article - it's time to stop wearing masks outdoors

I have been saying that for weeks. The problem lies indoors and in areas with low ventilation. Wearing a mask outside and then taking it off when you enter a bar to have a beer is like wearing a condom during the day and then taking it off when you have sex.

Because I said this, I have been called science denier and white supremacist. No kidding.

So... welcome to scientific denialism and white supremacism! The cookies are on the shelves 😂

You can still catch covid outdoors if you're in close proximity to other people.

I'm of the mind that it depends on what kind of outdoor situation one is in. Out walking and passing by the occasional person? Not necessary. But at a packed outdoor concert, parade, fair? Yep, I'd wear one.

I think most people are sick of masks...period.

I haven't worn one outside for 6 months. I don't wear one indoors unless I am forced to.

It's time to resume life in my view. But every time the Covid Groundhog Fauchi pops his little head up and tells us 6 more weeks everyone's like Damn you stupid groundhog.

https://reason.com/2021/04/22/experts-agree-that-outdoor-post-vaccination-masking-is-useless/

"Is It Time to End Outdoor Masking?" That was the question posed by Spencer Bokat-Lindell, a staff editor at The New York Times, in a recent opinion piece. Bokat-Lindell noted that journalists at Reason—as well as Slate, The New Republic, and The Atlantic—had expressed skepticism of government mandates requiring mask while outdoors, and decided to ask the experts to see what they thought.

"Is Mr. Soave right?" asked Bokat-Lindell. "Here's what public health experts and journalists are saying."

As it turns out, they largely agree that outdoor masking is useless.

Take it away, experts:

"Transmissions do not take place between solitary individuals going for a walk, transiently passing each other on the street, a hiking trail or a jogging track," Dr. Paul E. Sax, a professor at Harvard Medical School, wrote in NEJM Journal Watch. "That biker who whizzes by without a mask poses no danger to us, at least from a respiratory virus perspective."…

Experts have been preaching the importance of distinguishing between indoor and outdoor transmission risks since the early months of the pandemic. But now that the vaccination drive is underway, the expectation of universal outdoor masking "almost becomes ridiculous," Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease doctor at the University of California, San Francisco, told Slate. Dr. Gandhi isn't alone: Several epidemiologists have called for an end to outdoor mask mandates, which some 24 states still have in place.

Earlier this week, The Washington Post reached the same conclusion:

Even if one is wary about the risks right now, those risks will abate considerably over the next month. More than half of all eligible Americans have received at least one coronavirus vaccination shot, which means that by the end of May more than half of all Americans will be fully vaccinated. A growing body of evidence suggests that fully vaccinated Americans are highly unlikely vectors for transmitting the disease. This means the need for mask-wearing should be reduced even further….

Just let time work its magic. As more and more vaccinated people feel comfortable going maskless outside, the social norm of putting on a mask will subside slowly, then suddenly.

The evidence is clear: COVID-19 is a disease that spreads when humans breathe, talk, laugh, and sing in each other's faces during close contact—particularly indoors, in poorly ventilated spaces. The outdoors, on the other hand, are associated with very little transmission. Moreover, the vaccinated are essentially immune from severe disease and death, and their odds of contracting the virus at all are very low. Their odds of spreading the disease are even lower. Vaccinated people who have incidental contact with other people outside are not going to spread the virus, and requiring people to mask up during such circumstances is pointless.

That's not a matter of opinion: It's the expert consensus. If you don't want to hear it, then you aren't listening to the science. Government policy makers take heed; it is long past time to end COVID-19 restrictions—especially the ones that aren't even serving any actual public health purpose.

Yeah, OK, as soon as you show me your medical license.

What I've seen people do is to go for a walk and wear a mask and when or if they encounter another individual they either step off the sidewalk, or to the side to let the other person pass with a wide ( wider than 5 foot ) separation, or they pull their mask up before they get within 6 feet.

I have to admit I was not so germ conscious before, but this last year was about the first year in a long time when I did not any cold or sniffles, certainly no flu or Covid-19, and I quite like it. Considering there will probably be another pandemic sooner rather than later I am not so sure this is not a good permanent idea -- or at least people should not be ridicules or stigmatized for wearing masks, it's a good idea.

I never have worn masks outdoors.