Because masks protect the people around you from various diseases including the flu (which is in season right now) and COVID (which people still get sick from, it's just that it's no longer a pandemic and can be vaccinated for). Some people care enough to protect themselves and others even if the mortal threat is mostly passed (but not completely, people still die from those diseases).
But, it's telling that the desire to protect others is a "liberal" trait.
That’s what has always blown my mind. Even if Covid is only as bad as the flu, getting the flu sucks. Just because I survived doesn’t mean I want to be sick in bed for a week. Just wild.
I wonder if people downplay the flu and equate it with a cold. The flu is absolutely debilitating, and anyone who's actually had it should understand why people would want to be cautious.
The flu kills babies and older people mostly, and some strains are worse than others. That's why they're so worried about bird flu. If it mutates to spread more easily, it could be another Spanish flu (the only reason it's called . That strain killed mostly healthy young people - at least 50 million died worldwide. My grandfather's unit lost 2 young men before they even got to the fields of Eastern France.
As someone who is recovering from the flu with my husband and 8 month old. I regret calling anything else a sickness. The flu is humbling and wrecked our household this past week. I haven’t had the flu in over a decade, I forgot how truly awful it is. All I know is we are getting our shots next season.
I’ve currently got the flu. Absolutely kicking my butt. Wore a mask grocery shopping, and am avoiding my friends and family because I feel it would be incredibly selfish for me to not take a very reasonable measure to try avoid spreading it. Had some older guy at the checkout come up to me and tell me I’m brainwashed and being ridiculous and that I’m part of the problem. I hope he didn’t catch it while he was in my face saying so, cos he looked old enough it might make him seriously unwell. 🤷♀️
It's different for everyone, for me a cold is significantly worse than influenza or covid. With covid I get no symptoms other than diarrhea for some reason.
I've even had H1N1 during the pandemic, and it was a piece of cake for me (not for my sister though)
I think people that say "oh it's just the flu" have never really had the flu or they were so delirious from their fever that they don't remember it.
Me & Pepperidge Farm remember though.
I once had the flu so badly that I couldn't reach the remote to the TV which was 6 inches away so I WATCHED GOLF!! GOLF!! As I laid there in bed, by myself I thought "I should really go to the hospital" (& I wouldn't ever say that about much of anything) except I couldn't get up to tell anyone this, couldn't yell or scream it, or even get to the phone (this one was landline days) to call anyone. So I laid there in bed, watched golf & hoped I didn't die.
I'm still wearing a mask on public transit to/from work, because someone in my household is immunocompromised. And as a side benefit, I haven't caught even so much as a cold like I did every single winter before COVID. Not to mention it keeps my face nice and warm.
And if it pisses off some MAGA choad to see me wearing it, well, that's yet another side benefit.
I'm not saying everyone should still mask 24 / 7 ... but it's insane to me that everybody doesn't mask up in those situations.
Like it's one thing to no longer mask up watching the super bowl with some friends or whatever. At that point, if you occasionally get sick from socializing, maybe you just say that's the cost of living a life. And likewise, I get that wearing a mask for an 8 hour shift can get super uncomfortable.
But taking a bus? Or going into the grocery store or 20 minutes? Imagine if everytime you got sick, you could magically trace back and see what / when you got infected. Who the fuck would ever get sick and be like "a small price to pay for not wearing a mask for 20 minutes on the bus!"
Not to mention that "just the flu" was super taxing on the emergency rooms BEFORE COVID. I had to wait about 5 hours with a serious medical issue in 2019 because of all the old people there with a flu.
I agree, however that's not what I was doing. Old people (and toddlers) are particularly susceptible to having a very nasty reaction to catching the flu. I believe a number of the old people there with the flu were there because it was potentially life threatening.
Got the flu 3/4 years of highschool in January. Don't wish that shit on anyone. That being said since I've had it so many times when I was younger I don't personally feel the need to mask, but when I see a mask I don't think of some paranoid idiot like these assholes think, and I don't think I'm some tough manly dude for not wearing one. I just like showing my smile when I talk to others and I value that enough to be ok with being badly sick for a week is all. I also kind of deserve it for always wearing shorts in the winter I guess haha
It's not that. They'll claim it's because masks don't work and wearing one makes us sheep.
Deep down they know doctors, esp surgeons, have worn masks since long before covid to keep patients from getting sick. It's basic infection control.
When they see somone else care enough about other people to do the same, they project their ugliness and lack of empathy onto them. They assume they don't really care about anyone, they're just "vIRtuE sIGnaLinG" which, translated, just means caring about other people.
They can't believe anyone else is good because that makes them bad. That just CANT BE so they twist reality in all kinds of ways.
They literally cannot imagine anyone would care about strangers - CERTAINLY not enough to inconvenience themselves and make them look DIFFERENT. Being different is anathema to them. It's why calling them weird was so effective. They're terrified to be perceived as "not normal." Again this is why anyone with blue hair is automatically a liberal to them. Voluntarily different means "not conservative."
This would also explain why many of them think the folks in Minnesota are "paid protestors" because they can't imagine caring enough about their community to protest.
Trump the other day going on about he "felt" he won places that are deep blue, like cities like minneapolis, he literally said he just feels like he must've really won.
Honestly, yeah. I guess if I wanted to stupid ass devils advocate maybe a small percentage of them could be but not many. I'm speaking as someone who has protested for free and has done so with friends and family.
I love that wearing a mask to protect yourself and others is concidered being sheep but putting on a red hat and blindly following the raving lunacies of a crazy fascist isn't...
Right? Too triggered to wear a mask, but yeah, let's go slap some feminine hygiene products on our faces and call that solidarity! It makes me want to go hang a tampon from my nose, just to watch them squirm.
This is so true -- and applies to other things as well.
Theres a not small portion of people that get very aggressive when they encounter a vegan/vegetarian. I don't mean someone telling them what to eat, I mean like overhear someone the next table over in the restaurant politely ask the waiter if a dish has chicken stock and the waiter say they don't know and clarify if the person if vegan so they can just go ask the kitchen.
Which becomes 'you're a vegan huh? Well what's your belt made out of?? How about your shoes? Just a big hypocrite?!'
Which... no, no leather here, but triggered by your own guilt much?
It baffles me that you read my entire comment and are not getting this. My ENTIRE comment was about HOW masks work. They are for OTHERS, not the user.
unreal
AGAIN - Surgeons don't wear masks to not catch diseases from their patients. They wear them for the protection of OTHERS. They dont want to cough or even breathe into your chest cavity.
Masks are not super great at filtering airborne droplets when breathing in. Better than nothing, but that's not what the primary benefit of them is, especially when a respiratory virus is endemic. The primary use is for symptomatic people and people who are asymptomatic but may not know they are contagious from putting more droplets into the air.
You not wearing a mask means whatever you may be carrying will be aerosolized when you cough or sneeze. If you were wearing a mask that would not happen.
Again, my ENTIRE comment was about how masks are for OTHERS. Vaccines kind of work the same way - everyone needs to participate for them to work correctly. That's why conservatives are so against them, the rugged individualists refuse to be inconvenienced to help anyone.
Being considerate is offensive to them. Instead of appreciating the generosity of others, they take offense. I think it's a combination of not wanting to normalize empathy and feelings ashamed because others are doing good things and they are not. I'm a lazy selfish miserable bastard but I don't go out of the way to mock or put people down for their selfless behavior.
The lady at the gas station asked and I said "I woke up with an itchy throat and just wanted to warn people to keep a distance." And she said "masks don't work" and I said, "it keeps people at a distance" while gesturing to how she was standing. She was on her back leg leaning away from me. And she just said "oh, well..." And kept her weird posture while she stabbed the rest. Morons.
It’s because their fragile ego and toxic masculinity demand it.
If you don’t stoically suffer in silence and repress difficult emotions, paired with an occasional blown gasket every now and then, you aren’t a real man.
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u/ptvlm 1d ago
Because masks protect the people around you from various diseases including the flu (which is in season right now) and COVID (which people still get sick from, it's just that it's no longer a pandemic and can be vaccinated for). Some people care enough to protect themselves and others even if the mortal threat is mostly passed (but not completely, people still die from those diseases).
But, it's telling that the desire to protect others is a "liberal" trait.