ravan

I get it, you're sick of the pandemic. Well guess what, so am I.

But I don't wander around refusing tiny little shots or not wearing decent masks. I don't try to bully others into giving up and letting nature take it's course, possibly killing me or my housemates, or worse, getting long covid and being sick for the rest of my life.

It's trivial, really, to get a couple shots, the needle is really tiny, it takes maybe 20 minutes, 15 of which is the standard "wait for 15 minutes to see if you have an abnormal reaction".

But so many at-risk people refuse, thinking their abused "immune system" that they call "healthy" will save them. The Reddit subreddit r/HermanCainAward is full of the death of these clowns, many of whom leave behind young children.

I don't give a flying fuck about your "freedoms". In a society like ours it is a civic duty to protect the health of your fellow citizens from an infectious, airborne, disease. If you don't want to be a part of society, then you need to move into the boonies or keep your plague ridden ass home.

Is it really so hard to wear a damned mask? I used to have a job where we would spend all day in a fucking respirator, with only a few minutes outside for food and drink. Are the anti-mask people really that weak? If so, why are they even going out at all? If you "can't wear a mask for health reasons" like you can't breath, then the last thing you want is Covid Pneumonia, which fucks up your lungs, your heart, and even your kidneys. So stay the fuck home.

If everyone in the world had done actual lock downs for 4 weeks, with only emergency medical, police, fire and essential utility people going out in full PPE, we might have controlled this thing. But no, people are too fucking selfish, so now we have even more infectious variants and an assload of long covid.

It's becoming endemic. That doesn't mean we can stop masking, or forgo vaccination. I figure I'll need two shots of covid vaccine every year for the rest of my life, and masking will be automatic because of all the idiots who just don't care about others and think it can't happen to them.

COVID-19 is the Schrodinger's virus: You don't know you have it until you come down with symptoms, but you are contagious right from the start, and can often spread it for 3 or more days before you have any suspicion that you are sick!!

Given that, I am going to go out on a limb and ask you to do one, simple, easy thing, along with all the handwashing and social distancing: Wear a cloth mask when you go out, remove it like it was contaminated when you get home, and wash it carefully.

Why cloth? Because it will leave the professional grade N95 masks for medical professionals and caregivers dealing with known infections, while still helping to reduce the spread of coronavirus.

Cloth masks are about half as effective as a properly worn N95 mask.

So if you wear a mask, that is 50% less chance that you get contaminated if you don't have it, and 50 % less that you contaminate someone else if you do have it. If *both* people are wearing masks? It drops your risk to 25%, or maybe more because of the reduction in spray radius (my crude term for how far people spray microdroplets when they talk.)

Think I'm nuts, or spreading baloney? Listen to some others, then:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-masks.html

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/03/12/world/asia/12reuters-health-coronavirus-thailand-masks.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_the_Efficacy_of_Homemade_Masks_Would_They_Protect_in_an_Influenza_Pandemic

Got a sewing machine, maybe some old pillowcases?

https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Cloth-Face-Mask/

Make each person *three*. One to wash, one to wear, one for spare (and maybe one to share)

Swine flu fatal to local cancer nurse

Read past the first part that talks about the nurse.

Apparently this thing can rapidly sink otherwise healthy people. It is probably a more dangerous variant.

Be careful, wash your hands, buy stock in Purell.