[mcronce]

Exactly this. I had COVID two years ago, the flu last year, and COVID again a couple months ago. Last year's flu was absolutely miserable; just as bad as COVID was the first time around.

I really don't want either one. Putting a piece of cloth on your face when you are/recently were sick really isn't much of a burden. I did.

[wrs]

Yes, this logic seems like a backwards rationalization.

> “Reported deaths involving COVID-19 are several-fold greater than those reported to involve influenza and RSV. However, influenza and likely RSV are often underreported as causes of death," the CDC said.

So it’s not that COVID isn’t as bad as it seems, it’s that flu and RSV are much worse than they seem. Seems like the guidance should be about how to spread all respiratory viruses less, not about how to be as bad at controlling COVID as we are at controlling the flu.

[amluto]

> So it’s not that COVID isn’t as bad as it seems, it’s that flu and RSV are much worse than they seem. Seems like the guidance should be about how to spread all respiratory viruses less, not about how to be as bad at controlling COVID as we are at controlling the flu.

This would IMO be worth actual study. One would expect that what seem like basic precautions (wear a mask if you feel at all sick, stay home if you have or recently had a flu, RSV or COVID) should meaningfully reduce overall infection rates. But this may or may not be true in different contexts, and any of these precautions have costs as well. For example, keeping kids away from school seems fairly well established as being bad. Keeping kids from getting sick is not entirely obviously good for them. And plenty of people have allergies — making them all wear masks all the time has its own issues. (On the flip side, a decent, clean enough mask can help with some allergies. Choose your poison.)

(There are cases that people get wrong to degrees that seem absurd. I know someone who worked at a tech startup pre-pandemic. The founders knew that the startup had a norovirus outbreak and nonetheless kept themselves and everyone who wasn’t acutely sick at the office. If they had closed the office and switched to WFH for a few days to break the transmission strain, they surely would have had happier and more productive employees.)

[basil-rash]

Funny, you two purport to agree, but the parent specifically requested a “good” mask (which can be effective, with the right training and protocols, which are almost never followed), and you advocate a “piece of cloth”, which is almost never effective. Two people agreeing in their advocacy for highly visible, yet ineffective, remedies.

[MattPalmer1086]

There is a difference between wearing a mask to prevent spread to others and wearing one to protect yourself.

The parent was concerned with reducing spread to others. Interestingly, one meta study [1] concludes that cloth masks are actually better than "good" masks if they are not worn and used correctly.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/46/1/e84/7337687...

[CubsFan1060]

I don't think this needs to be absolutes. Properly fitted N95 > N95 > Surgical > none.

If sick people work an average N95/KN95 mask off of Amazon (which is the 'good' I was referring to), it'd help. It's not perfect, and you can do better, and you can do worse. But it's a reasonable intersection of "easy to do" and "effective".

[basil-rash]

Other comments disagree with you. An N95 that isn’t absolutely perfect would seem to be worse than a piece of cloth, if whatever arbitrary study financed by some unknown group with unknown incentives referenced by said commenter is to be believed. Which it probably isn’t. But it’s as good as any of the other “research” of such heavily politicized topics.

[ipqk]

Cloth masks may be still be useful for RSV/cold/flu.