Basically, wanted to know where people are at with mask wearing (as it relates to containing covid and all), I know it’s been a while since it started. And I’ve seen people who say covid can still be threatening, like through long covid and such, even if the initial impact doesn’t tend to be as bad. Being in the US, it’s especially hard to tell what makes sense because the gov sorta gave up on containment a while back and only ever half-assed pushing mask wearing. And wearing a mask alone was a controversial thing in some places, even in the very beginning. Then there’s vaccines, which of course help, but seems to be a thing like the flu where you have to get boosters to be fully covered for variant strains.
So in general, I’m wondering stuff like:
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Do you still wear a mask or not and why? And do you have distinctions like large crowds or anything like that?
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How does mask wearing compare by country, from what you know? For example, I’m sure China has a more pro-mask-wearing culture and policy overall, but I’m not clear on where they’re at this late into it.
Partly asking cause I want to re-assess my own position on it, see if it makes sense to change it at all by now. I’ve still been doing it, in part out of inertia, but the US management of it is such a mess, in gov and culture, it’s hard to tell when it makes sense to stop vs. just caving to peer pressure of people who were never acting responsibly to begin with.
If you see taking basic precautions towards preventing an infectious disease as a ‘style choice’ then I suppose you can’t expect much patience and decorum from people who are especially at risk of its worst effects
Obviously the exceeding vast majority of people do not want to wear them. One look outside will tell you that. Me wearing one while healthy, and especially now while immune to COVID, does not change anything. Scolding the world will get us nowhere.
People should absolutely mask while experiencing symptoms, after having a possible exposure to COVID, or in a preventative manner before being around a vulnerable population. Vulnerable people should be able to mask without being harassed. If that is insufficient, blame the CDC for calling people and telling them to go back to work as soon as their fever subsides, not me individually for seeing it as fruitless to wear a mask while healthy while that is happening. I have debilitating symptoms of long COVID, I am being victimized by this shit too.
Finally, the vast majority of people are healthy, and I take issue with the world view that every person is a threat.
Clearly systemic approaches are the appropriate response to a pandemic. But our capitalist system has utterly failed to address this problem or put forth the most basic of solutions. So we must collectively work to protect one another in spite of their actions. Nobody is immune to Covid. Even as somebody who has gotten every vaccine the moment I could, I am susceptible to an infection, just much less so than somebody without the vaccines. Even if I got lucky and it was asymptomatic for me, I can act as a vector to spread it to somebody who is more at risk or just less lucky and who has major health outcomes for it. I’d much rather stick out in a crowd for masking than be the person responsible for passing the virus
It’s not about ‘viewing the world as a threat’ or ‘living in fear’ or whatever. It’s about community protection and mitigating the fallout of the ruling class’ selfish policies. The response of any revolutionary to systemic failures which are harming us should be collective action and education, and masks are a large part of that in the current climate of an ongoing pandemic. I wouldn’t look at the fact that millions of Americans vote for dems and repubs and conclude “the people want capitalism, I may as well give up on socialism.” Same principle should apply here
Thanks, that’s an interesting take.