Open Thread Wednesday

By on May 5, 2021 8:42 am in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    In other cultures going back decades, people have worn masks when they don’t feel well or when they’re not sure they’re well, to protect against possibly spreading their illness to others. Are you opposed to that “normal”?

  • Heightsguy77

    The smell of smoke vs the particles needed to pass Covid are completely different. The CDC says that we should be able to not wear masks outside if we are vaccinated. Moreover, they are now saying that if we still wear our masks outdoors, we may actually be damaging the vaccination effort because many will believe that vaccination doesn’t matter. The vaccines are powerful and effective. Everyone will have had a chance to get a vaccination in nyc, surely by the end of May. There must be some personal responsibility. The new “normal” will NOT be mask wearing for me. We have all followed the cdc rules for ourselves and our neighbors. Now that the CDC says we should go massless outside, we should continue to follow them.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    “The smell of smoke vs the particles needed to pass Covid are completely different.”

    Oh, I should think so; no doubt there is a measurable difference. I’m saying I use that as a litmus for an appropriate masking distance in situations where I wish to be outwardly respectful of my neighbors.

    You and “wrong” have both proclaimed your refusal to wear masks any longer, and I guess that’s fine, it’s your prerogative and I certainly won’t tell you what to do. For the last year there seems to have been this assumption that the rest of us are masking up because we like it or something. We don’t. We mask up for the same reason we pick up after our dogs, leave the seat down, etc. Even as vaccination becomes more ubiquitous, the habit of being polite has sort of stuck, I guess. Some of us are thinking back on the “Before Time” and realizing that there were plenty of situations in which some part-time mask-wearing would have done our society a lot of good. That had been a common attitude in east Asia for a long time, and what I’ve been hinting at is that this defiant “never wearing a mask again” idea is actually kind of dismissive of the effectiveness of light/partial mask use against more than just Covid.

    It also makes me wonder, when the next pandemic hits, whether the thing we’ll all have to do in order to healp each other survive will be even more of an inconvenience than wearing a mask.

  • not a millennial

    “I’m saying I use that as a litmus for an appropriate masking distance in situations where I wish to be outwardly respectful of my neighbors.”

    So what you’re really saying is that you’re virtue signaling and you want the rest of us to do it, too.

  • Jorale-man

    Exactly. Why shouldn’t Americans learn something from another culture, especially that of Japan, for a change?

    A large part of the problem is, the Former Guy has left a country full of mini-Trumps running around, angry that their guy lost. These “freedom-loving patriots” are punishing the rest of us for putting Biden in the White House, one sad, selfish protest at a time.

    Hence we get people like “nope” finding his or her way into the BHB comments to once again proclaim an antipathy to masks.

  • Heightsguy77

    It has nothing to do with being polite. I am following the science. Science is what helping us get out of the problem. I wear/wore a mask because the scientists told me it could save me and my neighbors. Now, the same scientists are saying I don’t have to wear a mask. In fact, they’re saying wearing a mask may actually take away from the vaccination effort. I do not appreciate you attempting to frame my position as anything other than following the science. And I’m pretty sure I’d rather listen to an expert at the cdc versus a non-expert on a neighborhood blog.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    I respect the science too. But the science and the society are not the same thing. People WILL use this as an excuse to go maskless, regardless of whether they are vaccinated, and regardless of whether their vaccinations are effective. I choose to mask up when I’m in close proximity to others because it would make me slightly uncomfortable if others didn’t.

    This idea that if still wearing masks will discourage vaccine use sounds precarious to me. We’re still wearing masks because the vaccine isn’t ubiquitous yet, because people are still contracting and dying from this disease.

    And again, I’m not telling you what to do. I’m telling you why I mask up around others.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    Setting aside the dogwhistle that is using the phrase “virtue signaling” as a pejorative, you may not be aware of it but we all engage in “virtue signaling” through the way we dress, the way we speak, the cars we choose to drive, the hairstyles we wear, and so on.

    If you think “wishing to be outwardly respectful of my neighbors” is just political virtue signaling then I wonder what inspires you to throw your trash in a proper receptacle, or not curse loudly in front of children, or not smoke in a neighbor’s home, or not blast music music right outside their window.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    I’m not even ready to call them mini-Trumps. I share their exhaustion with mask wearing, I have empathy for that. I just don’t think it’s right to actively tell people not to wear masks. Not yet.

  • meschwar

    I hate to weigh further into this, but the NYT has a good article on outdoor transmission of COVID on the website (and probably today’s printed version for you old people).

  • Jorale-man

    Yes, I think the broader point is, we’re not out of this pandemic by any stretch, and there’s no point in undoing any hard-won social cohesion on this issue, which is clearly fragile to begin with.

  • Andrew Porter

    You just want to keep saving all that money you were spending on cosmetics…

  • CassieVonMontague

    Yep, masks have really exposed the latent sexism in the public space. Strangers no longer tell me to smile. I am not expected to wear make up. It’s nice to be in public and be ignored.

  • Heightsguy77

    So when everyone has had an opportunity to be immunized (that day is coming very very soon) and the vaccines are ubiquitous, what will you say? Because there’s going to be people who don’t get the vaccine. Should we continue to wear masks to protect these people?
    At some point, there must be personal responsibility.

  • Heightsguy77

    That panhandler is terrible. If he says anything nasty to you, you should report him to the police. Get him out of our neighborhood. It’s one thing to ask for money, it’s another thing to be nasty and/or threatening. No one should have to put up with that.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    “When” the vaccines are truly ubiquitous and we stop hearing about Covid cases, I’ll probably feel differently. I hope that day comes soon, but it’s impossible to predict when or if it will.

  • Heightsguy77

    But Covid may stay around because some may not get the vaccine. Is it your position that the rest of us should keep our masks on to protect the people who won’t protect themselves by getting the vaccine?

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    Look at this graph: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-trends.page#epicurve

    When the edge on the right looks like a flat line with few noticeable data points above it, I’ll feel comfortable leaving the house without my mask ready to be pulled up over my nose and mouth, and only on days when I don’t feel like I might have a respiratory illness of any kind.

    I have not, at any point during this conversation, stated the position that anyone else “should keep [their] masks on”. I have made the case for why I am doing so and under what conditions.

  • Mike Suko

    I wonder if you really believe that – either as a sensible or an EFFECTIVE (as in have an effect) approach.

    Be grateful (and nervous) that the Heights has a smaller homeless problem than many similar nabes.

    It’s a lot like the masking spat that consumed half this column in this incarnation. Some things will always be with us. (And both Covid & homelessness, I think, are gonna get worse, not better in the decade(s) ahead.)

    What to do? I’m sure I don’t know, beyond saying that the costs of a “fix” are mind-boggling & not likely to get approved – not by the rich, not by the rest of us.

  • ionFreeman

    Any more news on this?

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales
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