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Comment by kbos87 | Hacker News Reader

I put myself firmly in the camp of “vaxxed, boosted, and done”, and I’d say that’s the attitude of more people than we all might think.

I think you have the theoretical game plan right, but I’d say that #3 is no longer within the realm of possibility in the US. There’s just no public support for it amongst anyone but the tiny percentage of the most cautious among us.

On #2, I’d even say that yes, masks still make sense in crowded indoor non-optional settings - meaning places we all have to go like public transit, grocery stores, and hospitals. But I’m already past the point of ever wearing a mask outdoors, and I’d also argue that it shouldn’t be a requirement for vaccinated individuals in optional spaces like gyms, bars, restaurants.

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Plus of course in bars and restaurants they are pointless theater- wearing a mask to walk to your table, then taking it off to eat, drink and talk loudly for several hours, does precisely nothing.

Sigh. This is wrong, and I wonder why it is so hard to understand that it's all about probabilities.

Being unmasked for 50% (?) of the time (while eating, say) you are in an enclosed space is obviously less risky than being unmasked 100% of the time.

Except at a restaurant, the unmasked time is closer to 95%-99%, depending on how long it takes to get a table, and then how long you're there.

My wife an I recently went out for breakfast. There was no wait for a table, so the masked time was basically less than a minute, but let's call it a full minute. Then, we were there for about 40 minutes unmasked.

That's a 97.5% time unmasked, talking or eating. You cannot possibly convince me that the 1 minute I had my mask on made ANY difference.

That said, the alternative to the "mask until you're seated" policy was never going to be "no masks", it would end up being "no indoor dining".

Were you really eating for all 40 minutes?

Or were you socializing for 30 minutes after actually eating for 10? And during the socializing period, you didn't feel like wearing a mask?

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Surely, when you were seated, you didn't have food yet. You had some time to place an order. It takes a few minutes to even fetch drinks from the back sometimes, depending on what the drinks are.

Literally no one is doing this. I'm not arguing that what you're describing isn' safer -- but seriously, no one is doing this. They could, they definitely could.

But everyone who is going to a restaurant in a "mask to the table" kind of area is wearing it for about 30 seconds til they sit at their table. Maybe on the way to the bathroom.

I know a few states had tried to pass mandates about wearing your mask when you were being waited on or when you were socializing/not actively eating. I don't think those stuck though because they are impossibly hard to enforce.

> Literally no one is doing this.

I don't always practice what I preach, but I've done so on multiple occasions. (IE: I've kept my mask on for the "social" phases of the Restaurant, and only took it off for the eating phase).

Given that we're currently facing an unprecedented hospital shortage _RIGHT NOW_, its certainly a behavior worth revisiting and advocating.

We can't stop all restaurant visits or family gatherings. But we can lessen the spread of COVID19 while we do gather.

So what? Why is Covid the single only thing that matters. Covid is endemic. Mandating masks says “Covid is literally the most important thing for you”.

No. I’m boosted. I’ve got plenty of other problems that are far higher in priority than Covid or the spread of Covid. Nobody should be required by law to wear a mask indoors at this point.

Keeping a mask off your face while indoors is that important to you?

Why? No one has ever been able to tell me why a mask on a face was so terrible, to the point where I'm pretty sure that its just partisan bickering / political theater.

Yes. I like to see faces. I like to smile at my daughter and see her face and have her see mine.

Masks are absolutely corrosive to society. They should have stayed off last June.

Were smiles banned or something? I've smiled to my niece and she smiled back to me last time I checked.

But in public, its important to reduce the hospitalization rate and COVID19 rate of spread. As corrosive as you "think" masks are, I guarantee that the long-term effects of COVID19 are more corrosive.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/rxwnbl/i_am_a_new_york...

Just 10% of this school has gotten infected with COVID19, and you can see how much of a nightmare its become. Not enough substitute teachers to watch kids. Kids mingling in the auditorium because there's not enough teachers to watch them. Spreading COVID19 further and further, causing more kids to be absent, causing more teachers to be absent, preventing school from effectively functioning as a learning environment.

Seems like a self created problem. Imagine if we simply stopped all this testing. I bet a lot of money you wouldn’t even know omicron was a thing. This would be “that thing that is going around”

I was standing in a 4-hour line to get a nurse to give me a regular TDAP vaccine (wooping cough). I decided to come back later when the line was shorter, and stood in line __before__ the clinic opened. I was then met with a 2-hour wait instead.

You can't ignore this crap. Its evidently and immediately an issue right now.

Agreed on the masks in bars/restaurants just being theater, but the alternative was never going to be masks not being required, it would be that indoor dining wouldn't be permitted.

Agreed. At least where I live (a major American city) there’s already no expectation or enforcement once you enter a bar, despite us having an indoor mask mandate that people are relatively good about following everywhere else. I’d be willing to guess that the city knows and has chosen not to enforce it in certain settings.

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