Recently heard from a friend that also continues to mask when sharing air, they had arranged car pooling for one of their children. And just this morning the other parent texted saying "your child wearing a mask makes me uncomfortable so we can no longer car pool".
So … yeah. Entirely unsurprised by that attitude. "Every person for themselves but also not if it's something I personally dislike."
I consider outdoor air to be unshared, except in cases of large dense crowds (such as say outdoor festivals or sporting events).
I consider risky shared air to be indoor air with one or more other individuals that are not known to be taking infection-prevention precautions.
One can measure CO₂ as a proxy to rebreathed air fraction.
For example, a CO₂ reading of 2300ppm (common in a small or medium room with a few others, or larger rooms with a crowd or conference room, or in a car) means 5% of your air is rebreathed (5% of your intake is output from another person's lungs).
A way to think about this is we take ~20 breaths a minute on average. So in that scenario, it would be equivalent to one breath every minute coming directly from someone else's lungs. If they happen to be contagious with an airborne contagion (such as Covid, or influenza, or RSV), there's a high likelihood that you will catch it if you're spending more than a short time in that environment.
There are nuances, such as maybe the air is being scrubbed (eg by a HEPA filter) which won't affect the CO₂ levels but will drastically lower the infectious risk of that environment.
More reading: https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/what-a-carbon-dioxide-mo...
On this topic, I got a CO₂ meter fairly recently and was shocked how quickly it spikes with a couple of people in a car with the windows up and on recirculate. Easily over 2000 after a few minutes. I have to remind myself regularly when it's really hot or cold outside to keep the vent setting on fresh air.
But I'll offer one reply at your word that it's genuine and not passive-aggressive.
1. I am currently dealing with the after-effects of a previous Covid infection that requires expensive, ongoing medical treatment. I'm not anxious to test what additional infections may cause.
2. Wearing an N95 respirator is a cheap and easy preventative measure that is highly effective.
3. I adjust my habits based on measured risk. In my part of the world (Alberta), the current risk forecast for November 8-21 is that approximately 1 in every 81 people are currently infected with Covid. I relax my masking when it's 1 in 10,000 or less (which is not an unreasonable number; it's been there in the past).
4. Recent medical studies suggest that repeated Covid exposure is particularly harmful for children. Long Covid is now the #1 chronic condition in children in the US (displacing asthma as the top chronic childhood condition). As a parent, I see it as my responsibility to give my children the best chance at a long, healthy, medical-intervention-free life.
A few links (or just use Google):
- Covid monitoring in Canada: https://covid19resources.ca/
- Long Covid overtaking asthma as top childhood chronic illness: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
- Rolling Stone on Covid's affects on children: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/long-c...
- Remarks by Violet Affleck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBTjCqIxorw
- Tom Hanks: https://whn.global/youve-got-a-friend-in-me-tom-hanks-shows-...
- A longer answer than mine: https://whn.global/yes-we-continue-wearing-masks/
For a good number of us having COVID was nothing worse than coming down with a cold/flu. I understand that for a minority of people it could be life threatening or fatal (one of my neighbours passed away as a result of COVID back in 2020). That is why people are asking.
> A longer answer than mine: https://whn.global/yes-we-continue-wearing-masks/
I skimmed read a bit of this (pretty sure I've read it before a few years ago). This is all Germaphobe logic. My mother is a germaphone and I know it well. She would invent a bunch of rules based on arbitrary things and make you obey them. Sure they were based on real things that could happen, but not likely. This is no different.
I really resented my mother for years for putting me through this. I really hope your children don't resent you for similar behaviour.
For others that might be curious:
Your anecdote around acute infection recovery makes the common mistake of confusing acute infection (the period where you "feel sick") with long-term systemic (post-acute) symptoms.
The typical influenza (flu) only has an acute phase; once you're done "feeling sick", the virus has been eradicated from your body. And unfortunately, many talking heads keep repeating "Covid is now just like the flu" which ignores long-term consequences of repeated Covid infection, which does not behave like the flu (it is not an acute-phase only illness).
And this isn't unique to Covid, viruses with post-acute phases are well known and well studied:
- HIV is the acute phase that (years later) leads to AIDS;
- Epstein-Barr virus (EBV, or "mono") is a herpes-family virus that goes dormant after the acute phase and often later triggers ME/CFS
- Herpes virus in the form of chickenpox goes dormant after the acute phase and frequently later leads to shingles;
- and many others; Google is your friend.
Distinguishing between viruses that have acute-only vs. post-acute phases is a key input to my personal risk assessment stance. I value having as long and healthy a life as I can.
And just as I have, you're free to decide what risk tolerance you're comfortable with for your lifestyle and longevity goals. If you require the extra adrenaline kick of feeling morally superior by publicly passing judgement upon others' choices, have at it — genuinely! — and I hope you find all the missing joy you need.
How do you know? The vast majority of people don't check. (The plural of anecdote is not data.)
> As I said I've had to deal with someone that behaves exactly like you do for my entire life.
Baseless worry and justified concern are behaviourally quite similar, apart from the actual existence of the phenomenon that is the subject of concern. Identifying a behavioural similarity does not help you distinguish between legitimate risk and hypochondria.
> I skimmed read a bit of this (pretty sure I've read it before a few years ago). This is all Germaphobe logic.
Worse, that page is AI slop. There are good reasons for some people to wear masks. You won't find them on that page, at least not as believable arguments.
In fact, the section "Are you going to wear a mask forever?" speaks directly to the OP's asking why I wear masks, and their short answer, that "masks are a tool we can use when and where it makes sense—especially indoors, in poorly ventilated areas, or when community transmission is high." is, if anything, a more concise version of my longer reply at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45973239.
The WHN has a very distinguished set of experts that review and vouch for the content on the site (https://whn.global/meet-our-team/).
I'm sure there are even better sources out there, but as I was looking to answer an inquiry without taking on excessive personal research time, I felt this was a good summary article. If you have a better source from a similarly credentialed team, I look forward to reading it!
I also distrust it immediately, because I know how often ChatGPT bullshits me, so I can't help but assume it's bullshitting here too.
Maybe this article works better for you, and if not, I'm sure you're just as capable at using Google as I am. There are many other high-quality studies that cover this topic in exhaustive detail.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/commentary-wear-respirat...
The <em> tag is used to indicate stress emphasis. This is the intended purpose for which the tag was added to HTML, not "weird italics". (I type by transcribing my speech, so I tend to overuse this: one of my editing passes is removing unnecessary <em>s.) This article only contains 9 <em>s in 10 questions: of these, I'd remove the emphasis from two of three "well-fitted masks", and reduce the other to just "well-fitted".
Unspaced em-dashes are often used to offset parentheticals – though I prefer spaced en-dashes myself – and these are both long-standing conventions (see https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E2%80%94). Parenthetical dashes are common in formal writing, and this is formal writing.
As someone who frequently wrote in more-or-less this style (where appropriate) before GPT-1 was even made, who's also fairly decent at spotting ChatGPT output, I don't think this is ChatGPT at all. Apart from superficial formatting considerations, it's not the distinctive ChatGPT voice; and the most distinctive part of ChatGPT output is its inappropriate use of voice and formatting, whereas all of these stylistic choices are easily-justified. Perhaps most importantly, it actually says something.
However as with the bright headlamps, there's no real solution coming anytime soon. I mean there are solutions - nasal vaccines and proper NHTSA regulation, but I have no hope in any of those to materialize.
> As someone who continues to mask in public shared-air settings for my own health
Go away throwaway2037, your cowardice isn't welcome here.
What about that could possibly make someone uncomfortable. How does it have any effect on the other parent?
As I get older I've realised that most people in my life react negatively if I express emotion that what they are doing is upsetting. It is only recently that I've realised my sample size is small and this kind of gas lighting behaviour is not ok. I've actually reached a point where I'm thankful that the internet popularised the phrase because it had helped me diagnose shitty behaviour that I've tolerated my whole life.
Right. I guess they feel accused, as though you're attacking their behaviour rather than sharing how it makes you feel, and instinctively become defensive in response?
It's wonderful to meet people who don't think this way. My partner is incredible at this, I can tell her "when you X I feel Y" and know without a doubt her reaction will come from a place of trying to work together to understand whether the problem and solution exist in X, Y or both.
On another note- I feel sad that you could tell your mate "the way you're driving is making me uncomfortable" and be met with basically "your discomfort isn't valid because [technology] so I won't change my behaviour".