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Comment by shafyy | Hacker News Reader

> And you can wear masks if you are uncomfortable on the plane or the subway. We’ve normalized mask-wearing in the US now and that is a good thing.

I really hope he's right and it's normalized, but I do fear that many people will go back to not staying at home and not wearing masks when they feel sick. And people who do wear masks, will do so catching lampooning gazes from others.

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> And you can wear masks if you are uncomfortable on the plane or the subway.

My understanding was that mask-wearing was mostly to protect others. Has that changed?

Masks always provided some benefit both ways, but the benefit is maximized if everyone is wearing them. N95s and similar have started to become more common, and those have substantial benefit to the wearer, even in a crowded room of unmasked people. If I am wearing an N95 and you are not wearing a mask, I am more protected than if both you and I are wearing surgical masks.

This was my understanding about surgical masks pre-covid, but I plan on wearing a better-sealing (KN95, KF94, N95) on public transportation, airplanes, and in busy places like supermarkets for the rest of my life. If I can avoid even 10% of the colds or other viruses over the course of my life it seems like a very worthwhile tradeoff.

Every year I travel to the east coast for Christmas and every year except this year I've gotten sick during travel. I'm happy to normalize masks cause I want to wear them on planes to avoid feeling miserable the whole time.

You can actually get some protection wearing and N95 mask. Though those aren’t popular in the west because they often have exhalation valves that make people paranoid (the CDC says they are ok since they allow for a better seal and are filtered).

The change has been the realization that anything less than a properly fitting KN95 mask is basically useless.

According to this large randomised trial [1], simple interventions to increase the use of surgical masks reduced infection by 11%, and by nearly 35% in over 60s.

That doesn't seem useless.

Of course, if you're only talking about protecting yourself from others, then a KN95 mask is clearly the way forward.

[1] https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-mask...

"you can" critical and very clear wording, would never stop someone wearing them. But we never addressed a) how to wear them or b) the advertising that they're the be-all end-all solution is wrong and shouldn't have presented them this way.

Mask wear becoming a normal thing is one of the few good things to come out of the response to Covid.

I like them, they provide privacy from people and cameras, while also increasing protection from many viruses and bacteria (provided you don't take it off to scratch your nose).

Common cold and the flu has gotten way less common since 2020. Freaking amazing, since the symptoms can literally incapacitate me for a week or two. I hate the cold and flu.

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