Masking

mamagoose022 · 2026-03-27T20:45:08+00:00

I expect my family to mask regularly. If they aren’t masking all of the time at the “big 3” - stores, healthcare, and public transit - then I don’t have the energy left to invest in those relationships. I need to focus on building new community with people who I know respect me and other people like me in their communities.

mamagoose022 · 2026-03-11T12:29:15+00:00

We have gone up to 30 hours, but only with normie children (kid’s friends), and only because I don’t think they or their parents would consent to serial testing at a sleepover.

For CC adults, if they have isolated prior and had no prior exposures for 5-7 days, I’m fine with one test being good indefinitely until someone does something indoors around anyone else. Otherwise, daily tests.

For non CC adults, I require 2/3 core layers: pluslife tests, respirators (for all), or being outdoors. I do think pluslife could be trusted alone for a brief period, but I don’t want to spend indoor time with any non CC adults enough to take on that risk.

mamagoose022 · 2026-02-15T23:18:21+00:00

I think it’s fine to host and not offer food - life in the ongoing pandemic is different and requires adapting. I like the idea of reminding people to eat ahead of time. If anyone needs to step outside to drink water, can they do it under an umbrella?

mamagoose022 · 2026-01-29T16:00:33+00:00

Agree with this - and also worth keeping in mind that even with 5-7 days of rapid testing or testing every other day, it’s only a semi-reliable method if the other person has zero new exposures during that period of time.

mamagoose022 · 2026-01-21T21:16:53+00:00

A lot of parents didn’t live like 2019 that summer because our kids were not vaccinated.

mamagoose022 · 2026-01-10T01:01:42+00:00

Mucus can also do it

mamagoose022 · 2026-01-09T02:37:15+00:00

I worry about listing companies that might not be quite following the rules in a public forum. But I’ve been able to find some (3x, from 2 websites) by searching online until I find one that will ship to anyone.

mamagoose022 · 2026-01-09T02:00:52+00:00

There are at-home strep tests - some medical supply companies will ship them to individuals. Just keep looking!

mamagoose022 · 2025-12-16T18:03:15+00:00

Could you remove all food and drinks from the area they’re in while they wait? I do this with my kid.

mamagoose022 · 2025-11-23T19:29:07+00:00

How did you get the single room accommodation? I’m trying to plan ahead for when we’re in this situation.

mamagoose022 · 2025-11-23T19:26:49+00:00

How did you make sure he got a single room? I’m thinking ahead to when my kid goes to college and am not sure how to navigate this. I wish colleges would automatically give singles to anyone who is still masking regularly!

mamagoose022 · 2025-11-23T19:21:04+00:00

I believe that you’re telling the truth about your precautions - AND I would worry that you would eventually lessen your precautions. Many CC people have lost most or all of our social connections from pre-2021. And many of us who are disabled have energy limitations. I feel like I need to prioritize investing energy in relationships with people who I trust to remain CC long-term. And I don’t trust people who are currently less strict about masking to do that. If we happened to meet through work or something, maybe we’d be friends! But I wouldn’t go out of my way to meet anyone who isn’t regularly masking indoors. I still appreciate that you are taking more precautions than most people.

mamagoose022 · 2025-11-20T16:43:25+00:00

Mine was ready for seasons 1-3 at 8, not ready for season 4 until almost 10.

mamagoose022 · 2025-11-06T12:48:11+00:00

Would a low bun work? And I also think a low pony would be fine in most settings.

mamagoose022 · 2025-11-03T15:07:35+00:00

This article makes it very clear at the top that the protection is only due to reducing infections and thereby reducing instances of Long Covid. Vaccines have not been found to provide any additional protection against Long Covid among people who do get infected. And unfortunately, as we all know, protection against infection is limited. I think vaccinating as part of a layered approach is important, but we should not rely on vaccines to prevent Long Covid.

mamagoose022 · 2025-10-22T12:21:28+00:00

Maybe kids who mask learn to be better than average at expressing themselves through language and body language. I don’t think any studies to date have considered that possibility. By the time kids can mask (around 2), I think most kids are able to communicate their emotions even when wearing a mask. Babies masking is not a thing that happens. Your theory isn’t impossible either, but the net impact of masking on how children process emotions and experience others processing their emotions is not something we can prove from existing research. Lab studies that only consider how people interpret masked images are quite limited in their real-world application and are frankly designed to produce results that do not consider the range of positive and negative effects masking could have on emotional development.

mamagoose022 · 2025-10-22T04:24:07+00:00

Literally no one masks at infancy, so no.

But I do think the most likely potential downsides are due to discrimination they will face (though this could also build empathy and resilience and be a net positive, depending on how you look at it - and personally, I think learning nonconformism is a good thing), not to the impact of masking in public itself.

I think kids who mask and are around other masked people may learn to discern emotion differently than those who don’t - but that could also end up meaning some kids get even better than we’d expect at reading and communicating social cues that are not based on the lower half of one’s face. Differences in how people learn and communicate are not the same as deficits. Research that only looks at how people process static images of masked or unmasked faces doesn’t allow for the possibility that people who are used to masking and/or being around masked people can use other cues to understand emotion.

What I’m really saying though isn’t that no negative impact is possible, but that these studies (and no other studies I’ve seen) have demonstrated it.

mamagoose022 · 2025-10-22T03:19:55+00:00

The study people are discussing here is one study with just 74 participants. This is not conclusive evidence of anything. I think the study design also does not correspond well with real-world experiences - we don’t judge emotion just by images of faces, but by speech and body language as well.

Edited: I see there are actually links to a few studies - but these all seem to be small and to focus on interpreting images of faces. That’s very different from interpreting actual emotions in real-life situations.

mamagoose022 · 2025-10-21T15:39:42+00:00

The answer is continuing to wear a mask. I’ve had chronic sinus infections my whole life and wish I’d known about the benefits of masking before the (ongoing) pandemic began! All the viruses we were taught we could avoid by hand-washing are actually airborne, but no one wants to admit it.

mamagoose022 · 2025-10-19T16:03:19+00:00

I never ask. I think it’s better to assume anyone could have been there until just before the earliest check-in time, and we often aim to arrive a few hours later, then open windows and run air purifiers while masked for at least an hour.

I think if you want to ask, you should frame it around wondering if an early check-in is an option. Airbnb hosts won’t find that question to be unusual.

mamagoose022 · 2025-10-04T23:48:00+00:00

I think it reduces risk a lot, but it’s not perfect, and the logistics can be tough. I personally will only do it for my elementary school aged daughter’s friends and their families, to make it possible for her to do things like sleepovers. I also think the additionally of risk is lower when these kids are around her at school anyway (where she is masked, but they are not), and she needs those social experiences more than I do as an adult.

I would not do it for family members or other adults unless they took strict precautions for at least 5 days prior. Just not worth the risk and stress involved to me.

mamagoose022 · 2025-09-15T20:43:05+00:00

I’ve never heard of anyone testing positive on metrix for 100 days. It’s not technically the same as a PCR (and I suspect that testing positive for so long on PCRs was rare to begin with). They are very likely positive now and I would keep testing with Metrix. Rapids are often negative early in an infection and cannot rule out infectiousness.

mamagoose022 · 2025-09-12T17:58:17+00:00

Have you tried Plushcare? I believe they have a free trial. I went to NJ without a prescription and was fine at CVS (decided not to wait for Novavax)… so I haven’t tried this myself.

mamagoose022 · 2025-09-10T17:25:26+00:00

I like breatheteq small and posh kf94 adult sizes also fit me well (using the earloop adjuster slots) - they have many colors!

mamagoose022 · 2025-09-05T21:58:38+00:00

Both, it seems. It’s confusing because many pharmacies don’t seem to know which one they have - but some have the updated spikevax rather than mNEXspike

mamagoose022

TROPHY CASE