How to decide if you should continue wearing a mask

[ificandream]

Great article in the New York Times to show your conservative friends. Better to be safe than sorry. (I'm a senior and will continue to wear one outside and indoors, but not just because of Covid.)

By Amelia Nierenberg and Illustrations by Tim Peacock

As masking mandates lift and new coronavirus infections fall across the United States, there’s lots of confusion about if, and when, to wear a mask.

“This is the hardest thing of all, because it’s not just the risks and benefits to you,” said Dr. Robert Wachter, a professor and the chair of the medicine department at the University of California, San Francisco. “It’s the risks and benefits to the people around you.”

One good way to frame the issue is to ask: Who is the most vulnerable person in your immediate circle?

If you have compromised immunity, for example, or live with someone who does, it’s a good idea to continue to wear a mask and maintain social distance around strangers, especially in indoor areas with standing air where the virus may collect. Masks are also important if you’re unvaccinated or spending time with others who are unvaccinated. Unvaccinated people are at overwhelmingly higher risk of hospitalization and death from Covid-19. Masks are also a must in hospitals, where there are many vulnerable people.

Read more: [link:https://www.nytimes.com/article/mask-mandates-guidelines.html#commentsContainer|

[Girard442]

1. I used to get a cold about twice a year. Not in the past couple of years.

Makes me think at age 70, masks from here on out might not be such a bad idea, like we used to see in China years ago.

[Solomon]

5. Yep. Not even so much as a sore throat. I will be wearing my mask when indoors with people.

[Blues Heron]

2. decide whether you want Covid or not and act accordingly

want it? Doff the mask

dont want it? Don the mask

[Grokenstein]

3. Nightly mask-washing has taught me

how absolutely filthy the air is in my workplace; sometimes the edges of the outer mask (it's two layers) look like an old cigarette filter. It stays. Knowing full well that idiots would drag this out for years, I made sure early on that the mask I wore would be comfortable as well as effective, and that's paid off. I like it now. Cool on hot days (especially if the skin-side layer is soaked and rung out before heading out the door; keeps me cooled down for the ten minutes it takes to walk to the train station) and warm on cold, windy days. And despite all the shitty memes, no one's been able to actually articulate how wearing it leads to Communism. It stays.

[tavernier]

11. Hides my upper lip wrinkles and double chin

and while at work I don’t have to wear my irritating partial. A friend of mine was carded and she’s 60. I believe she’ll never throw that face mask away.

[Busterscruggs]

4. I wear 2

Just to be careful. I have no intention of ever changing

[agingdem]

6. I'm 73 with a crap immune system...

when all this began I resented ending my life wearing a mask and limiting my travel, but as the first year went by it occurred to me that for the first time in many years no cold, flu, bronchitis, no never-ending cough, no stomach virus..all because I wore a mask and social distanced...and, yet, after two Moderna vaccines and a booster I tested positive for covid omicron, and because I rarely leave my home I knew exactly where I was exposed ...the grocery store and the one maskless gentleman, standing behind me, coughing and sneezing...maybe my mask wasn't tight enough, I'm not sure but within 48 hours I was experiencing symptoms and so-called mild symptoms in a 73 year old woman were not so mild..and three months later, while visiting my daughter in Atlanta, my son-in-law attended a company dinner and came home with the virus...thank G-d we were vaccinated and boosted but we all got sick, me for the second time...the moral of this story: I plan to wear my mask indefinitely...if I look like odd man out I really don't care...I will not risk a third exposure...

[I_UndergroundPanther]

7. Keeping my mask.

I haven't had near as bad allergies when outside during tree pollen season.

That and a whole boatload of reasons..to keep my mask on.

My sisters and bil and thier kids are keeping them on too.

[phylny]

8. I babysit my 7-month-old granddaughter.

She probably has some immunity from the vaccines our daughter had while pregnant and again, the booster our daughter got since her baby is breastfed. It's a no-brainer.

[Native]

9. And now we have to worry about the freaking masks!

Based on the articles that are coming out like 70% have nanoparticles, like titanium dioxide, that we are breathing in and are known carcinogens.

[dpibel]

12. Could you link to those articles?

I'm not finding them.

[Native]

14. Nature.com

I started here and then went down the proverbial rabbit hole with my good friend Google.
[link:https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-06605-w|
Fortunately, titanium dioxide was not found in masks made of cotton fibers, meltblown non-woven fabrics and in some thermobonded non-woven fabrics.

Then there's the problem with graphene.

You just can't win for trying.

[dpibel]

15. Pretty darned inconclusive, wouldn't you say?

Thanks for the link.

What that study appears to me to say is that titanium dioxide is present in masks. It does not say that mask users are breathing the titanium dioxide. In fact, here's some pretty explicit disclaimer language from the report:

"No assumptions were made about the likelihood of the release of TiO2 particles itself, since direct measurement of release and inhalation uptake when face masks are worn could not be assessed."

"Because the fate and release mechanisms of particles from face masks are currently unknown, no assumptions were made about the likelihood of the release of particles itself."

"Face mask have an important role in the measures against the COVID-19 pandemic1. So far, no data are available that indicate that the possible risk associated with the presence of TiO2 particles in face masks outweighs the benefits of wearing face masks as protection measure. That is why we do not call for people to stop wearing face masks."

So I think you may have overstated the case in your post #9 when you say, "that we are breathing in."

I don't really mean to be nitpicky, but I do think accuracy is important when we're dealing with COVID information.

[Native]

16. The sentence immediately preceding your excerpt is what concerned me.

And that they are calling for more oversight/regulation and the elimination of Ti02 in masks.

And, as I mentioned, meltblowns are supposed to be safe, and I "believe" most N95s are meltblowns.

Bottom line though, if you do a Google dive, a lot of these masks are using new nanotech and chemicals that are considered unsafe. As with anything new, it's rarely assessed for safety. Heck, we can't even keep the fraudulent masks out of our market.

I've used some masks where I can literally feel the fibers enter my mouth and nose. I wear mine during fairly intense workouts.

[ificandream]

19. They do not cause cancer.

[link:https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/11/11/fact-check-masks-dont-lead-lung-cancer-but-some-include-chemicals/6176080002/|]

[ificandream]

10. For me it's not an issue

I’m gonna wear a mask anyway. I have other reasons to do it but even so I probably would still wear one.

[llmart]

13. Since many of us on here are seniors...

Do you recall growing up where school rooms had actual windows? Workplace offices had actual windows? That opened???

I saw the trend towards closing everything up in buildings and I clearly remember saying to others, "I don't believe it's a good idea not to be able to open a window now and then." I remember in elementary school, even in a cold climate in winter, the teacher cracking a window every now and then. My mother was German and she was adamant that fresh air was good for you. We went outside almost every day, winter in the snowbelt of NE Ohio. I still get out every day.

[sakabatou]

17. I still wear a mask, even though I'm vaccinated.

For me, it's both courtesy, and because I don't know who I will be next to.

[Iggo]

18. When it stops being a good thing to do, I'll stop.

That’s how.