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umvi

Because they are little more than theater. They are mainly a social signal at this point. If you:

- fervently wear a mask

it is a social signal that you are 100% on board with any/all government public health mandates.

- fervently don't wear a mask

it is a social signal that you are 100% NOT on board with any/all government public health mandates

- wear a mask depending on if the people around you are wearing a mask

it is a social signal that you don't have strong opinions either way and that you don't want to offend anyone or get called out so you just follow the crowd to blend in

I can deduce whether someone thinks like me based on if they use a mask like me.

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Where do I fit if I wear a mask when I'm indoors because I feel compelled to try to prevent my children, who are ineligible for the vaccine, from catching COVID-19 due to any failure on my part?

How much risk do you think your children have? I believe it's the same as the flu according to recent stats.

> How much risk do you think your children have?

Very little, probably, but I don't think anyone can say. I've read the same statistics as you. But our understanding is immature, no?

For example, we're seeing now that young people, who were infected with COVID-19 but who had extremely mild cases / symptoms, are now experiencing / developing so-called long COVID. Here's a piece in the NY Times from yesterday [0] and similarly in Yahoo! News (not behind the paywall) [1] . In addition, pediatric cases of COVID-19 are currently on the rise.

Here's an excerpt:

> An April study by the United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics found that 9.8% of 2-11-year-olds and 13% of 12-16-year-olds infected with the coronavirus reported continuing symptoms five weeks later. After 12 weeks, rates remained significant: 7.4% in the younger group and 8.2% in the older group.

That sounds much worse than the flu:

> In another U.K. study, 4.4% of 1,734 children had symptoms more than four weeks post-COVID, over four times as high as the percentage with symptoms four weeks after non-COVID illnesses like flu.

So, this aspect of the pandemic actually is much worse than the flu.

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/08/world/covid-delta-va...

[1]: https://news.yahoo.com/really-scary-kids-struggle-long-11541...

edit/ Typos and words.

NYT is paywalled, but all articles about it that I have read are a mix of scary anecdotes without statistics ("Johnny was unable to remember his biology lessons" - how often does that happen" and statistics about "x% experience 'such' ongoing symptoms", where "such" is sneakily a mix of severe and non severe symptoms that can be lumped together under "long covid" to make it sound scarier.

Not saying there is no risk, but I wish there were some clearer statistics about it. There should be enough data by now.

I personally think that if there really was a significant risk for kids, it would have been clearly communicated by now.

> I personally think that if there really was a significant risk for kids, it would have been clearly communicated by now.

I sure don't have a high degree of trust in our officials to communicate clearly. Not after the last 19 months.

They seemed very keen to communicate high risk things, though.

In my opinion you fall under the first group of fervent mask wearers. The key words being "feel compelled". Group 2 certainly doesn't feel compelled, and group 3 only wears masks around kids if the other adults are also wearing masks around kids, but not because they feel compelled to by some internal source.

But I'm not a "fervent mask wearer." It covers my mouth and nose for 10 minutes while I grocery shop once or twice a week. Because that's basically the only indoor exposure I routinely have to the crowd of people who are both unvaccinated and "fervently don't wear a mask." I don't wear it when I'm with friends or family who are like-minded. I don't wear it when I'm outdoors, including places with medium-sized crowds like the beach this past weekend. Etc.

edit/ Words.

fair enough, the 3 groups I summarized cover the most general cases I've seen. There is certainly more nuance in real life than can be captured in a HN's comment's worth of categorization.

These categories don't reflect any kind of reality other than maybe at the margins.

Most people follow basic public health policy guidelines, almost everyone begrudgingly so on some level, as nobody actually wants to wear a mask obviously.

Outside of required guidelines, some may wear a little more often than others, surely older people might be more likely, and those who are vaccinate less likely.

That's it.

It's not a social signal or an indicator of anything.

You can't deduce anything from someone's mask unless they are doing something truly awkward like literally not wearing a mask when they are clearly supposed to, or over protecting such as wearing an N100 while alone in a public space. Otherwise, it's just a normal thing we are resigned to doing in certain situations.

Even if they literally, provably did nothing, I'd still wear one out of courtesy to others if it would make them feel more secure. We're still talking about a small piece of cloth, right? It's practically zero cost, and there are no down sides. It's about as much of a hassle as putting on underwear or wearing a seat belt. It's sad that basic courtesy, decency, and the sense of doing something (if only a shibboleth) for your community, have become politicized. Toxic Orthodox Individualism has become a religion.

I felt this exact sentiment for awhile but I've changed my stance. The reason is because for a lot of them they feel secure because everyone is doing it, so this is a real social fear that they have, rather than from the virus itself. People act on groupthink very easily and if masks does not work or work minimally and people stop wearing them, more and more people will stop wearing them as well when they see that it's not a big deal.

I do not wear them outside but I do wear them indoors at grocery stores or small spaces that are poorly ventilated.

A year and a half of wearing a mask isn't "zero cost".

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