this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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[–] snooggums@kbin.social 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Those outbreaks didn't kill a million people Ina year, and did not strain the hospital system to the point of breaking.

Well, there was the Spanish flu which also lead to mask mandates and other social safety measures as covid.

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's certainly more deadly, yes. That's why it got more attention. But I'm young and the risk to me is about the same, plus that's not really my point. I'm mostly saying that I'm grateful people actually care about hygiene for once, 2020 the first time in my life I didn't catch "the thing going around" since I didn't have a jackass coughing on everything at work or school.

[–] snooggums@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mask mandates are not about protecting you, they are about limiting the spread throughout the population. You may have even had it with no symptoms and gave it to someone else, and the spread in the population as a whole is the threat.

I haven't seen a trend towards people caring about hygiene around the midwest.

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I am mostly referring to the shift here in voluntary masking, but yes, Midwest would be a bit different. When the mandate ended here, people continued to mask up if they (1) are at risk, (2) feel a little ill, (3) just felt like it. If I tried to mask up in 2018, I'd get weird looks!

And yeah, hand washing picked up, too, although not sure if it kept up. One perk of living in a blue area of a blue state in any case.

I'm not sure if there will be any more mandates because of masking fatigue, but the science does say that one way masking is still effective.

[–] books@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Flu absolutely killed a grip of people when it was new.

It eventually became endemic and what we live with now. More or less what we have with covid. It will rear its ugly head every year as it mutates. Some will get it and have a rough time, some people's immunity or vaccine will help make it less deadly contagious as it was in 2020.

Life goes on. Wear a mask or don't, but we are way past the point of putting the genie back in the bottle

[–] snooggums@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If half the population wears a mask during a pandemic, it won't slow the spread very much.

Leaving safety measures as a personal choice for contagious diseases is like letting everyone decide whether or not they want to stop at red lights based on personal preference. Sure, you can be in a rural area and pretty much ignore most stoplights without a collision, but in a city the negative effects will be rapid and deadly.

[–] books@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

Sure but I don't think we are in the pandemic anymore.

Again wear a mask or don't. I don't give a shit. I'm personally done with them until rates start to spike again, or for when I travel on an airplane.