The Coronavirus-and Pip (the bird)

God knows we've all been in waiting rooms at a doctor's office with multiple coughing patients, especially ones that make you wait like 45 minutes past your appointment time to be seen. Probably came out sicker than you went in.

My office finally dropped their masking requirement for the first time this month, and I'm okay with that, especially since we're not a huge office. First time in nearly 3 years I'm not carrying a mask in my pocket or bag at all times. But I'm forever gonna keep a mask or two handy in my car for things like medical visits.

by workers i mean every single person on staff. and not exactly sure what pay has to do with it? i was a public school teacher who made 50k a year and i wore a mask for 8-9hrs a day/five days a week. lol

just saying I can empathize with an underpaid worker doing a very physically active job that has half day long shifts, and who’s also probably had Covid several times due to it being an unavoidable peril of the job. 4 hours at a concert in a mask and I’m gasping for air (I still wear it, just not going to pretend like it isn’t a little exhausting)I can’t imagine doing that for 3 times as long and adding in a lot more movement. I still wear my mask when I can and wish more people would at stuff like public transit and grocery stores, I’m just saying frontline healthcare workers are pretty low on my priority list of people to be upset at over their lack of pandemic action when we’ve got 15% of the country who won’t even get a fucking vaccine.

Maybe it’s just because I’m very overweight, but I do tend to struggle to breath a bit around the 3 hour mark and also get very dry face. I think in an ideal world everyone in a hospital would wear a mask because sickness is everywhere.

I just don’t like this mindset some people still have where it’s either (a) you’re taking all the precautions against Covid still or (b) you deserve ridicule. I think it’s harmful to the mental health of people who did take extreme precautions at the height of the pandemic, got their shots, etc and are now just trying to find a way to reintegrate into society while balancing the Covid risk with their own mental health struggles onset by the isolation. Like why are we even splitting hairs over whether people who worked on the literal frontlines of this thing and experienced the trauma of hospitals at the height of this when mass deaths were happening are still wearing masks in 2023? Aren’t their more high impact people we can direct our frustration at, like anti-vaxxers, Republican politicians, Alex Jones, etc…. Just leaves a bad taste in my mouth to be so critical of people who’ve clearly pulled their weight in this pandemic for not being perfect.

Wearing a mask in a medical facility makes sense because it's full of vulnerable people and/or sick people.

Most nurses/drs/therapists in hospitals are making 2x or more than what I was too. And they LITERALLY SIGNED UP to be around deadly diseases. lol

I agree they should wear masks, just saying nurses and such are really low on my list of Covid offenders to complain about. Picking and choosing my battles and trying to be empathetic.

My friend was in Japan in January and they wear masks not only inside but outside too. Everyone. No issues.

TBF I'm doing everything right and am also a piece of shit. I like to keep my options open.

Also pretty fucked up to say my gran doesn’t matter enough to make people a lil uncomfortable bc she was “lucky enough” to make it to 90 to begin with.

I just think it’s incredibly ungrateful to throw so much hate at the people who were on the absolute frontlines of this thing. Working at a hospital at the height of the pandemic is magnitudes worse than any of those other jobs you listed. The mass deaths and insane workloads from overrun hospitals had to be incredibly traumatizing. So yeah, I find it hard to get too upset at some nurses who want to return to some semblance of mental normalcy and take the mask off.

So don’t act like you’re the good person for talking shit about some healthcare workers who’ve taken the mask off in 2023 after 4 doses and several actual cases of Covid, because you really aren’t.

I’m sorry if I’m coming off as an asshole about this, but I’m just so tired of people taking this all or nothing approach to judging peoples covid morals. Even as someone who’s taken Covid extremely seriously for a long time, I recognize there needs to be some room to treat people as actual human beings with this. People are going to fuck up sometimes. They’re going to mistake a Covid case for allergies and go out and infect people, they’re going to feel like taking the mask off 7 hours into a shift, etc… this all or nothing mindset on Covid is what completely destroyed my mental health for the past 3 years and I hate seeing that sort of criticism being directed at other people who overall are doing a net good in the fight against Covid (ie: working on the frontlines when mass death and insane overcrowding was happening, get vaxxed, etc). I had it pretty freaking easy during the pandemic, all I did was stay at home and have to not have a social life for two years, and even just that ruined my mental health, so I can’t even imagine how hard it must’ve been for someone actually having to deal with these mass fatalities on a daily basis. That’s what I mean by empathy in these situations. Realizing that healthcare worker you’re talking shit about is a human being too who’s been more psychologically damaged by this pandemic than any of us could even imagine and making reserving some of that judgement.

So much hate? Why are you acting like I was yelling or throwing poo at them?

And you def said that the only reason we make it to 90 is bc of medical professionals anyways. So let’s just give them a lil leeway to kill a few people. 😑😑

Also-my other 96 year grandmother who was vaccinated caught covid bc people wanted to act normal in 2021 and tried to justify it like you. She ended up having a stroke after being admitted and lost 80% of her vision and fell head first into late stage dementia. This shit is serious and IF YOU WORK WITH A VULNERABLE POPULATIONS YOU CAN WEAR A GD MASK.