustration at the outright selfishness underlying much of the maskless movement

They want COVID to freely move amongst the younger populations, and to me that sounds like they are pro-COVID. Anti-mask, anti-vax, and anti-lockdown is enough to confirm pro-COVID.

Originally Posted by 10023

They are making mask-wearing a personal choice, like it has always been in East Asia (a practice that so many here seem to approve of). Pedestrian could still wear his mask in Florida or Texas until his dying day. What’s wrong with that?

For the vaccinated....the vaxxless people shall continue wearing their mask indefinitely as punishment.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by 10023

They are making mask-wearing a personal choice, like it has always been in East Asia (a practice that so many here seem to approve of). Pedestrian could still wear his mask in Florida or Texas until his dying day. What’s wrong with that?

Not sure what this even means. There have been mask mandates in East Asia.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Not sure what this even means. There have been mask mandates in East Asia.

He likes the policy of personal choice to wear the mask, but gets mad at Pedestrian for making the personal choice to continue to wear the mask
Pro-COVID imo. Pedestrian is definitely anti-COVID.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by 10023

They are making mask-wearing a personal choice, like it has always been in East Asia (a practice that so many here seem to approve of). Pedestrian could still wear his mask in Florida or Texas until his dying day. What’s wrong with that?

What’s wrong with cities/municipalities making their own rules? The West doesn’t have a culture of choosing to weak masks in public or at work when sick.

[Pedestrian]

Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley:

Santa Clara County's new order requiring businesses to determine their employees' vaccination status is raising a host of questions as employers Wednesday began figuring out what the rules mean and how to meet a twoweek deadline to compile the data before California eases COVID-19 restrictions in mid-June.
Many employers hadn't yet heard of the order, a first in the Bay Area that could soon free vaccinated employees from requirements to wear masks and socially distance in the workplace. But that freedom would come at the cost of employers collecting medical information and imposing stricter rules on their unvaccinated employees, an unnerving prospect for some . . . .

Santa Clara County Public Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody said Wednesday that the new health order was imposed because the federal guidance on masking from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assumed "everyone knows everyone else's vaccination status," which "is not always the case." In addition, California's workplace safety board has yet to update its requirements . . . .

https://enewspaper.mercurynews.com/?...To=A01&artid=0

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by 10023

They are making mask-wearing a personal choice, like it has always been in East Asia (a practice that so many here seem to approve of). Pedestrian could still wear his mask in Florida or Texas until his dying day. What’s wrong with that?

It has now been a year and you evidently have still not gotten it through your head that the most important value of wearing a mask is that it blocks the droplets and aerosols you otherwise spew into the air, thus protecting OTHERS if you are infected with coronavirus (or flu or any other respiratory virus).

While if a person such as myself wears the most effective type of mask (N95 or KN95) as I do, it probably offers me some protection from what's in the air you exhaled because you didn't wear one, it's less beneficial than keeping the air free of those exhalations in the first place.

THAT's why mask wearing can't be entirely a personal choice--because it's about protecting other people and some people like you don't give a d*mn about anyone but themselves. Some, in fact, are so self-obsessed that they are likely to lie or falsify their vaccination status in order to remove the masks in spite of not being vaccinated and possibly even being infectious.

[iheartthed]

Speaking of mask wearing, the weather this week has wreaked havoc on my allergies. Wearing the mask at home was pretty effective for reducing the symptoms until the allergy medicine kicked in.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Not sure why states like FL and TX are bent on making masks illegal when they could easily just tell folks that masks are simply not require.

Can't speak for Florida but masks aren't illegal here in TX or will they ever be. The state is simply disallowing mandates on the local and state level. Municipalities, state universities and school districts can no longer require them.

[dktshb]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

It has now been a year and you evidently have still not gotten it through your head that the most important value of wearing a mask is that it blocks the droplets and aerosols you otherwise spew into the air, thus protecting OTHERS if you are infected with coronavirus (or flu or any other respiratory virus).

While if a person such as myself wears the most effective type of mask (N95 or KN95) as I do, it probably offers me some protection from what's in the air you exhaled because you didn't wear one, it's less beneficial than keeping the air free of those exhalations in the first place.

THAT's why mask wearing can't be entirely a personal choice--because it's about protecting other people and some people like you don't give a d*mn about anyone but themselves. Some, in fact, are so self-obsessed that they are likely to lie or falsify their vaccination status in order to remove the masks in spite of not being vaccinated and possibly even being infectious.

I think the main reason for masks and stay at home policies was to keep the hospitals from being overrun with Covid patients. Obviously this illness has proven that if these steps are not taken hospitals quickly become overrun and can't handle the amount of patients and therefore people with covid and those with other unrelated injuries or sicknesses die. Obviously overrun hospitals affect everybody. Nobody wants to have an injury or another illness that causes the need for hospitalization and have the hospital not able to help you because they are overrun with covid patients.

I am not sure if hospitals are in danger here in the US to become overrun like they were in a few cities throughout the pandemic. I think we may be over that hurdle, hopefully.

You're never going to get selfish pricks who only care about themselves to wear masks because it is the right thing to do to try and prevent others from being sick.

I am vaccinated and will choose to wear a mask in certain situations (transit, airports and grocery store and where they are required). I am not wearing them when I am outdoors or frequenting a restaurant. I am not worried at all about catching the virus.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley:

Meanwhile, on my face:

NOTHING