Mask Madness

First off let me say that I appreciate that this is a conspiracy forum and consider myself a vehement fence-sitter. But our nation and ATS in particular has been overly politicizing the use of masks to the point that people that genuinely need them are being harassed on a constant basis.

We all know now that the pandemic is not deadly to literally everyone in any meaningful capacity by now but somehow that has translated to "Covid is fake" in the most ignorant of communities. Since the outbreak, my wife and I (who is pregnant and suffers from a dangerous seizure condition in our thirties) have faced near constant adversity for following the basic medical guidelines suggested by ALL the experts both political and neutral for high risk people.

Some of you already know that we faced hardship right out of the gate for wearing PPE at work in january (our company received express parts from Wuhan so it was warranted) and were immediately fired. And eventually lost two neighbors to covid, one in his thirties and another in his forties (same household). And have faced extremely mouthy rednecks at half of our biweekly trips to Walmart for groceries. We even experienced about two weeks of mild Mad Max as the junkies in our neighborhood started beating each other for food and drugs in the beginning of the outbreak.

But today I faced something that truly devastated me; I had a group of young 20ish people start a conflict with my pregnant wife and I for wearing masks and they even sited ATS when they started yelling at us about our masks and how covid was fake! To me ATS is about finding what exists between the lines, not about fostering a new generation of ignorance.

I'm not pointing fingers, I'm just asking everyone here to understand that what you say is affecting young minds in a profound way and to understand that for some of us it is a much bigger threat than others. Just show each other a little compassion. We all face the dangers of political unrest and viral outbreak together, there is no reason to tear each other apart in such dire times. Wearing a mask is not a political statement, it is just a statement that there is someone in our lives that we care about and HAVE to protect in such uncertain times.

I am begging you to remember that my wife and anyone else with an invisible disorder are in fact facing much harder times than our favorite bar or salon being shut down. Just show a little compassion to your fellow humans and be thankful that you can begin to restart your lives when some of us are looking at a year or more of living a cloistered existence. We are in a unique position to help stem the madness in the next generation of people that question authority, don't waste it.

I work at Walmart and am required to wear a mask, or go home. I get snarky comments from rednecks all day, every day.

a reply to: LordAhriman

I'm sorry you have to face that. Its really a shame that people have politicized the use of masks and even demand that we put politics before our own safety and job security.

I went to a family owned store yesterday and there were hand written signs on every window stating no mask no service. When I mask up and go in, not one of the 3 employees including the one preparing food in the back were wearing a mask. I said, I'm confused, if you make it mandatory for customers to wear a mask how come none of you are? After a ten second pause one says she has a medical condition. I said I have athsma. Then a bunch of umm err wells and I said do as I say, not as I do? And left shaking my head. I'm not one to pick a fight with people but it just made no sense to me.

originally posted by: LordAhriman
I work at Walmart and am required to wear a mask, or go home. I get snarky comments from rednecks all day, every day.

That's because them rednecks all know. -chuckle

a reply to: DogfacedEngineer

That is a very unfortunate reality of even major chains. One of our local walmarts is full of employees not wearing masks or wearing them in wildly inappropriate fashions (only over their mouths, upside down, and even just around their necks). They don't seem to get that it's not a full proof system to protect them, it's a system designed to reduce the viral load delivered to the customers that their company depends on.

a reply to: Snarl

As someone that has lived in the deep metro hood and rural Indiana I can say both communities distrust the government, but the rural side of that coin definitely feels the need to verbally confront strangers on the topic.

originally posted by: trollslayer
a reply to: DogfacedEngineer

That is a very unfortunate reality of even major chains. One of our local walmarts is full of employees not wearing masks or wearing them in wildly inappropriate fashions (only over their mouths, upside down, and even just around their necks). They don't seem to get that it's not a full proof system to protect them, it's a system designed to reduce the viral load delivered to the customers that their company depends on.

That is a store management problem, and should be addressed.

a reply to: trollslayer

a reply to: Trueman

Lol I love the get up. I settled for a hard p95 on top of a soft p95 for a better seal since the p100 made people lose their damn minds on day one

a reply to: LordAhriman

I agree 100%. Their management has been less than open to community criticism so it will take someone with plenty of patience and a strong grudge to really get corporate to clamp down on their poor practices.

I have a health condition, COPD. I choose not to wear a mask. And I will not go into stores that require them. But my mother has multiple health issues, and you never know who else may. So I don't say a word to people wearing them. I do believe it should be a choice.
But I have also been given crap, for not wearing one. That should not happen either.


And no, I don't go see my mom. I just call her every day.

originally posted by: chiefsmom
But I have also been given crap, for not wearing one. That should not happen either.

You need to stop caring what other people think.

You have my explicit permission ... from this day forth ... to be fully grown and to enjoy all the liberties that come with such status!!

Touches sword to shoulder

a reply to: chiefsmom

I generally agree with your assessment. I do wish that more people would wear masks because of the portion that carry it asymptomatically but we cant enforce rules that call for our citizens to show courtesy to each other. No part of our constitution or bill of rights really covers the wearing of face masks so your point of view is very defendable. I just wish Americans had the same courtesy of other countries where the wearing or not wearing of a mask isnt a political statement. You just do so because you dont want to accidentally harm your fellow countrymen by accident. The disparity of quality of masks is also a major factor; someone wearing a bandana is barely reducing the viral load exhaled compared to a p100 so I understand the scepticism.

The bottom line is for every person not wearing a mask increases the need for those of us in dire circumstances to wear them. But we live in America so we have to measure and choose wear we shop based on the actions of consumers and businesses with which we interact. We should just be allowed to do so without being verbally accosted for our choice either way.

Lol, it isn't really a big deal, like wearing a hat.

Honestly, I could care less, but I've gotten use to wearing one, no water off my back.

Plus, I have a badass mask, little American flag on it, nice

a reply to: trollslayer

We all know now that the pandemic is not deadly to literally everyone in any meaningful capacity by now but somehow that has translated to "Covid is fake"

Covid is certainly not fake but I have decided that it is in no way as dangerous as it has been portrayed.
As most of us should already know our government and especially the military is continually working on contingency plans for virtually every possible threat they can think we could be vulnerable to. The government has contingency for everything.
When this surfaced out of China, our government didn't have much of a clue as to just how dangerous it actually was so they started fomenting fear and paranoia out of ignorance of the disease. When they finally did realize the overall lack of danger to the majority general population, they didn't dial back the hysteria. They saw this as an excellent opportunity to test every aspect of the nation's preparedness and capacity to handle an actually catastrophic pandemic. They could have never examined this nation's full capacity by trying to run individual small scale drills here and there. They would have never been able to fully evaluate our capacity until Covid came along. Like the democrats say, never let a crisis go to waste. So they perpetuated the lie, just to test capabilities to handle it plus, as a bonus, see just how far they could push the general public into compliance to government dictate.

Admittedly, I live in a rural county in a rural state for the most part. My county has had 1, and I do mean 1 case reported over a month ago and it is even resolved by now. But people are still running around here screaming "the sky is falling".

As this situation has unfolded I have come to the conclusion that the government has taken advantage of the situation and turned it into one massive experiment and training exercise. They will study this for years to come in preparation for a real pandemic one of these days.


But this aint it...

a reply to: trollslayer
I was wearing N95 masks when the crisis started until I run out.

Now I wear masks like the one you see me wearing in that photo. My wife makes them.

WHO said the mask may do more harm than good. Truth is nothing really works. Masks don't work, staying at home doesn't work. If one finds wearing a masks gives them comfort wear it. With all these protesters the hospitals should be filled with sick people but they are not. A mask real effectiveness is concealing the identity of criminals. Only thing it's truly good at doing.

I wonder how a group of young 20ish people found out about ATS ? 😎👃😎

originally posted by: Stupidsecrets
WHO said the mask may do more harm than good. Truth is nothing really works. Masks don't work, staying at home doesn't work. If one finds wearing a masks gives them comfort wear it. With all these protesters the hospitals should be filled with sick people but they are not. A mask real effectiveness is concealing the identity of criminals. Only thing it's truly good at doing.

Yeah, NO.

Mask don't prevent, they mitigate, as does everything else, that's kina the point.

You making a technical observation and casually dismissing is just plain wrong.

It is the "air droplets" you want to avoid, do that and you'll be fine, that's where you tecnical observation should have eventually settled on.

Don't want to wear mask or stay at home? Cool, just breath the other way, why? Because "I" care.