[oregontechninja]

I pushed my wedding back to 2021 already, at this point we're probably just going to cut our losses and invest in a house or something. The fact that so many Americans are willing to pick up a gun and lay down their life for this country, but wouldn't wear a simple mask for that very same country is shameful.

[SEJeff]

I'm a veteran (US Army OIF II ~2003-2004) and wear a mask to protect you as much as to protect myself + my family. There are plenty of stupid people in the world, being a willing to serve in the military doesn't mean you're one of them.

[7thaccount]

The parent commenter may not have been referring to those in the military.

There are many non-military citizens that love guns (that by itself isn't a problem), but do have a sick fascination/desire of being in a firefight and who frequently talk about being willing to lay down their life for America....all while being incapable of wearing a mask. They may be referring to that hypocrisy.

[SEJeff]

Indeed there are plenty of those individuals. I always ask them if they are so willing why they never signed up to serve in the military. Uncle Sam has always needed help. They weren't willing then, and they aren't willing now. All talk with no action.

[scrooched_moose]

We opted to slash&burn our guest list (~150>20) and do a very small ceremony in September for this reason. We didn't want the stress of dragging out, and as cases were spiking in August we didn't feel confident 2021 was even going to be an option.

Some friends of ours lost massive deposits on theirs in 2020, then rescheduled for 2021, and are starting to panic again.

It turned out to be a great excuse to uninvite a large swath of extended family we didn't really want to include anyway, and the small ceremony with only our closest friends & family was wonderful.

[adkadskhj]

> The fact that so many Americans are willing to pick up a gun and lay down their life for this country

I don't think they are. The motivations behind those who go to war are not clear cut. Some are noble honest giving people; others less so. For some that's simply the "best" choice for career/etc.

Those that go to war purely from the kindness of their heart is smaller than implied - imo - and wearing a mask most aligns with a simple kind ask, perhaps a much smaller percentage of the gun supporters.

[matwood]

I will say that for my wife it was mixture. She's patriotic, and it was also the best choice to get her life started after high school. I imagine it's probably some combination for most people.

Side note, she's furious every time she catches a Trump rally on TV and sees blue-lives matter desecrated American flag.

[apozem]

My wife and I just went down to the courthouse with my parents and got married this September. God knows when this will all be over, we’ll have some kind of ceremony then.

[okiedokiepokie1]

How do you explain other countries who are very pro-mask and always have been (ie. Japan) with their cases not going away?

[fomine3]

Mask is necessary but not sufficient

[InitialLastName]

I delayed my wedding from July to a much smaller wedding in February 21, to a courthouse ceremony sometime this winter followed by a big first or second anniversary party (whenever the coast is clear).

This year has truly been a wild adventure. :\

[mcgoo]

If you want to avoid crowds, the two busiest days for the courthouse we got married in are Thanksgiving Friday and the last Friday in December. There were six judges on the day we went - typically it’s handled by one judge. (That was 2018, who knows how it’s going to be this year. Might even get shut down in some places.)

[criddell]

I have a feeling those are two different groups of people.

[gameswithgo]

Well we had the very visible example of the Navy Seal who allegedly killed Osama doing just this. Not only refusing to wear a mask but suggesting that those of us who do are "pussies".

But outside of the military we have the people buying up guns to protect america from a mostly imagined antifa threat, who will not wear masks to protect against a very real viral one.

People have never been good at thinking though, similar stuff happened in 1918. oh well.

[gfitz]

Why blame the people when the leadership has been so shoddy? Here is the same Dr. Fauci on masks as the pandemic was first spreading throughout US: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=PRa6t_e7dgI

[jeffbee]

Seems pretty reasonable to me. At that time there really was a shortage of masks. Perhaps he should have advised people to improvise a mask?

[ars]

> but wouldn't wear a simple mask for that very same country is shameful.

There aren't as many of those as you think. The media likes to find all cases of people doing that and reporting on them.

Instead the media should do some polling and get statistics on mask wearing. But they won't, because in general most people are wearing masks, and that goes against the narrative.

[sigmaprimus]

I wear masks and have been wearing one since the "experts" were claiming they were not needed. It just seemed so odd to hear them say that when at the same time the doctors and nurses were screaming that they didn't have enough.

There have been so many mixed and misleading messages I understand why some people doubt the efficacy of masks.

Remember "Don't touch your face"? What happened to that?

I think if the communication people had just come clean and admitted they mislead the public in order to secure the PPE the healthcare system needed and prevent hoarding (Like what happened with TP), there would be far less anti-mask rhetoric.

Unfortunately these politicians doubled down and tried to differentiate between medical and non medical masks. Totally a CMA attitude that understandably has been met with a degree of mistrust.

[diebeforei485]

There was a big screw-up on masks that the public health establishment has not come out and apologized for. And they wonder why people don't trust them...

[Terretta]

Hasn't apologized, but has admitted that the reason Americans were initially discouraged from using them is because there was a shortage. From a Fauci interview with The Street:

“We were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply,” Fauci told The Street. "We wanted to make sure the people, namely, the healthcare workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in harm's way to take care of people who you know were infected with coronavirus, and the danger of them getting infected. We did not want them to be without the equipment they needed."

-- https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c...

[Steltek]

After watching people's behavior, which varies from selfish, bizarre, or sociopathic, they weren't wrong to be concerned. Especially when it appears the Federal government would have been logistically incapable of, or unwilling to, securing a good supply for healthcare workers, if they did tell the truth and provoke a mask buying panic. The list of shameful actions this year is going to be longer than a CVS receipt for a single package of Tylenol.

[jliptzin]

What about "don't touch your face?" Who is advocating to start touching your face? If you don't have to touch your face, don't do it. I've heard that advice well before covid and all throughout the pandemic.

[sigmaprimus]

I've heard it well before too, but when is the last time you heard it? But thats besides my point. We were mislead about masks in the beginning, even Fauchi was not advocating mask wearing in the beginning, yet there were stories about nurses being forced to ration and re-use theirs. I'm not saying it wasn't what needed to be done but it had consequences, one of which is a certain level of skepticism when the message is changed from "Masks are not" to "Masks are"

[everdrive]

>don't touch your face

This is just general common sense advice for literally an illness. It's not COVID-specific. If you touch your eyes, nose, and mouse, you're more likely to get infected by whatever's around.

[sigmaprimus]

I agree, not arguing with You. The point is I watch people on the news everyday adjusting their masks, pulling them under their nose, scratching their foreheads etc... yet I honestly have not heard a word regarding face touching for the past 2 or 3 months. Can you honestly say you have? I wasn't arguing for face touching so don't get all virtuous and preachy about my comment.

[diplomatpuppy]

It also frustrating that the same “experts” are sowing FUD on the vaccine effort. Of course they’ll eventually chastise people who now have their fears confirmed and become suspicious.

[anonunivgrad]

If you don’t want to get sick or get someone you must see (eg elderly parents) sick, then wear a mask and/or hide inside. Let the rest of us do what we want. People my age have a 99.9% survival rate. My parents’ age, 99.x%. There is no evidence that the long term effects are actually any more severe or prevalent than with, e.g. particularly nasty flu years. We choose to get on with life.

I’m definitely not letting the government tell me whether I can have a family party or not. If you’re scared of the virus, stay home.

This pandemic will end like almost every other pandemic in the history of the human race: enough people get sick and acquire permanent/temporary immunity and the virus stops spreading. The question is whether in the process, we freak out to the point of skyrocketing suicides, economic stagnation, and becoming joyless.

Edit: not bothered by the downvotes but I am amused by the petty people who went and downvoted my other posts too. lol!

[californical]

The problem is that you don’t know what someone else’s needs are. Wearing a mask doesn’t protect you, it protects the people around you.

You choosing not to wear one puts everyone else at risk, even if they’re wearing one. And if someone is a caretaker/family of a person with elevated risk, they still have to go outside sometimes (groceries, pharmacy, etc). If you’re a carrier of covid and are unaware of it, and you choose not to wear a mask, that person is helpless to your spit droplets that you’re spraying everywhere.

[anonunivgrad]

Sapping joy from the world and the prosperity of future generations in the name of a year or two of extra life is wrong. That is basically what we’re talking about here. If all the old-but-independent had food dropped off at their doorstep for two months while the rest of us just let ourselves get sick, this thing would have been over very quickly with not that many deaths.

Instead, young healthy people are hysterical and irrationally think they are going to die from this.

[matwood]

If your family is all being smart and doing the right things, you may be able to have small family gatherings (easy access to fast, accurate testing would make this even safer). The problem is that this virus is very contagious, so while your age group may be fine, it's easy for you to pass it onto to someone who will not be fine.

I'm also so tired of this fake dichotomy of either live your life like there is no pandemic or hide inside. There is a huge gradient between the two with varying levels of risk.

> I’m definitely not letting the government tell me whether I can have a family party or not.

It's sad that so many people have forgotten what it means to be a good neighbor or citizen. Instead it's all about 'me', and screw everyone else.

[anonunivgrad]

Family members can leave their medications and food on their door step and walk away. People can get groceries delivered. Nursing homes have extensive precautions.

Cuomo said his ultra lockdowns would be justified “if they saved even one life” (lol!). Maybe we’ve just become a little too uncomfortable with our own mortality. Life is a bitch and then you die. Get over it. Almost all the deaths are in the extremely old, a massive percent already in hospice. This virus is small time stuff, mostly taking out the already dying. But between TDS and hysterical media coverage in general, so many young and healthy people are TERRIFIED. It’s a disgrace.

[mcphage]

> Maybe we’ve just become a little too uncomfortable with our own mortality.

Maybe we’ve just become a little too uncomfortable with being inconvenienced.

> Life is a bitch and then you die. Get over it.

And yet here you are complaining about not being able to throw a party. Maybe you ought to take your own advice to heart here.

[anonunivgrad]

It’s not inconvenience. Millions of people’s lives are on hold. This is awful for our happiness, our culture, our productivity. Children are kept home behind a computer screen, or even worse, sent to schools that have become more controlled and joyless than prisons, screamed at for playing with their friends. This is evil.

[matwood]

I really hope this generation is never asked for actual sacrifice. People who lost their jobs are the ones who have it really bad right now. For everyone else, it's an inconvenience. Using words like 'evil' and 'joyless prisons' shows a complete lack of perspective.

[mcphage]

> This is awful for our happiness, our culture, our productivity.

Maybe, but I don’t think I can respond better than what someone already said: "Life is a bitch and then you die. Get over it."

[stdclass]

I dont know why you are getting downvoted, the mortality rates are on the WHO / CDC website etc. FOR EVERYONE TO READ!

[Karunamon]

Because it's not all about the mortality rates. Just because the bug doesn't literally end your life doesn't mean you won't be left with long term (expensive) complications or handicaps, that could very well kill you years after you get over the virus.

Per the CDC [1]:

>Among patients with COVID-19, 76.8% had respiratory complications, including pneumonia (70.1%), respiratory failure (46.5%), and ARDS (9.3%). Nonrespiratory complications were frequent, including renal (39.6%), cardiovascular (13.1%), hematologic (6.2%), and neurologic complications (4.1%), as well as sepsis (24.9%) and bacteremia (4.7%); 24.1% of COVID-19 patients had complications involving three or more organ systems. Among COVID-19 patients, nine complications were more prevalent among racial and ethnic minority patients, including respiratory, neurologic, and renal complications, even after adjustment for age and underlying medical conditions.

This isn't the fucking flu, and at this point, it is intentionally dishonest to downplay the effects of the virus.

[1]:https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e3.htm#:~:text=....

[MikeAmelung]

You're 100% right, "the fucking flu" still holds the record for people killed in a pandemic by a long shot.

[anonunivgrad]

There is no evidence that long term complications are worse than those from particularly nasty flu seasons. Nothing you posted says otherwise.

[refurb]

That’s hospitalized patients, which are a small fraction of all patients that get Covid.

And the CDC literally has a webpage that calls out all the similarities between the flu and COVID-19. Including the risk of long term complications from the flu.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm

[gdulli]

We're all aware of the mortality rate, but not everyone finds sacrificing hundreds of thousands of sick and elderly to be viable just because the denominator is sufficiently large.

It's the same reason we don't tell wheelchair users to "just stay home" if they can't deal with a world that only has stairs.

We're trying to be a more advanced civilization with structures to ensure quality of life for as many as possible, not only the young and healthy. We're evolving beyond the raw survival of the fittest that determined who lived and who died when we were essentially animals.

Many of us spend most of our lives healthy enough not to need help, but either we care that others do, or else we selfishly recognize that we could find ourselves needing help someday for unexpected reasons outside our control. So it's in our best interest to invest in these social structures.

It's like a society-wide marshmallow test.

[anonunivgrad]

We all die. Let that idea sink in. Even you will one day cease to live and the important thing won’t be the extra year or two you lived by sapping the prosperity of future generations. Life isn’t worth extending at all costs.

[gdulli]

I'm young and healthy myself, and feel the temptation of that mindset on a base emotional level.

But I'm also smart enough to realize that someday I might be 62 and benefit from living in a society that doesn't give up on addressing a pandemic that can be mitigated by something as simple as wearing masks. Should ideology not get in the way.

I could have 20 quality years of life ahead of me before attempts to keep me alive become needlessly heroic.