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Comment by idiotsecant | Hacker News Reader

COVID sure was fun, See you guys at the next one!

People don't like to hear that COVID is airborne, that COVID is not over, and that COVID is NOT a respiratory illness but a vascular illness that causes multisystem organ damage, but this is true, and our governments don't fucking care who dies or becomes permanently disabled as long as people keep contributing to capitalism. So MOST GOVERNMENTS ARE NOW SOURCES OF COVID MISINFORMATION.

People want to live. And they don't want to do the Covid years again. Capitalism is not relevant here.

Exactly, but you sure wouldn't know it in most areas these days. Only in niche corners like r/ZeroCovidCommunity can you find actually useful information about this ongoing public health disaster.

The only sure protection available is wearing a properly fitted N95 respirator in public spaces. Unfortunately this is a tall ask for most people.

> The only sure protection available is wearing a properly fitted N95 respirator in public spaces.

I ... am not 100% about that and can't afford mistakes so I wear a PAPR with a HEPA filter in public spaces and hate the world for forcing me to do so. (It's a Cleanspace Halo.)

Studies confirm that N95s effectively protect the individual from SARS-CoV-2 transmission (contrary to all of the misinformation saying otherwise).

If you can afford something fancier, great. My above comment was to differentiate N95s from surgical/cloth masks as well as vaccines, because these latter methods are not enough to stop transmission, and repeated infections increase the risk of Long COVID / PASC complications.

Studies confirm whatever standpoint you want, other studies disprove the same standpoint [1] for those who want to wave the "studies confirm" stick.

[1] https://www.thebottomline.org.uk/summaries/danmask-19/

A good starting point is using current data. Your study is from 2020 and is an apples-oranges comparison to my original point.

By now the research (as interpreted by experts, not internet randos) have coelesced around the fact that a properly fitted N95 provides the wearer adequate protection against SARS-CoV-2 transmission.

There has been a push to drive false information around this basic topic as one of the many tactics to force the "back to normal" behavior that capital demands. Mass media trying to suggest lesser masks (and/or vaccines) are sufficient, resulting in false "all masks don't work" conclusions, etc.

Exactly what do you think "the world" should do, and for how long, to reduce your exposure to a highly contagious airborne virus which has animal reservoirs and easily mutates to escape all forms of immunity?

https://youtu.be/ltjBT_TuUVA

As for how long? Forever. Y'all got used to seat belts , you can get used to masks. Or, at least until we have ensured clean air ... everywhere. Which won't be any time soon but it is doable.

This seems wildly alarmist to put it mildly. I hope you don't think I'm trying to offend if I say that unless you have unusual and preexisting immunological vulnerabilities what you're describing is an untreated anxiety disorder. In the wide spectrum of things that can kill you or injure you covid-19 is well below accidents, diabetes, heart disease, etc. It's not no risk, but it doesn't warrant 'wear a fully qualified clean room respirator at all times' level of mitigation.

I don't think I've ever seen such a concentration of untreated anxiety disorders in one place as that subreddit before. Those people desperately need help, and to leave the space that's preventing them from healing.

Denialism manifests in many ways, and your comment serves as an example.

It's easy for people to falsely reassure themselves that it's safe to follow capital's "back to normal" messaging, especially since it's instinctively what everybody wants to do and by most counts are doing in 2023.

But the recommendations of that subreddit are in line with the most recent scientific consensus among epidemiologists and other relevant subfields. Blindly write these findings off as "anxiety disorders" at your own peril.

The whole multisystem-organ-damaged world is conspiring against you.

Probably won't take long until then. These pandemics are so common that 4 million deaths barely registered on the radar and were forgotten by history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957%E2%80%931958_influenza_pa...

https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/the-history-of-the-fo...

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