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Comment by chx | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for excluding me from the conferences you attend.

I am astounded that four years in we still need to explain that a) masks are effective in stopping community transmission b) masks worn by the source are more effective or, in other words, your mask protects me while my mask protects you. How is this new?

No, your stance is absolutely selfish -- not uncommon of course, but it is selfish.

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There is no need to label him selfish. You don’t know him.

He isn’t any more selfish than you are, traveling to a crowded conference while living with an immuno-compromised person, and on top of that expecting people to bend over to your requirements.

What's selfish is actually demanding that society changes for you (or a minority of immuno-compromised individuals). COVID was one thing, but we're way past it now and society had to go back to the normal way of things.

Did you check covid wastewater statistic over the last year when you parroted the pandemic is over?

You do realize the spanish flu is still around and found in wastewater samples too? According to your metrics, we should still be worried about the spanish flu...

Did you check that Sweden (as an example) had no mask mandate and no vaccinations, and came off better than many nations?

No, Sweden deciding to euthanasia its elderly did not pay off. Try harder.

Fair enough, but you just shot down your own argument. The disadvantage of Sweden's strategy was the elderly. For adults and younger people, the difference was negligible or even better than most other European countries. I'm willing to bet that you are in the elderly category and also that PyCon 24 didn't have many elderly people joining. Sorry man!

The point is that I don't want to wear a mask. I tolerated it during the pandemic because it was an extreme situation. The pandemic is now over, so I no longer wear a mask. If that makes me selfish, then I'm OK with that. It is arguably no less selfish to force everyone else to wear a mask. I am not going to argue that point though because I don't even particularly care, I just don't want to wear a mask, that's all.

I find your stance to be quite selfish actually. You're trying to force your will on an entire community. Why don't you take action within your own life to mitigate risk? Like e.g. taking a vaccine, or other ways of building immunity, or if you feel the risk is too great, then maybe you can choose to attend virtually instead of selfishly demanding others conform to your will?

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