March 12th…bye bye mask mandate in Oregon.

[Blackhorse]

Our statewide indoor mask mandate, with a few exceptions, is slated to end on March 12th.

WooHooooo & Yippee Ki Yea!

——-

Except inside long term care and medical facilities. Also, school districts decide for themselves.

Now what do we do with our closet full of unused masks? Seriously.

 

[Balisong]

Hang on to the masks until it's clear Covid-19 is just another yearly not too deadly flu.

 

[DWSmith]

Wearing a mask has become part of my routine. I don't think I'll give it up when out in public. I don't want to breathe in other people's spit, covid or not.

I think the Japanese have had it right all along.

 

[Blackhorse]

I like the idea of a shared social contract wherein one wears a mask when sick…with a communicable disease like a cold, flu, etc. I’ll do that in the future.

But as far as wide spread social responsibility goes, I think as a culture we have proven that many Americans are FAR too selfish or just plain stupid to go to the hideous discomfort of wearing those painful masks merely to prevent spreading disease to friends, neighbors, co-workers and other family members. Pretty sad.

 

[Scallywag]

Our statewide indoor mask mandate, with a few exceptions, is slated to end on March 12th.

WooHooooo & Yippee Ki Yea!

——-

Except inside long term care and medical facilities. Also, school districts decide for themselves.

Now what do we do with our closet full of unused masks? Seriously.

Ours did too last week or so, though I stopped wearing one a couple months ago. Even better our awful governor finally caved and is making masks optional for kids in schools which is just fantastic news. That was one of the worst things in my opinion, was children being forced to mask up to protect adults as healthy kids are not at any significant risk from Covid.

 

[Blackhorse]

Hmmm…I don’t see a problem with having kids mask up in order to protect adults. It seems like that would be something a socially responsible society would WANT to do. There’s no data on how many little ones spread the virus to a relative, family friend, neighbor, teacher, etc. But in general, stopping the spread of the virus (protecting adults from getting it) is the whole point.

But yeah, no worries re the kids themselves. Following are figures that represent deaths from Covid in the US for “young” age groups. The numbers aren’t statistically significant when compared to older age groups…so I guess those deaths were only really “significant” to the families of the ones that died.

Sorry for the giant numbers. I had to resort to a screenshot and this is as small as it would p

 

[Scallywag]

Well, we now know masks protect the wearer, not the other way around. Kids wearing masks doesnt protect adults, the adults masks (which should be an N95 or the like) protect the adult. Im more speaking about kids wearing masks for long periods in schools and such. Firm Data has come out showing how detrimental to learning and brain development masks are. Not to mention what its done to the social lives of teens.

 

[Zeno Marx]

Firm Data has come out showing how detrimental to learning and brain development masks are.

I'd like to see that data. The other day someone said something like natural immunity (having had C-19) was superior to vaccination, and that the CDC now recognizes that as fact. I'm not saying this is wrong, only that I hadn't heard it as a CDC stance, and I watch the news every day and read quite a bit of news from various sources each day. I did a search, and I didn't see much about it. It's not like I'm hiding under a rock and only going to one source for information. How am I missing things? Or are the things BS?

 

[Scallywag]

I encourage everyone to do their own research but from a quick goog search the first one that comes up is from NPR that mentions "
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/28/1075842341/growing-calls-to-take-masks-off-children-in-school

Masks can interfere with young children's brain development​

Numerous scientific papers have established that it can be harder to hear and understand speech and identify facial expressions and emotions when people are wearing masks."."
Heres the article and then further down the study they site -
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8595128/
It also mentions "Across the country, about two-thirds of large school districts currently require students to wear masks. Most commonly, those masks are cloth. And cloth masks, experts say, are insufficient to contain the spread of the omicron variant." The cloth mask bit has even been on CNN a couple times ive seen via social media snippets (not that I watch CNN )

 

[Zeno Marx]

Truly, I'm not trying to be pendantic here, but that's just one article, and it says nothing about brain development at all. And the NPR article that cited it then says:
"(Some of these studies also suggest workarounds, which many practitioners are using)." And the one psychiatrist was talking about children 3 (or was it 5?) years old. They aren't going to school, other than some children going to kindergarten. It sounds like a lot of confusing, and inapplicable, information bouncing all over the place.

Hmmm…I don’t see a problem with having kids mask up in order to protect adults. It seems like that would be something a socially responsible society would WANT to do. There’s no data on how many little ones spread the virus to a relative, family friend, neighbor, teacher, etc. But in general, stopping the spread of the virus (protecting adults from getting it) is the whole point.

Agreed. protecting people. Adults, older family members, teachers, crap workers at the school making $15/hour in the cafeteria and janitors, and the list goes on. I certainly have empathy for the children and how this must be affecting their view of the world, but kids are incredibly resilient. And the fact that they're all doing it, so safety in numbers, would possibly lessen the impact as it is normalized to them. How have the Japanese and Asian children been affected by masks? While they aren't/weren't wearing them as much, it's not entirely new territory. Normalization goes a long way to soften impact.

"True, a cloth mask can be a "marginally OK to maybe a decent filter," Marr says. But with something as highly transmissible as omicron, just "OK" isn't good enough." So, as I read that, they aren't totally useless. Better is better, but OK is not worst. From the NPR article.

 

[Scallywag]

Truly, I'm not trying to be pendantic here, but that's just one article, and it says nothing about brain development at all.

No worries! I dont take offense to anything on internet forums. The NCBI article speaks about it, but your right thats just one article. This is also straight from my pediatrician, whom has been practicing for a long time and stays up to date on current events.

But I also wont take the time to do the research for you, if you are curious about it. The the info is out there. Again your mask protects you, my mask doesn't protect you. So the adults, teachers etc should be wearing N95 if they are concerned, and boosted, since they are saying vaccines are the best defense. Children shouldn't be subjected to a practice like masks that harms them, doesn't benefit them, or protect others, is all im saying. Kids are at more risk from the Flu statistically also, so its odd that this requirement has come about now when weve never required kids to wear masks during flu season in the past.

 

[Zeno Marx]

But I also wont take the time to do the research for you, if you are curious about it. The the info is out there. Again your mask protects you, my mask doesn't protect you. So the adults, teachers etc should be wearing N95 if they are concerned, and boosted, since they are saying vaccines are the best defense. Children shouldn't be subjected to a practice like masks that harms them, doesn't benefit them, or protect others, is all im saying. Kids are at more risk from the Flu statistically also, so its odd that this requirement has come about now when weve never required kids to wear masks during flu season in the past.

The development talked about in the NPR article is face recognition and non-verbal communication in pre-school and toddler ages. In that instance, the adults, like caretakers, couldn't wear masks. Are there requirements for 3 year olds to wear masks? Not being able to develop recognition is where the development is said to be impeded. That ncbi.nlm article doesn't talk about development at all. I'm not curious enough to put this on a priority list, but this still strikes me as confusing and strangely dropped information.

 

[urbino]

The development talked about in the NPR article is face recognition and non-verbal communication in pre-school and toddler ages. In that instance, the adults, like caretakers, couldn't wear masks. Are there requirements for 3 year olds to wear masks? Not being able to develop recognition is where the development is said to be impeded. That ncbi.nlm article doesn't talk about development at all. I'm not curious enough to put this on a priority list, but this still strikes me as confusing and strangely dropped information.

Media sites need clicks. Evidently, NPR is not . . . immune . . . to that. And the level of scientific literacy among journalists has never been terribly good.

 

[RSteve]

I really am uncomfortable wearing a mask, but will continue to wear one when I'm out and about, particularly when in a store. Every winter I usually get a couple fo whopper nose colds. So far, knock wood, mask wearing, no nose colds.

 

[urbino]

Between masks and everybody just being way more aware of preventing the spread of germs -- social distancing, hand washing, etc. -- I would guess cases of most of the usual suspects are down.

 

[RLinNH]

I haven't worn a mask, unless absolutely necessary, since this whole thing started. To each his own...

 

[RSteve]

I haven't worn a mask, unless absolutely necessary, since this whole thing started. To each his own...

Same opinion as one of my mates, but he also refused vaccination. He officially died of Covid induced pneumonia.

 

[RudyN]

Our mask mandate ended today in my County in California. The only time I wore a mask was when I wanted to go into a store, etc. otherwise no mask at all. I don't think I should put in writing what I think of all this mase idiocy.

 

[gravel]

Our mask mandate ended today in my County in California. The only time I wore a mask was when I wanted to go into a store, etc. otherwise no mask at all. I don't think I should put in writing what I think of all this mase idiocy.

I agree! You shouldn’t put it in writing. ;-)
Congrats on being able to go into Lucky market without a mandate.

 

[tslots]

I haven't worn a mask since November 5 2020