632
New Covid wave has begun and masks should be worn again, scientists warn
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
632 points (92.1% liked)
World News
39045 readers
2349 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You know, even before COVID-19, there would be flu, rsv, etc. outbreaks and there would barely be a blerb about it. People would send kids to school sick, literally everyone would catch it, and it sucked. Maybe less lethal, but it still sucked. And I always caught whatever was going around cause we just didn't have the culture here.
At least now there's more recognition, some people might wear masks, and there's a fighting chance I don't catch the thing everyone gets that season (at least in California where it's still ok to wear a mask without ridicule).
Except my sister gave me COVID two months ago since I let her stay here to avoid homelessness. Can't fix bad habit family members, and getting a false negative on a test gave her confidence to get me and my baby sick. Ugh, bad times.
Serious question, why are people being ridiculed for wearing masks in the US? Is this generally how it goes in all of the US?
I'm from Asia and most countries here have been wearing masks even before the pandemic for multiple reasons - pollution, not wanting to spread sickness including the basic cough and cold not just flu or COVID, when at a clinic or hospital, etc. I wear a mask even when I just have allergic rhinitis just so that I don't accidentally blow snot all over somebody else. No one would bat an eye here if you wore a mask.
I don't understand the negative connotation to wearing masks and why anyone would care if you're wearing one.
US culture is founded on individualism at the expense of everyone else. A lot of people buy into the idea that any kind of government imposed action, even as minor as wearing a face covering that even helps the wearer, is a horrible tragedy and assault on their ability to make bad decisions. Those people are belligerent and numerous.
The US government were also months late to handling COVID, and the conservative leadership in power was actively demonizing safety protocols such as masks, vaccines, social distancing, etc not to mention their own Center for Disease Control, to the point that a fair percentage of the population is distrustful of medical science and unwilling to consider those safety protocols.
A lot of the news media (left and right) focused on things like getting people back to work in spite of the ongoing pandemic so it really forced the narrative away from collective safety and survival into economic prioritization and the illusion of normalcy.
The news media also focused on the demonizing by conservatives for more advertising clicks instead of promoting the safety measures by the CDC as reasonable and worth listening to.
But abortions must be banned, because 'murica.
There is no logic, just very bad people.
Politics, the party in charge decided that the best response was to pretend the problem didn't exist and maybe it'll go away. Wearing a mask is a very public sign that there is a problem.
Yeah. In Malaysia before covid, every flu season i could see some people(not a lot) start wearing mask, and people masked up as well in hazy season. Just before Covid become the pandemic i can see people already started to wear one before the mandate. Of course, nowadays some butthurt netizen will still jab at those wear mask here and there, but other than that, i still see people wear mask everywhere i go, which is a great thing. Sanitary and personal health shouldn't be something that get ridiculed.
But then again, it's Asia, and SARS is pretty big back then.
And notably they're not really two entirely unrelated things. "SARS" is SARS-CoV-1 and "COVID" is SARS-CoV-2.
Maybe before the pandemic someone somewhere might have said something but not now. Even living in a rural area people don't say anything at all. I don't know where that user got the idea that you'd be ridiculed.
I still frequently wear a mask in busy/crowded areas and have probably received a dozen comments about it in the last week alone. So it definitely happens.
I don't wear a mask anymore, but people glare at people that do. I also got a lot of harassing comments when I was wearing a mask last year.
That's interesting, guess it's different around here. No one says shit and I'm in the rural south.
because wearing a mask is for pussies.
it's really as simple as that. it's seen as weak and pathetic and makes you an object of ridicule.
Is this you saying that or are you quoting some other people?
Comment history is looking like they are serious lol
Protecting others is weak and pathetic? Alrighty then. Bet you're a "Christian" too.
Those outbreaks didn't kill a million people Ina year, and did not strain the hospital system to the point of breaking.
Well, there was the Spanish flu which also lead to mask mandates and other social safety measures as covid.
It's certainly more deadly, yes. That's why it got more attention. But I'm young and the risk to me is about the same, plus that's not really my point. I'm mostly saying that I'm grateful people actually care about hygiene for once, 2020 the first time in my life I didn't catch "the thing going around" since I didn't have a jackass coughing on everything at work or school.
Mask mandates are not about protecting you, they are about limiting the spread throughout the population. You may have even had it with no symptoms and gave it to someone else, and the spread in the population as a whole is the threat.
I haven't seen a trend towards people caring about hygiene around the midwest.
I am mostly referring to the shift here in voluntary masking, but yes, Midwest would be a bit different. When the mandate ended here, people continued to mask up if they (1) are at risk, (2) feel a little ill, (3) just felt like it. If I tried to mask up in 2018, I'd get weird looks!
And yeah, hand washing picked up, too, although not sure if it kept up. One perk of living in a blue area of a blue state in any case.
I'm not sure if there will be any more mandates because of masking fatigue, but the science does say that one way masking is still effective.
Flu absolutely killed a grip of people when it was new.
It eventually became endemic and what we live with now. More or less what we have with covid. It will rear its ugly head every year as it mutates. Some will get it and have a rough time, some people's immunity or vaccine will help make it less deadly contagious as it was in 2020.
Life goes on. Wear a mask or don't, but we are way past the point of putting the genie back in the bottle
If half the population wears a mask during a pandemic, it won't slow the spread very much.
Leaving safety measures as a personal choice for contagious diseases is like letting everyone decide whether or not they want to stop at red lights based on personal preference. Sure, you can be in a rural area and pretty much ignore most stoplights without a collision, but in a city the negative effects will be rapid and deadly.
Sure but I don't think we are in the pandemic anymore.
Again wear a mask or don't. I don't give a shit. I'm personally done with them until rates start to spike again, or for when I travel on an airplane.
Hmm I mean thousands of people (mostly the old) still died of flu every year. So kinda lethal.
Some 40 to 70 thousand people in the US die every year from the flu. I think the big thing is most people don't care until it affects them personally. It's been weird seeing covid coverage be all, "THINK OF THE DEATHS" as if that meaningfully would change much
1 million+ vs 70k... hard to compare COVID to flu
40k to 70k isn't even correct. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/past-seasons.html
Meth is hard.
you can't say that in that provided any context to what you disagreeing with. I simply repeated numbers from other people a million plus people have died from covid flu number apparently doesn't line up with reality but I didn't research it before I responded
A million COVID deaths isn't a lie.
Bury your head some more.
Globally, as of 6:30pm CEST, 16 August 2023, there have been 769,774,646 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,955,141 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 15 August 2023, a total of 13,498,570,620 vaccine doses have been administered.
Global Situation