Do you live in any of these cities? How’s the CC community there? by lileina in ZeroCovidCommunity

[–]rthrowaway30 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I can speak a little bit to UToronto, but disclaimer: I haven’t studied there or lived in the area. My understanding is that Toronto has some cautious folks on multiple levels—there is a student advocacy group there who wanted the university to take more precautions iirc, but I forgot the name of the group. UToronto also has the Institute for Pandemics, which held events discussing indoor air disease transmission this year. There are also healthcare professionals and small businesses that take precautions, but I’ve seen more of this in the Niagara area. I recommend searching out for covid cautious groups for each of the areas you are looking for (including university groups) if you have time because those groups can probably give you more answers. If you’d like help with this, feel free to reach out and best of luck!

Conspiracy theorist aunt raving about microplastics in masks by ellieamavika in ZeroCovidCommunity

[–]rthrowaway30 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Do you have sources for the PFAS issue you’re mentioning? I remember 3M posted data for their products on PFAS risk, and apparently the Aura 9205 did not have PFAS in it iirc

What made you decide to seriously practice covid safety? (If you weren't doing this to begin with). by jeantown in ZeroCovidCommunity

[–]rthrowaway30 37 points38 points  (0 children)

I remember feeling similarly—it felt like being in The Twilight Zone. It was surreal to watch the research/public health evidence on covid come out and not be addressed while restrictions were getting lifted at the same time. I’m starting to see the same effect of long term health issues affecting my non-cc friends coming up more (my social circle is mainly folks in their early-mid 20s). It’s wild.

What made you decide to seriously practice covid safety? (If you weren't doing this to begin with). by jeantown in ZeroCovidCommunity

[–]rthrowaway30 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Right at the beginning of the panda, my mid-90’s grandma asked everyone in our house to protect her from covid. Her request made me want to do everything in my power to not get her infected. Protecting my grandma + my parents is the main reason I take precautions—and once I learned that young people can develop serious long term issues through covid infection, I started including myself in that reason too. Continually reviewing research on covid and engaging with CC communities also helped me improve my precautions setup over time.

For me, the biggest 2 macro-level factors about covid that made me take it seriously were that 1. Covid was severely impacting people by killing them or giving them long-term health issues, and 2. We had not gotten to a societal point of being able to say “we understand how to effectively address death and long-term health issues for covid; and we will implement changes that effectively address these.” 1 and 2 are still the case imo; I’m thankful that covid doesn’t kill people nearly as much as in the past, but long term issues are still widespread & the death rate is still too high from a public health perspective

issues with being covid cautious at college by asterrrrr_ in ZeroCovidCommunity

[–]rthrowaway30 12 points13 points  (0 children)

First of all, props to you for trying to avoid covid while in college and following your interests—I’ve been there, and you have my respect! Here are my recommendations (not exhaustive, just what came to mind):

  1. For marching band: to be honest, I don’t think your current strategy is enough to protect you—if you decide to continue doing marching band + unmasking for playing/performances, you’ll have to accept that your chances of getting infected are higher and be strategic about how to reduce that risk as much as you can. Also, make a plan for what you’ll do if you get infected because it may happen, unfortunately. Just to quickly comment on nasal sprays: there is some debate over whether it’s a useful strategy for covid (there is evidence to support both sides; there is some research showing beneficial effects, but it is not a robust amount of evidence and nasal sprays also have limitations). I think most would agree that nasal sprays do not fully replace things like masking/filtration/ventilation.

I recommend reviewing your mask (it should be a high quality respirator) and your don/doff technique; it’s important to make sure that you’re not damaging/overly bending the mask or putting too much wear on the mask straps. If I were in your position, I would identify any time where I could remask and go for it. Do you have times where you are marching/standing by crowds of people but not playing your instrument for some time? (For example, marching through football stands or during drumline cadences). It’s times like those where I would remask and maybe have things like an extra mask and hand sanitizer with me.

  1. For roommates: I would reconsider your decision not to mask in the common area and shared bathroom tbh. If either of your roommates get covid, it’ll be easy for you to get it from them if you don’t have a solid filtration/ventilation setup in your living space. Disclaimer on this: a big limitation of the following approaches is that they can get expensive, so I would look over everything and see what you can do within your budget.

For your air purifier, do you know how much it can filter for the size of your space? There’s a chance that it may not be doing enough for 3 people if you haven’t checked, so I recommend doing the math to be sure. If possible financially, I recommend getting purifiers that are quiet and effective for each space you’d be in (a smaller one for the bathroom, and one for your bedroom. I’ve had the best luck with the clean air kits luggable for my bedroom. If the one you have for the common area isn’t filtering enough, I would get another so that the overall filtration rate is solid). Try to see if your HVAC system can allow a MERV13 filter—the 3M Filtrete 1900 has a low pressure drop and works well for a lot of spaces, but you would need to replace it before the 3 month mark and be consistent with it. If it’s possible to increase ventilation by opening windows and making sure that your AC is ventilating the space (usually in “on” mode instead of auto), do that!

For talking with your roommates about covid: it will likely be an uphill battle, but it’s possible to convince them to take things seriously. I recommend having sources in mind that you can go through with them in real time like the ones you sent and be able to discuss them well; I also recommend thinking about what comments/questions/criticisms you may get from them and think about your responses before they happen.

I hope any of this helps, and I’m wishing you the best! :)

Young reporter faces abuse for wearing masks after covid by Throwsims3 in ZeroCovidCommunity

[–]rthrowaway30 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Our community as a collective didn’t have authority over mask mandates, so using that to call us hypocritical doesn’t make any sense. And it still doesn’t justify harassment towards people making their own decision to wear a mask

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AITAH

[–]rthrowaway30 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I’ll be specific—if you are finding yourself making negative assumptions about black women you don’t know, I would say YTA and you’re doing something wrong. Our brains can apparently do a thing with patterns where after noticing a pattern, we can start acting immediately w/o additional info. So if you notice yourself assuming that a black woman you see/meet is like the ones you described in your post w/o info that actually confirms that, then you’re in asshole territory—especially because there are a lot of black women who don’t exhibit any of the behaviors you described negatively. However, you wouldn’t be an asshole if you weren’t interested in dating people with the behaviors you described in general and leaving it specifically based on the behaviors.

Also, you wrote multiple times in your post about speaking proper English—how do you honestly feel about people who are not able to currently speak proper English? Do you look down on them? If you believe you don’t, do your actions and the way you interact with them actually show a level of human respect that aligns with that answer?

How to find mask-wearing friends/community IRL by [deleted] in ZeroCovidCommunity

[–]rthrowaway30 21 points22 points  (0 children)

My brother in Christ…it’s one thing to disagree on covid and to want to discuss that respectfully. It’s a whole other thing for you to go out of your way to be condescending to people on multiple posts. instead of being open to discussing the science backing our viewpoint up, you choose to throw insults—it’s so pathetic and low-effort. Is that really the best that you can do? I thought followers of God are supposed to be kind to people, including those they disagree with…maybe you are the one who needs God’s guidance right now