> The experience may also prompt people to take all respiratory viruses more seriously, leading to lasting changes in mask wearing and ventilation.
I don't think that mask mandates will continue, but I do think that many more people will choose to wear masks in situations that warrant them. In Asia, it was already pretty common before COVID-19 and even before SARS. Walk around Tokyo on any given day and you'll see people wearing masks (mostly to protect others). I think the West now has some idea why that might be a good thing.
The world has irreversibly changed. There is no getting around that.
If I found being nude to be significantly more comfortable/freeing than being clothed, I would still be expected to wear clothing in public spaces for both politeness and sanitary (e.g. sitting on subway seats) reasons.
And why stop at respiratory viruses? Sexual infections cause all kinds of harm too - the obvious response is to ban sex. When people want to reproduce they can just use IVF - thank God we live in the modern era.
And by the way, do you have any idea how many people are killed every year in road accidents? I propose we ban cars. Let's also ban walking in case anybody trips over. And let's ban eating so that no-one ever chokes on their food.
Am I doing this right?
Barely a century ago, it wasn't common for doctors to wash their hands, because it hurt doctors' feelings. Dr. Charles Meigs, an obstetrician, said, "Doctors are gentlemen and a gentleman's hands are clean."
But, of course, factually they weren't clean, factually they were full of germs, and factually Dr. Meigs was killing several of the people he operated on through his unclean hands. There was factual data that infant mortality dropped significantly in clinics where doctors were washing their hands.
But the response to hand-washing was much like yours. "You're saying society should keep washing hands everywhere literally forever? That's so insane I can't tell whether you're even serious." And in fact they sent the doctor who suggested hand-washing to an insane asylum, where he died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_reaction_to_Ignaz...
This scenario [1] is a specific instance of using chlorinated lime to clean your hands after dealing with cadavers, which is a totally different scenario. In fact, he apparently references this as an alternative to "normal hand washing". The mid-19th century is not the middle ages, we knew about washing hands.
> Semmelweis's key claim was that physicians contaminated their hands with "cadaveric particles" in the morgue while conducting autopsies. He pointed out that ordinary washings with soap did not remove these particles, because the hands could retain a stench for several days in spite of such washings.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_reaction_to_Ignaz...
All I can say is that people are going to be super upset when they go to cash in their HN karma and find that it isn't honored as legal tender ;)
I certainly don't see a reason to go maskless on public transportation in the future. And, as supply chain problems work themselves out, someone will probably make masks that actually filter out virus-size particles and fit more people's faces. (I feel like every mask I've bought so far during the pandemic has either been completely ineffective, or has been designed to fit someone that is 1/3 my size.)