more awareness
and I just don’t feel 50% is enough for the herd immunity. There is a disconnect for me, that I need resolved before I feel totally safe
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Less fear of being looked at funny. Now, hopefully, wearing a mask when sick is more socially acceptible.
So are you going to wear one when you’re sick, or to try to prevent yourself from becoming sick?
Or, are you going to be carrying forward the covidian cognitive dissonance that holds both of those to be true simultaneously, Mr Beanmilk?
I was thinking the latter, as most colds I get are after flying.
But as a socially responsible person, I should include the former as appropriate
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Mostly the “protect others when I’m sick” part, once all this dies down.
I’d thought I might still wear a mask a lot post-COVID but I’m pretty ready to go maskless once fully vaccinated. I’ve pretty much gone entirely maskless while outdoors through COVID. I think I’d wear one in future though if I felt sick.
One of the reasons people get sick on airplanes is that their upper respiratory tract gets dehydrated. There are a bunch of studies showing that you are more likely to catch crud if you breathe extremely dry air. A cheap surgical facemask does an excellent job of increasing the humidity of the air you breathe on a plane. I’ve been wearing one for years for this reason. (I discovered it by accident, when i wore one because i had a minor cold and had to fly somewhere.) I look forward to not needing to awkwardly explain this to my seatmates when i fly.
I think masks are going to be interpreted as ‘I’m sick’. People are going to assume you are sick and wonder why you are getting on a plane when you are ill.
Actually, the really socially responsible thing would be to self-isolate when you have a cold, given that we’ve demonstrated that life…and work…can go on aided by various forms of telecommunication…but somehow I think the folks disinclined to think of others by self-isolating are the least-likely to wear a mask if they can’t.
Given the frequent complaints of folks catching bugs on mass transit, or the obvious concerns of contagion in medical settings, I wouldn’t hate it if we retained mask-wearing in those venues…but I’m not holding my breath.
Yeah I had that same thought. If I go to a restaurant and the waitress is wearing a mask, will I think “Oh what a nice thing for her to do,” or “Oh no, my waitress is sick. Why didn’t she just stay home?” It’s too soon to know.
the main reason I wore masks during the pandemic was business requirements to do so. I felt bad for employees that were trying to enforce it, so I wore a mask for the sake of not torturing retail employees making $10/hr. fighting with the clerk at a gas station over politics is not fighting the power, its being an A-hole.
and on airplanes. I strapped 2 masks across my face to the point I could barley breathe when flying last year.
and when driving my 90yr old grandmother around pre vaccine. was legit afraid for her health.
:iswydt:
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My company is requiring employees wear a mask if they are not vaccinated when the office opens next month.
Vaccination status is self reported in the system, so you could lie if you wanted to avoid wearing a mask. However, I imagine lying to HR about something like that could be grounds for termination for cause.
Is HR actually making you document your vaccine status? I feel like HR would distance themselves from making people document anything related to health status as a term of employment. HR’s #1 goal is to prevent lawsuits and all this mask business looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
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People in healthcare have to document vaccination status all the time. Some hospitals require those who don’t get the flu vaccine for whatever reason to mask during flu season. If there are accommodations provided for unvaccinated (masks), I don’t see why that’d be an issue. Requiring vaccination as a condition of employment, especially given its emergency authorization status, might be more sticky but IANAL.
Schools including universities have required documentation of vaccine status too.
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Nothing that HR is asking about is a “lawsuit waiting” to happen.
It is a carrot.
Company policy is currently that masks are required.
Exceptions are being made if you are vaccinated.
Nothing illegal about asking about vaccination status in most states.
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HR’s #1 goal is to create a safe workplace.
And that is what this policy is doing.
this will be another interesting story this fall. Will public schools require vaccines for k-12?
also agreed that the no mask thing is a carrot. But we work in white collar offices, not hospitals. Id bet that HR is not making people document status, it will be all honor system.
My guess is no due to emergency authorization status.