💬 Reply by makeworld

2024-12-02 ┃ RE: tty

[Covid]

@tty thanks for responding.

Public health is all about trade offs, and I think something the pandemic has shown is that people are really bad at evaluating these. Vaccines killed some people, but were still worth it. Masking causes social/developmental issues but was still worth it at the height of the pandemic.

Now that Covid deaths have dropped dramatically, the calculus on masks changes. For long covid specifically, the risk seems to me to be overstated on social media. Prevalence is I think your image is misleading because it doesn't account for the overall percentage of getting long covid in the first place. Also there's no citations, but I get that it's social media and all.

Regardless of the numbers, this puts me (and all of us) in the same position as during the pandemic. How do I as a lay person evaluate the science, calculate the trade off, and decide what to do?

I think the first step for this is to admit lack of expertise and look to health authorities. Currently mask mandates are not in place and not recommended. Masking is recommended as an individual choice for people in indoor public settings. Already this should be enough to conclude that most event organizers should not require masking.

The next step is the more complicated and less scientific evaluation of how much each side matters to you: risk of getting covid versus social cost of masking.

On a community/event level I think we should be reticent to enforce masking. One reason is just general liberal values I believe in, but the other is that the social cost of masking is not the same for everyone. I suspect people posting on fedi about this are more likely to belong to groups that care less about socializing being hard: very online people, autists, introverts, etc. But event organizers need to consider everyone, including extroverts, neurotypicals, and the deaf/hard of hearing. The latter group does tend to be the majority in most spaces.

I think that the currently popular policy (and unstated social norm) of "optional masking + don't come if you're sick" strikes a good balance between these two which is why it's so popular.

In summary:

- Long covid risks seem to be overstated

- Health authorities don't endorse mandates

- Freedom of choice matters

- People posting about this are biased and creating echo chambers

Ultimately I'm not upset with anyone here (except people who post in all caps, that's really annoying) but I find it unfortunate to see people on my feed who seem to have taken a more authoritarian or extreme view on this issue without really considering the trade off.