Re:The Coronavirus Is Here Forever
by geofft on Monday August 23, 2021 @10:32AM
(#28276351)
Long-term mask-wearing seem like an entirely reasonable social change.
It's like any other clothing: you're protecting a vulnerable part of your body and also displaying respect for others. And it's mostly enforced by social norms: though in many places it is in fact illegal to go without clothing, people wear clothes regardless of the law. (I was in San Francisco at the time the public nudity ban, or shall we call it the "clothing requirement," was passed, and I can assure you that people were generally clothed in San Francisco even before then.)
As another comment pointed out the other day (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28255121), it's not just going to be SARS-nCoV-2. There's going to be a lot more easily communicable diseases in the future in dense locations. And there was the first SARS, of course, and countries hit hard by the first SARS already adopted a norm of mask-wearing in crowded locations like public transit, which helps them with other diseases that are "here forever" like the seasonal flu.
I think mask-wearing in public is going to become a sign of basic respect and decency and hygiene. We're already comfortable with "No shoes, no shirt, no service."
It's like any other clothing: you're protecting a vulnerable part of your body and also displaying respect for others. And it's mostly enforced by social norms: though in many places it is in fact illegal to go without clothing, people wear clothes regardless of the law. (I was in San Francisco at the time the public nudity ban, or shall we call it the "clothing requirement," was passed, and I can assure you that people were generally clothed in San Francisco even before then.)
As another comment pointed out the other day (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28255121), it's not just going to be SARS-nCoV-2. There's going to be a lot more easily communicable diseases in the future in dense locations. And there was the first SARS, of course, and countries hit hard by the first SARS already adopted a norm of mask-wearing in crowded locations like public transit, which helps them with other diseases that are "here forever" like the seasonal flu.
I think mask-wearing in public is going to become a sign of basic respect and decency and hygiene. We're already comfortable with "No shoes, no shirt, no service."