[sjsdaiuasgdia]

You do you, but I've enjoyed not even getting the slightest cold for the last couple years that I might just keep masking in a lot of public spaces for the foreseeable future. It's anecdata for sure, but my experience seems to suggest that masks can help protect against airborne transmissible viral infections.

For more anecdata, pretty much everyone in my extended contacts that has chosen to relax their masking posture has gotten covid at some point since. Those that continue stricter protocols get sick less, bet it colds covid or flu.

I haven't heard about any surgeons giving up wearing masks in the operating room. Wonder why...

[californical]

I do wonder if there are long-term affects from sheltering our immune systems for extended periods.

Now, I’m still in favor of wearing masks in some particularly high-risk places. And absolutely supported masks in the earlier days (until vaccines were readily available & common).

But by not getting exposure to the regular tiny amounts of bacteria and viruses that float around from other people (our body deals with quickly and we never feel sick), do we know anything about the long term affects of that on the immune system? Genuinely curious because I couldn’t find anything.

We know it causes an increase in blood-CO2 concentration: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8072811/

And possibly a decrease in white blood cell count: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34585544/

But I don’t think we know yet if there are long-term immune system complications

[Izkata]

> I haven't heard about any surgeons giving up wearing masks in the operating room. Wonder why...

Those masks are as much about blocking blood spurts from the patient as they are about blocking spit from the doctor. They're not meant for blocking airborne viruses either way.