I get my second dose in a few days and I will wear a mask for many many more months. I probably won't wear a double one as I do now.

I live in Texas and find it unbelievable. Abbot is trying to deflect from his failures during the storm.

}Practically no flu this year so we KNOW masking worked.

EXTREMELY UPSET about states lifting mask mandates. Stupidity. I am vaccinated and will continue to mask outside my home.

It’s a big NO from me.

What’s going on with these people? Is it something in the water?

It would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.

NO!

No.

The unmasking was premature although I think businesses needed to be able to operate closer to normal, but maybe more like 75%. There are people who ,in my opinion, practice more risky behavior than I would like. They are the ones who scare me.

Two friends that had Dr appointments last week (different Dr). Both had cloth masks & told to put surgical mask over it.

My state has never had a statewide mask mandate. I haven't been to our lake cabin in the Ozarks since December and mask wearing was about 50% down there at that time. We always tried to take everything we needed with us to avoid going into the local grocery store but that didn't always work.

I don't think municipal jurisdictions around here will lift the mask mandates any time soon and I'm fine with that. If we can vaccinate 2M+ people a day, maybe sometime mid summer enough will have been vaccinated to lift the restrictions. Time will tell.

I received a summons for jury duty tomorrow in my rural county and I'm a little nervous about that. Last time I had jury duty there were at least 50 people in the jury pool and it was pretty crowded in the waiting area and courtroom. Not sure how they will handle that with social distancing requirements.

Yes!!! Think about it, the gyms here have been open since late last summer, go at least three times a week, no one wears a mask to workout - no outbreaks at the gym. The first week the gym was open one guy tried to workout wearing a mask, in 15 minutes he passed out.

If a mask is so perfect at stopping the virus then why would two masks ever be necessary...

If a mask is so perfect at stopping the virus then why would two masks ever be necessary...

To me, that's the equivalent of saying, if cars need emergency brakes too, why do we bother with brakes at all?

If a mask is so perfect at stopping the virus then why would two masks ever be necessary...

This too has been discussed in prior threads. Masks help save lives. They are not perfect. If doubling up saves more lives, I would think that doing so is a rational move especially for those at high risk or for those working with infected people.

No I am not comfortable with lifting mandates this early. It seems that a little bit of progress and some vaccinations have made some feel like this virus is tamed. We should be giving it at least 3 more months until more people have been vaccinated. Then reevaluate.

Someday, maybe in 3 to 6 months, I'll see how many persons in my community have been vaccinated, and eventually we'll all be ready to take our masks off. That will be a great day!

But I'm not getting rid of my masks, ever -- they've proven too useful in preventing the spread of ordinary droplets and germs. I plan to keep one in my purse throughout all future cold and flu seasons, and wear it when I'm around lots of people indoors.

In all honesty: I HATE THE STUPID MASKS! I would prefer to not wear one. I really feel the social distancing works much better. Our numbers went up a LOT after the city implemented the mask policy. A couple months later, maybe 2, the province implemented it. So if masks work so well, why did those #'s go up SO much? Well, because people still had friends and family over for Thanksgiving and Christmas. To be truthful, we had our kids and grandson over for Thanksgiving but the plan was to cook inside and entertain outside with the firepit lit for added heat. But the wicked wind stopped that so we stayed inside my teeny tiny house.

The masks stops people from social distancing. They believe because you're wearing one you can walk up to anyone and start talking. NO. No you can't. Six feet + mask = 0 risk of transmission. I found people were way WAY better at keeping away from me when all we did was social distance.

I rarely leave the house now. If I do go anywhere it's in the morning when there's fewer people inside the stores so less risk of getting close to anyone. And I refuse to stand in any line to get inside a store. There's nothing in there I need bad enough to wait in line for. I've never done it before, and I won't do it now. (Boxing Day sales are the worst!).

I also rarely sanitize my hands. I have a small purell sanitizer hanging off my purse and I think I've filled it 3x in a year. I was all sanitizer crazy up until maybe August and went through it like a mad man. I made my own with alcohol, aloe vera and glycerin but it coated my hands so much (it did make them much softer though), that it felt like I was wearing gloves. And they felt filthy dirty. But I was working so I was also able to run to the sink to wash them more often.

I wear my masks because we have to. But the second the province says we don't need to anymore, they're going in the trash. Oh the landfills will love that, won't they?

"Our numbers went up a LOT after the city implemented the mask policy. A couple months later, maybe 2, the province implemented it. So if masks work so well, why did those #'s go up SO much? Well, because people still had friends and family over for Thanksgiving and Christmas. To be truthful, we had our kids and grandson over for Thanksgiving..."

There you go. People celebrating the holidays with friends and family without masks are why numbers shot up. Not a mask mandate. Most infections are caught during social gatherings when people don't wear masks, like family holiday celebrations.

You say the masks stop people from social distancing. Did you social distance 6 feet from your family at all times in your house?

In all honesty: I HATE THE STUPID MASKS! I would prefer to not wear one. I really feel the social distancing works much better.

Y'know, I'd prefer not to have to wear a mask too, but I wear them because I want to be safe and I want people to be able to get back to work and kids back to school. But that will only happen once we stop the virus spread. And we can't stop the spread without masking.

You may *feel* social distancing works much better, but the virus doesn't care what you feel. There is lots of evidence that masking does work with social distancing and adds a great deal more protection, especially inside where HVAC systems will spread the droplets far and wide.

For example, see this simulation of what happens with one unmasked cough in a grocery store: https://whdh.com/coronavirus/3d-simulation-shows-how-a-single-cough-can-spread-coronavirus-through-a-grocery-store/

And there's evidence that the 6', 15 min. interaction doesn't hold in interior spaces. See for example: https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/ny-nfl-cdc-covid-paper-20210125-xefsbcqanrdlrn6iz7jay7pj4a-story.html about the studies done on transmission by the NFL who did a thorough job of contact tracing.

So don't blame the mask...blame the virus. A lot of virus numbers went up and it was because people were gathering and eating together for the holidays...and dollars to donuts, they weren't masking. That doesn't mean masks don't work. That means masks don't work when people don't use them.

In 1847, Ignaz Semmelweis, a maternity doctor who advocated washing hands between patients, was ridiculed, even with established proof that his patients had lower infection and mortality rates. It took almost a quarter of a century before washing hands and surgical instruments between patients became standard practice. Now it seems pretty obvious, and I doubt anyone on this board would feel comfortable going to a doctor who thought that having to wash their hands was part of a hoax.

I suspect that in the future, when people study the year 2020, they're going to think, "What idiots! Why didn't everyone just wear masks right away? They could have contained the disease a lot sooner, before so many people got sick."

Absolutely not. I've heard it compared to running a marathon and stopping on the last stretch to eat a couple of hot dogs. Or, as a friend said, more like eating 100 hot dogs.

Jupi, Semmelweis has been my hero for a long time. His innovative ideas so threatened the members of the medical community that he was forced into a mental institution, where he died after two weeks. From Wikipedia:

In 1865, János Balassa wrote a document referring Semmelweis to a mental institution. On July 30, Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra lured him, under the pretense of visiting one of Hebra's "new Institutes", to a Viennese insane asylum located in Lazarettgasse (Landes-Irren-Anstalt in der Lazarettgasse).[60] Semmelweis surmised what was happening and tried to leave. He was severely beaten by several guards, secured in a straitjacket, and confined to a darkened cell. Apart from the straitjacket, treatments at the mental institution included dousing with cold water and administering castor oil, a laxative. He died after two weeks, on August 13, 1865, aged 47, from a gangrenous wound, due to an infection on his right hand which might have been caused by the struggle. The autopsy gave the cause of death as pyemia—blood poisoning.

This is sort of off-topic, but not really.

OMG, Alisande, that's horrible!

"So don't blame the mask...blame the virus. A lot of virus numbers went up and it was because people were gathering and eating together for the holidays...and dollars to donuts, they weren't masking. That doesn't mean masks don't work. That means masks don't work when people don't use them."

Isn't that what I said in my post? "So if masks work so well, why did those #'s go up SO much? Well, because people still had friends and family over for Thanksgiving and Christmas."

I wear the mask because I have to. I stay home because I choose to. I don't have company except for one child who brings his child for us to spend time with. His parents are anal about the virus so I know they're safe. Don't get me wrong: I know this virus is real. My daughter had it. As did a few employees in the store I worked in. I don't need statistics. But I believe social distancing works better because people stay out of your bubble when they see you don't wear a mask. I stand by my opinion.

I will continue to wear a mask. I owe it to myself, my family and anyone I come in contact with. It’s really not that much of an inconvenience for me. Tougher definitely for those who must wear all day.

If a mask is so perfect at stopping the virus then why would two masks ever be necessary...

For the same reason I dress for winter, I don't go naked and barefooted under my down coat.

There is no doubt in my mind masks work. I do wear them as does all my friends. And I second a good reason why our flu season was far below years before. Reason is, masking and social distancing. This in itself proves they work for Virus's period. Perfect no... but sure has cut done on spreading the virus's.

Not comfortable. I've been vaccinated but know I can still get it and spread it. Masks do work. My daughter had covid, we all wore masks in the house when around her and each other, no one else got it. Kentucky's numbers are dropping but deaths are still being counted. They're opening up to more capacity. Not sure I like that just yet.

Stopped by the grocery store this a.m., the majority of customers did not wear masks. The store still requires employees/vendors to be masked and strongly suggests customers do the same, but most people don't care.

I don't know why they expect a different outcome than the last two times abbott prematurely opened the state, especially with more contagious covid variants becoming more prevalent.

Curbside pickup has been suspended for now because of low supplies due to the recent cold weather disaster. But once they reopen, we're going back to online ordering.

Where I go there never has been everyone on board with following of distancing and masking guidelines by offices, stores, their occupants and the public at large. With counters being arranged so that workers are too close to visitors and both workers and visitors leaning around spit cards to interact every time something comes up. As well as a consistent percentage of workers wearing masks over their mouths only, even now. And recently it still not being that hard to end up encountering completely unmasked shoppers at crowded stores here.

And it only takes one infected person blowing the virus around for it to spread rapidly. Like in the church where unmasked people got together for choir practice and afterward 83 members of the ensemble were infected because a single infected individual was present at the start of the session.

This episode occurred last year, before the presence of the additionally infective new strains that are rapidly spreading through the US population.

Another thing that happened during the first months of the current pandemic was it was pointed out that officials couldn't get general cooperation with masking and other recommendations in 1918 either. So it won't take 100 years from now for people to be looking back and wonder why Americans didn't mask and so forth and mass death occurred as a result - we can all wonder about that right now.

When I posted I mentioned the 1918 time frame. Something similar happened then and the virus became more deadly according to several of the books I have read. While many of the deaths cause of death was only mentioned as the flu vs. now there are tests to see if the person actually had Covid. This will be a continuation of an "interesting" social experiment. The medical part has had phase 1 where it is known that the virus causes deaths and after affects. Phase 2 will be two parts. One will be following the people who did not die but are known to have lost some of their body function. Two will be looking for future health problems in people that appeared to be fully recovered and how soon they appear.

The social experiment portion has already failed.

Science sometimes requires us to stop only believing what we can see with our own eyes.

Asymptomatic people spread diseases, from the common cold to this killer virus, Covid-19. "Hey, they don't LOOK sick. Why should they mask? Why should I mask?"

Today's Chicago Tribune has a story about a clinical trial being conducted on a monitor developed by a biotech firm called physIQ Inc. Using machine learning, they developed an algorithm to monitor what combination of health variables indicate when Covid is starting ito get serious, something individuals fail to note -- and that would easily be missed by an onlooker.

The story profiles an at-risk woman (58, asthmatic, diabetic, high BP) who tested positive for Covid, but was asymptomatic. She credits her participation in the trial with saving her life. She was in quarantine after testing positive and wore a monitor similar to a heart monitor, but with the ability to also sense and report activity, sleep posture, temperature, BP, etc.

The woman says she dismissed early symptoms as they developed -- a little sneezing, coughing, feeling a little lightheaded. One night she got a call from the monitoring nurses, was quickly examined and admitted to hospital. The device had added up evidence that she was starting into serious Covid, catching it three days before it 'bloomed'.

Even so, she barely escaped needing a ventilator and spent a week in hospital, 24 hours of it unconscious. She still has residual problems, but she's alive.

You can't always trust your eyes or your instincts, even when you're just watching you! You really can't know about the other person who 'looks just fine'.

I will not be going to bars or restaurants for some time. Actually, I almost never go to bars anymore anyway, and I don't go to restaurants that often either. These are the only places I can think of where it is difficult to wear a mask - otherwise it should not be a problem for considerate people to wear masks.

I get my second vaccination on Monday, but I realize that this does not prevent one from getting sick - just from getting a severe case. I would rather not get sick at all, but I also realize that some people do not care if they get sick and consequently do not care if they cause others to get sick. I am not one of those persons.

I've only been back to Texas once (about 4 years ago) since my parents died in 2012, and I have no plans to go back in the foreseeable future. I am also not anxious for relatives to visit me here - they can wait until much later in the year or next year.

NO. I won't be taking my mask off anytime soon. And certainly not before getting my vaccination.

I think the point that someone made that because of masking, shut downs and social distancing the flu almost completely disappeared this year! I think that proves that what we are doing to try to protect ourselves from Covid19 is working to prevent the spread of viruses. It also may be that so many have gotten covid19 because it is even more contagious than the flu.

Stacey_mb

Veering a bit off topic, so apologies, but I had to comment on what Jupidupi and Alisande have said about Semmelweis. I think he's a hero who should be celebrated for his beliefs. I read a book about him many years ago and was struck by how doctors at the time thought it a badge of professional honor to wear clothing marked with blood and other fluids to show how very busy their practices were. As mentioned, they were scornful of any suggestions of cleanliness and would examine women in labor who were ill and, without washing their hands, examine the next patient. Needless to say, their ignorance spread disease. It got so that women would rather give birth on the street rather than go to the hospital as it was much safer for them and for the babies.

When I was at the store this a.m., one woman who was ahead of me at the deli sneezed (and likely sprayed droplets all over the place) without even attempting to cover her unmasked face. Which is always rude and repulsive, but especially during the pandemic. Because of where she was standing, the droplets may well have made it across the deli counter, so I picked up cheese from the dairy section instead. And took a shower/washed my hair when I got home.

I still wish they used the term "physical distance" rather than "social distance" as it's really only the physical proximity that's the problem. People still need to be as social as possible. As Dr. Osterholm said, just don't breathe each others' air. Otherwise we're good to go.

As far as eating, the NFL has banned all eating together as their thorough track and trace of their players shows that that's where an awful lot of the spread came. And of course, bars and drinking are an issue as, the more one drinks, the less likely they are to pay attention to things like physical distancing.

Annie - I drink alone. Yeah, with nobody else. When I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself!

It's hard to drink alone when you're with others...

But you do need others to take out a loan. But you can do take-out alone.

no

Maybe my way of thinking is because I don't live in the US where you have what, 350 million give or take people living in a small area, whereas I live in Canada where we have 30 million give or take people spread out over large vast area. And our numbers for the entire country can be less than one state alone. If I read right, all of Canada had about 2800 new cases yesterday. Alberta, where I live had 402 of those. And I think less than half of those were in the city I live in, which has a population of over 1.4 million people. So when I see that *only* about 120 of the new cases out of 1.4 million people, I don't freak out.

My daughter had it in January. She was sick for two weeks. We were worried sick for the first few days as she has asthma and compromised lungs. As a child, she had bronchitis and pneumonia and when she was 15/16 had double pneumonia. My anxiety hit an all time record high. The pain in my chest would NOT go away for days. She had a doctor phone her from Alberta Health Services every single day to make sure she was doing good (we have a dr shortage here, so she has no regular dr) and he said she had a mild case. But we all know how it can go from mild to ventilator in 0-60 seconds, right? BTW, her boyfriend who lives with her had to quarantine for the two weeks she was sick, PLUS 14 days after she was given the clear to go back to work. He tested negative. My co-workers who got it both live with their spouses and children. None of them wore a mask inside their homes. Their spouses and children never tested positive either.

It's really weird how this virus can spread and NOT spread. Why do we believe we can get it from walking through a grocery store, whereas people living in the same house, sleeping in the same bed don't spread it to each other? This is why I hate the masks.

On the upside of mask use: when it was -40 here, it kept my face warm as I walked from my car to the grocery store and back... ;)

Debby- I agree that it is very difficult to predict when people will catch COVID. That is why we should continue to wear masks, social distance and avoid indoor areas without ventilation if possible. There are many factors that impact who gets sick and who doesn't, and the best we can do is to limit our exposure to others and prevent others from being exposed to us.

I am very glad that Canada shows no signs of easing up on masks. They are a small price to pay to help save lives.

I would truly feel like an idiot if I let my guard down and contracted Covid when I am so close to being vaccinated.

Prior to the huge holiday surge I was shopping in Costco about once a week, and I'd always get annoyed at how many people weren't wearing their masks properly. Staying out of all stores since mid December has really helped my stress level!

It is difficult to predict who does and doesn't get the virus, but it's only going to get worse as these more contagious variants become the dominant strain. Dr. Osterholm said we have about 2 weeks left before that happens.

No one has the same immune system as the people surrounding them even in the same house or office. There is also that small thing that the virus may have been spreading although probably a different strain for much longer that it was thought this time last year. If you have ever worked in either an open or cube farm office with many people you are probably already aware that some people never become sick but others are affected in various levels.

I was supposed to have jury duty today but I called the court hotline last night and they said jurors did not have to report today. Yay! No being locked in the courtroom with dozens of others with who knows what wafting through the air. They can still summons me again until the end of March though. :-(

Keep it under your hat! My boss thinks I still had to go in. I don't feel at all bad for playing hooky because I had to work 2 ten hour Sundays in a row recently due to some system 'upgrades' that went bad. I'm taking advantage of the 70 degree day and doing some work in the garden. Just me and the bugs and no masks. I'm on a lunch break now.

I don't hate the masks at all - on the contrary I'm grateful for them. I do get ache-y ears if I'm wearing them for hours, but that's only about once a week. I've been wearing 2: a KN95 with a 2-3 layer cloth mask on top and I have no trouble breathing.

As I stated above, I haven't had a single cold or even a hint of one in over a year. Normally I would have had at least 3 or 4. I hate getting sick!

I find it puzzling when people seem to extrapolate their own less than terrible personal experiences to the population at large. Perhaps they haven't heard or read about all the other personal experiences that are truly terrible? It's not as if there aren't plenty of firsthand accounts out there...

I have a couple of real-life friends who blatantly disregard the masking rules, and slam it every chance they get.

Even today the one posted on FB that seeing a lone person wearing a mask while driving the car makes sense only if the car were stolen.

When people like that mention that observation, even explaining that we should treat our masks like we do our underwear......once it's on we don't touch it in public, nor remove it until we get home; they don't get it.

So going from one destination to another while wearing the mask doesn't make sense to them. Duh.

I can understand the urgency to get businesses open and back to normal. People’s jobs, businesses, mental health, and even lives depend on it.

But that could be accomplished while still wearing masks. I will add the caveat that there are some people, like those with certain breathing problems or need to communicate with someone who lip reads, who should be exempted... but those are very few and far between. Going to stores, buying food, going to work...this could all be accomplished with masks, yes?

So today I'm back at Grocery Outlet and the stocker who has been working with only his mouth masked for months is now on the floor with a spit guard only = effectively no screening of breath at all. And when he goes outside and is collecting carts, then disappears as though going on break no face covering at all is present.

This when we are less than 2 weeks from hyper infective COVID becoming generally prevalent. I think another stocker I encountered there with a spit guard only some weeks ago is the same one that had been wearing a correctly fitted mask before then.

A funny thing about stupid ideas is that them being stupid does not prevent them from becoming widely adopted.

I guess I'm somewhere in the middle when it comes to mask wearing. I hate it, don't want to do it, but I wear a mask because I don't feel safe without one. I wonder if we will have a hard time getting used to not wearing a mask when they say it's safe ? On the other hand, I stayed home, wore a surgical mask the few times I went out, used hand sanitizer, and still got the virus, so I wonder if any of it works.

I was going to get the shots when I have a chance, but then I saw this statement by a nurse ( Kathsgarden) " I've been vaccinated but know I can still get it and spread it.". If this is true, then what's the point of getting the vaccine ??? I'm confused.