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Re:Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic by irrational on Thursday April 29, 2021 @08:43PM (#26988645)
Not if you wear a mask and wash your hands immediately afterwards. I haven’t been in an in person meeting since COVID started, but I’m wearing a mask to the next one I attend.
Re:Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic by crazygringo on Friday April 30, 2021 @03:25PM (#26998099)
Not true.

Wearing a mask is more to prevent spreading a virus you have, than to prevent you from getting a virus. In other words, the main benefit of masks is to prevent people with COVID or the flu from sneezing and infecting others.

If you're healthy, wearing a mask is not going to provide a ton of protection from infectious people near you not wearing masks. A little bit of protection, but not a lot.

So unless you can convince everyone else in your meeting to wear a mask as well, it's not going to make a major difference, sadly.

Re:Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic by ryan_j_naughton on Friday April 30, 2021 @12:22AM (#26989798)
In Covid's case, wearing a mask only reduces the chance of you contracting the virus by 2%. The real reduction comes from the other person wearing a mask ~20% reduction).

Thus, you can't simply choose to keep wearing masks and get significant reductions in getting sick. Everyone would have to keep wearing masks, which is very unlikely.

Similarly, before the pandemic it was totally normal to go to parties with a cold or respiratory illness. I sincerely hope people keep the behavioral shift of not going to any events when sick, but humans are selfish and I bet they will largely return to their selfish ways