As someone who continues to mask in public shared-air settings for my own health, I am entirely unsurprised by that response and get it all the time.

Recently heard from a friend that also continues to mask when sharing air, they had arranged car pooling for one of their children. And just this morning the other parent texted saying "your child wearing a mask makes me uncomfortable so we can no longer car pool".

So … yeah. Entirely unsurprised by that attitude. "Every person for themselves but also not if it's something I personally dislike."

▲ alehlopeh an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Isn’t all air shared?

	▲	MichaelBurjack an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Not in a way meaningful to assessing infectious risk, no. I consider outdoor air to be unshared, except in cases of large dense crowds (such as say outdoor festivals or sporting events). I consider risky shared air to be indoor air with one or more other individuals that are not known to be taking infection-prevention precautions. One can measure CO₂ as a proxy to rebreathed air fraction. For example, a CO₂ reading of 2300ppm (common in a small or medium room with a few others, or larger rooms with a crowd or conference room, or in a car) means 5% of your air is rebreathed (5% of your intake is output from another person's lungs). A way to think about this is we take ~20 breaths a minute on average. So in that scenario, it would be equivalent to one breath every minute coming directly from someone else's lungs. If they happen to be contagious with an airborne contagion (such as Covid, or influenza, or RSV), there's a high likelihood that you will catch it if you're spending more than a short time in that environment. There are nuances, such as maybe the air is being scrubbed (eg by a HEPA filter) which won't affect the CO₂ levels but will drastically lower the infectious risk of that environment. More reading: https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/what-a-carbon-dioxide-mo...

▲ pipes 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Genuine question (as in not a passive aggressive question!) why do you and your friends child mask?

	▲	MichaelBurjack 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not sure why you'd ask me that vs. use Google, feels like cornering a random driver to defend "Why do you use seatbelts?". But I'll offer one reply at your word that it's genuine and not passive-aggressive. 1. I am currently dealing with the after-effects of a previous Covid infection that requires expensive, ongoing medical treatment. I'm not anxious to test what additional infections may cause. 2. Wearing an N95 respirator is a cheap and easy preventative measure that is highly effective. 3. I adjust my habits based on measured risk. In my part of the world (Alberta), the current risk forecast for November 8-21 is that approximately 1 in every 81 people are currently infected with Covid. I relax my masking when it's 1 in 10,000 or less (which is not an unreasonable number; it's been there in the past). 4. Recent medical studies suggest that repeated Covid exposure is particularly harmful for children. Long Covid is now the #1 chronic condition in children in the US (displacing asthma as the top chronic childhood condition). As a parent, I see it as my responsibility to give my children the best chance at a long, healthy, medical-intervention-free life. A few links (or just use Google): - Covid monitoring in Canada: https://covid19resources.ca/ - Long Covid overtaking asthma as top childhood chronic illness: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/... - Rolling Stone on Covid's affects on children: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/long-c... - Remarks by Violet Affleck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBTjCqIxorw - Tom Hanks: https://whn.global/youve-got-a-friend-in-me-tom-hanks-shows-... - A longer answer than mine: https://whn.global/yes-we-continue-wearing-masks/

▲ throwaway2037 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

    > As someone who continues to mask in public shared-air settings for my own health

Do you have some special medical condition? Or is this just HN personal health craziness? Do you also wear a helmet when you drive a car? Do you wear body armour when you ride a bicycle or walk on a sidewalk?

	▲	MichaelBurjack an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Do you always look that stupid? Or only when the lights are on? Go away throwaway2037, your cowardice isn't welcome here.