Used the search function for the first time ever so I didn’t slowpony the Cochrane stuff, but is their finding anywhere close to: a well worn high quality N95 is ~basically worthless for self-protection, and has been for all strains of covid, because if not, fuck off? I mean yes the effect of protecting other people by wearing one is/was thought to be important, but I thought it was relatively firm science that PPE in a high covid enivronment was better than yolo rehearsing for the choir with your patients.
It turns out that if you wear a mask sometimes but not all the time, you can still get covid pretty easily.
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Nyoce! Off to the Times then to get my hot takes published.
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An N95 or KN95 worn properly all the time you’re in enclosed spaces around others is definitely very beneficial. I’m pretty sure their “finding” is something to the effect of: mask mandates make little/no impact to covid transmission at the community level because, turns out, most people either ignore the mandate or wear the mask improperly.
Obviously anti-maskers are using it to say “science says masks don’t work.”
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Here’s some other research on the effects of masking that dropped today:
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Basically it’s this:
It’s a short thread
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So the GOP in Idaho is trying to ban mRNA vaccines. The GOP in Montana is trying to make it illegal to give blood if you’ve been vaccinated. Lee County, Florida, stepping up to the plate:
We’re going to see this stuff go national - they’re going to want to ban COVID vaccines, masks, and basically any precautions.
ok that website is awful, is it actual laws we talking about here?
The GOP base is now against basically any kind of vaccination.
oh cool bird flu just has me wondering what I’d do if a virus with 10% mortality actually hit.
I’d still do my job I think, but ffs the line for me to bail is somewhere theoretically.
They’re actually trying to pass bills in Idaho and Montana, I think. Not sure if they’ve made it to the floor yet. The Florida thing is some kind of county resolution being sent to DeSantis to ask him to act, I think. Not sure if it’s safe to assume he will throw it in the trash, given what they’re doing to higher education and the law protecting bigotry from being called out.
So, my fiancée and I are nearing our mental breaking points on COVID precautions. We’re both dealing with a lot of harassment over it and isolation, and it’s taking its toll. We’re going to hold out at least a few more months, and probably til late this year… But the latest studies still show concerning risks of long COVID, and not enough impact from vaccines on those particular risks that we feel particularly safe. But those studies are still including a lot of 2020 and 2021 data, and we won’t see the updated stuff for a while. We just discussed that despite the studies/data we’ve seen, nobody we know is taking precautions except one of our friends, and we don’t know anybody who has long COVID who didn’t get infected pre-vaccines. So, informal polls to get a little non-scientific data.
Please only vote if you’ve been vaccinated and boosted.
Have you caught COVID?
- Yes
- No
0 voters
Please only vote if you’ve caught COVID: have you had any long COVID issues? (Brain fog/memory issues, fatigue, respiratory issues, stroke, heart problems, muscle aches, other)
- Yes
- No
0 voters
Please only vote if you had/have long COVID: did those issues resolve in…?
- 0-3 months
- 3-6 months
- 6-12 months
- 1+ years
- They haven’t resolved
0 voters
Bonus question: if you caught COVID, how long was it after your most recent shot/booster?
- 0-3 months
- 3-6 months
- 6-12 months
- 1+ years
0 voters
Thanks for the feedback!
Wanted to clarify my responses: I have definitely had brain fog however I have other health issues that can reasonably explain my brain fog. I suspect that I noticed the brain fog more after testing positive for COVID. So, I wanted to respond accurately, but if there had been other questions like “Are you certain that BF was caused by COVID?”, I would have responded with that nuance. Hope that makes sense.
Another N=1 observation, my COVID bout was NOT severe. As in like 1 day of symptoms and fatigue. So, I’ll be interested to see other responses as I “believe” the vaccination was very beneficial in allowing normal life to resume.
Hang in there. I can’t even pretend to understand what y’all are going through right now.
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Which aspects of your current precautions are most problematic for you all? I don’t think it has to be an all or nothing thing.
Like I think it’s perfectly reasonable if some folks decide for them they want to wear a mask to grocery store where there is no negative impact but also go out to eat with friends without mask because there a definite cost to skipping all that.
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Voted no, but I guess I can’t really be sure.
The one time I got sick in the last 3 years (early January 2023), I tested multiple times and was negative every time. Must have just been the flu.
Can’t really say I am doing much in the way of precautions at this point.
Masking at school for her (professors harassing her) and work for me (poker table). Unfortunately, those are basically the riskiest times to unmask, so even though I agree it’s not all/nothing, if we unmask there we’re going from taking basically no risk to probably over 90% of the possible risk we could take.
Man I still don’t get this. Is it other regs just sort of needling you or actual strangers prepared to pick a fight over your mask?
There are plenty of deplorables where I play, especially in Scottsdale, but it just sort of seems like mask-shaming would be completely unacceptable to everybody. I can’t even imagine what would happen if somebody tried.
Probably under 10% masking where I play at this point (including me most of the time). I’m always masking when 9-handed, but not always 8-handed, and I’ll take it off for a while when drinking my hot chocolate. 
People masking seem more likely to be Asian and/or older people. Maybe you being neither of those things is confusing to some people.
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Pretend to be an elderly Asian man and fewer people will give you a hard time.
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I’m really sorry to hear that, thanks for sharing and providing more detail. And thanks, it’s very frustrating, it’s almost at the point where I feel like I’m gaslighting myself over the long COVID concerns, which makes the bullying even more annoying somehow. It’s also worse cause my fiancee is getting bullied by her professors. Like we’re paying the school thousands of dollars and they’re mocking her in front of the class and we don’t have a recourse (she’s too worried about retribution via grades), and I care more about her being bullied than myself, so it’s infuriating.
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All of the above really. Everything ranging from honest questions (which I don’t mind) to mocking me to the rest table. It doesn’t happen every session, but fairly often. I don’t think it’s necessarily deplorables or has much to do with liberal/conservative, it’s more likely to be people who were probably the bully in high school, the loudmouth frat bro in college, etc.
The other thing that happens is that occasionally people leave me alone, but flat out ignore me if I speak. Others are polite but their responses/body language make it clear they really don’t want to socialize with the weirdo in the mask… which is fine, that’s their prerogative, but it’s made the whole thing feel like work when it didn’t used to.
Maybe 1 in 5 times someone speaks up in my defense, ranging from, “Hey he can do what he wants,” to just saying, “Hey I get it man, no problem, do you,” to try to diffuse it. Which I appreciate very much, but it doesn’t always make it stop.
Yeah I’d say it’s about 10% where I play too, and very very rarely anyone who’s not an Asian person over 50.
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