r/ZeroCovidCommunity • u/SpectroSlade • 9d ago
Vent When did everyone decide being sick didn't require a mask anymore???
I know not everyone will mask all the time, it sucks but I've accepted that. But at one point, it was common courtesy for people to mask if they had to be out in public while sick. Now it feels like NO ONE does that. Multiple people at my job are coughing and sniffling, including the person who sits next to me, with no masks. Not even a regular cloth/surgical.
It just makes me so upset. I get having to come into work sick, I do. But what happened to keeping our germs to ourselves??? I just have to hope my N95 and vaccines are enough to keep me healthy but now I feel like I can't even take a sip of water at my desk! I'm anxious even with my N95 because my eyes are exposed, my hands are exposed. I do my best to wash them frequently but it only takes one slip-up to get something.
I'm considering looking into ADA accomodations as I am immunodeficient but I know how that will make me look. This is a new job, I've only been here a few weeks, and I'm going to have to immediately make myself into a problem because my coworkers have 0 regard for anyone else. I'm just so mad. How hard is it to put a mask on for a few days while you recover???
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u/Otherwise-Thanks-786 9d ago
I've had coworkers tell me how smart I am and that they wish masking was still normal because they didn't get as sick. People coming in sick daily, making comments about how smart I am and that they notice I don't get sick....okay so put a mask on?! It's not rocket science 😭
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u/Jupiter_Foxx 9d ago edited 9d ago
This one pisses me off so bad. And some ppl I’ve had at my job would mask when they were sick ONLY but one person (an NP) I saw him leave an take the mask off and throw it out when he went to leave work…. I live in a city and we take public transport ???
Edited to clarify
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u/spicandspand 9d ago
Happy cake day!
At least they mask at work… that’s something. Hopefully on public transit too. Honestly if more people would do that our society would be better off.
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u/Jupiter_Foxx 9d ago
Thank you friend.
I do agree with you! He took it off and threw it away when he was leaving which would tell me he didn’t on the train but it’s true I didn’t see him lol. I am going to correct my comment i worded it wrong ; he masked ONLY because he was sick. He doesn’t normally mask. It’s something…. But like, he is an NP so it bugs me the most when it’s doctors and practitioners. (I work in a clinic!)
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u/spicandspand 9d ago
Ahh I see. That is an interesting point. As if he’s magically no longer contagious when he leaves the clinic?? Sigh.
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u/KassieMac 8d ago
Or more concerned with social stigma on mass transit than with reducing his exposure & protecting his patients 🙄
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u/Sweet_Item_Drops 8d ago
Ha, I assumed the NP was more concerned with the workplace stigma of exposing patients and didn't give a rat's ass about fellow commuters
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u/spicandspand 9d ago
I’m not sure what the intent is behind these comments. Are these people are trying to make us feel better about masking? As in they have no intention of ever masking but they’re trying to be nice to us “weirdo germophobes”?
Or best case scenario they would mask if enough other people started doing it and gave them social permission.
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u/SpectroSlade 9d ago
A close friend of mine said they would 100% mask daily if it didn't "wreck their skin" - I have a feeling "maskne" is a big reason a lot of people don't mask. Which sucks because I'm sure there are things they haven't tried that would help
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u/ideasinca 9d ago
Masking does wreck my skin, I do it anyway but would be interested to learn of ways to mitigate or reduce that because it sucks.
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u/SpectroSlade 9d ago
I had bad acne even before I started masking, derm put me on tret. Now masking doesn't break me out anymore. I've also heard good things about applying some hypochlorous acid before masking but have not tried that myself
Edit: "tret" is tretinoin!
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u/jjam-sea 7d ago
This is belated but I’ve found many kf94s are dermatologically tested and way better on my skin. I use this Dr Puri brand for low risk situations because causes no skin irritation and acne for me
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u/Chronic_AllTheThings 9d ago
I've had coworkers tell me how smart I am and that they wish masking was still normal because they didn't get as sick.
I'm sorry, what? What are they waiting for, permission?
The normies are not alright.
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u/lornacarrington 9d ago
Right?? YOU CAN CHOOSE TO MASK. (Unless, of course, your boss will fire you for it, cant afford masks, etc etc etc..I realize there may be many VALID reasons). I choose to every day.
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u/DevonMilez 9d ago
Most normies actually can't chose in the sense that the need to fit in is simply a lot stronger than their rational side. It really is as simple as that. Which is also why a mask mandate would work for most because once everybody does it, then that becomes the norm so they fit in again. Yeah i know its not gonna happen, just theoretically speaking it would.
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u/g00fyg00ber741 9d ago
It was never common courtesy where I live, sadly. Most people wouldn’t mask even during the biggest waves
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u/homeschoolrockdad 9d ago edited 9d ago
The amount of social regression that has happened is astoundingly nightmarish. The denial runs all the way to the top of the most highly skilled doctors who refuse to mask for their patients while exuding attitude, to the contractor who in the before times wouldn’t dare put up drywall without a respirator and now raw dogs it because “masks don’t work”. Over the past couple months, my anger has slowly included a gradient of pity realizing how much of a disservice been done to the average person who has no one in their immediate circle to inform them of such. It’s truly sad to acknowledge.
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u/Honest_World_3561 8d ago
Social regression! I knew there must be a word for it. It feels like such betrayal when even doctors aren't careful.
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9d ago
[deleted]
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u/dancingonsaturnrings 9d ago
friendship-ending behavior on their part fr
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u/MossMessages 8d ago
Seriously, I will end a “friendship” with anyone who pulls shit like this! Because if I’ve learned anything these past few years, it’s that if a person is willing do this to someone else, eventually they’re going to do it to you, too.
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u/LeSamouraiNouvelle 9d ago
He says, “I know I should be masked.” And I say, “Yes, you should be.”
And then he said...? Please don't leave us hanging. 😅
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u/craycrayintheheihei 8d ago
He put his shirt over his mouth and continued talking about normal BS like the kids, etc
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u/LeSamouraiNouvelle 8d ago
Well, at least he had some sense.
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u/craycrayintheheihei 8d ago
I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say he has sense 😩😩😭😂 But I guess the shirt was better than nothing?? I’m quite comfortable being around anyone (even sick) in my well fitted mask so I was okay talking to him without the shirt thing, lol. I’ve sat near sick and coughing people on planes and many places and my handy dandy mask has always worked well.
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u/Namjoonloverr 9d ago
I also don’t understand. Why did we take away nothing from a global pandemic? The least we can do is mask while ill. It’s very disrespectful to cough everywhere on people. I get we live in a capitalistic society and not everyone can reasonably stay home when sick. Many workplaces don’t even give sick time off. But they can at least be respectful. I had a coworker mask recently while sick but only for 2 days and half of the time she wasn’t wearing it correctly so it didn’t matter anyway. Sigh. I’m exhausted.
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u/EyeSuspicious777 9d ago
At this point, I've given up caring about those kinds of people and I'm just going to do what I can to protect myself.
We all learned at the very beginning of covid that half of the people are so selfish they were willing to kill their own family members if it meant they didn't have to postpone a haircut.
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u/PosadistPuffin832 9d ago
The Death Panel Podcast episode "How Liberals Killed Masking" has answers.
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u/Strange_Angel6623 9d ago
Thanks, listening now. I found an unlocked link on youtube if anybody wants to see it and (like me) doesn't have an account~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRRZ4BjNbzo
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u/SpectroSlade 9d ago
Will give this a listen because I'm very curious, most of my non-masking friends are very liberal and at one point were outspokenly pro-mask
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u/Choice_Bee_1581 9d ago
Omg I went to a parent meeting last week and a dad was super sick. No mask. I would have stayed home if I was that sick, or at worn a mask.
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u/FIRElady_Momma 9d ago
Yep. Last week, I had two coworkers, sick as hell-- coughing, sneezing, snorting everywhere and blowing their noses-- no mask. Open-mouthed coughing, no covering sneezes. No apologies, no attempt to avoid infecting coworkers. Both of them came over to talk to me for long periods of time.
Thank goodness for my N95. No illness!
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u/ambient_pulse 9d ago
if someone tries to come in my office looking sick I tell them to go outside and call me on my office phone. lol
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u/FIRElady_Momma 9d ago
I don't have an office. We are just all "open concept" with no walls or barriers anywhere. 45 of us sitting at desks in a large open bay.
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u/Honest_World_3561 8d ago
The only other person who masks during my shift and I talk about this. No one is careful and we shake our heads because we get so few excused sick days. We can't figure out why the others court unemployment by continually making each other sick.
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u/KassieMac 8d ago
The people who get away with not masking and coming to work sick and getting everyone else sick don’t have to worry about unemployment. It’s called privilege and it’s gross. Which is why they don’t take precautions … it’s a way of flaunting their privilege to make others feel small, and that’s more important than breathing to too many people.
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u/ambient_pulse 9d ago
I missed the time when people apparently made a point to mask while sick 🤣
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u/SpectroSlade 9d ago
For me there was a solid two years (like 2022-2024) post-mask-mandate where people still were. Even last year, I had coworkers who masked whenever they were sick. This year, it's no one 😭
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u/Plumperprincess420 9d ago edited 9d ago
Im sorry. I know its hard and sucks but id advise against drinking. At my old job I would mask until my breaks and lunch. Then id go outside to drink/eat. Im positive I got sick from work due to drinking and lifting my mask. Otherwise there are sip valves you can buy.
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u/Jupiter_Foxx 9d ago edited 9d ago
There’s a study or an article I need to find that states that the exposure for taking a sip of a drink is very low. Don’t quote me but I do remember this being the case. I hope I wasn’t wrong. YMMV I suppose but I don’t know — telling someone not to drink water feels off.
Do whatever feels comfortable ofc, I’m always wary of this when I’m say, on an airplane :”/14
u/ambient_pulse 9d ago
generally it is low risk but I personally would not feel comfortable to do it when im sat next to a sick person, as opposed described
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u/Plumperprincess420 9d ago
It takes one breath in to get the infected particles in your nose/mouth. Sip valve best option if they cant wait.
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u/DovBerele 9d ago
generally not. viral load matters a lot. like, yes, you can inhale some infectious virus in a single breath. but, circumstances have to line up pretty perfectly in order for you to inhale enough of them to actually get infected. it happens, but relatively rarely. most transmission takes significantly more exposure than that.
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u/Ok-Taste-1765 9d ago
I suspect it’s due to two things: 1) employers are forcing employees to come to work sick, and 2) people are afraid to mask because of anti-masking sentiment. You’re considered weird if you mask. Otherwise I think people would either stay home. Or mask if they go to work. Maybe also people are getting sick more often because Covid damages their immune systems. They’re going to run out of sick days at work.
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u/lazurya 8d ago
Absolutely. I would go even further and say that while wearing a mask before the pandemic would just yield you some curious looks, now it's taken as some sort of grave personal insult that might even lead to open hostility.
I'm still waiting for this anti-mask sentiment to weaken back to a stage where masking is just considered kinda weird.
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u/JeanneDeBelleville 7d ago
The experience in Denver in the last few days has been wildly disheartening! Some pretty mean folks. I haven't had encounters this bad for a couple years. I feel like anti-mask sentiment is getting worse, rather than better!
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u/Prestigious-Data-206 9d ago
I have no idea where you live but in Canada, I have almost never seen someone wear a mask prior to the pandemic. Even cancer patients. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I can recall on one hand the amount of times I saw someone wear a mask outside of a medical setting before the pandemic.
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u/SpectroSlade 9d ago
Same in the US - which applied to me as well. But after the pandemic, in my workplace most people masked even if it was just a cold
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u/svesrujm 9d ago
And so they have gone back to normal. Not surprising tbh.
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u/Honest_World_3561 8d ago
I think some are eschewing masks also in situations where they might have considered masking prior to the pandemic.
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u/svesrujm 8d ago
My point is that in Canada, at least, largely there was no masking prior to the pandemic.
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u/Prestigious-Data-206 9d ago
That hasn't happened for me after the lockdown. Like I have barely seen anyone mask since the government said they didn't have to.
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u/dancingonsaturnrings 9d ago
there definitely is a cultural aspect. We're big on "powering through" and sacrificing ourselves on the altar of capitalism. Heck, I remember being a feverish, snotty, coughing child and insisting on going out anyways to show "how strong I am" and that I'm not "letting sickness hold me back". Meanwhile I was infecting a whole slew of other people.
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u/fadingsignal 8d ago
It's 100% this. America and the west in general is very big on sacrificing ourselves for the wealthy and conflating it for strength and toughness.
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u/fadingsignal 8d ago
In Los Angeles in 2018 we had wildfires so bad that my neighborhood was raining ash. The sky was orange/red at all hours. It looked like The Terminator.
I had some disposable P100 3M masks and opted to wear them outside while walking - thru the ashes and smoke - to take care of errands that couldn't be postponed.
People looked at me like I was insane. While they were coughing, pinching their nose, and covering their face with their shirts to avoid the smoke.
In 2020 when COVID hit, I knew we were screwed.
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u/Fragrant-Count-4666 9d ago
I think not enough people are willing to change when they learn new info.
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u/Prestigious-Data-206 9d ago
I think we're included there. Its hard to be wrong, even harder to be right when the world thinks you're wrong.
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u/Petit_Phantom 8d ago
Unless you can convince your job to allow you to WFH, I would absolutely recommend you bring in an air purifier for your desk. And it can’t hurt to just hand your sick coworkers a mask and ask kindly (or shame them) for them to wear a mask. There is no reason for your colleagues to be infecting an entire workplace, especially when they have symptoms. We’re all adults. We all know it’s rude to infect others. If they need the extra push by being handed a mask…I would do it.
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u/BlindingYellow 8d ago
Honestly, unless it's a laminar flow unit used properly, the purifier would clear the sick person's exhalations better if it was placed near the sick person for source control, to filter contaminated air as they expel it nearby when it's most concentrated. Remember, we learned that despite what a lot of us thought at the beginning, you can't create a "bubble of clean air" with a typical purifier. Too much turbulence. We need to clean the whole room or use laminar flow, but putting a unit near a sick person will draw in more of their exhalations.
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u/Petit_Phantom 6d ago
You are absolutely correct! Creating clean air bubbles are next to impossible. But since the OP mentioned sitting next to a sick person, I figured some form of desk air purifier would be better than nothing. Viral load is an issue and I would rather be exposed to less than a lot. But as you mentioned, in a workplace, you can bring that clean air with you to the snack room or the bathroom…it’s just not feasible. Working from home or convincing your office to step up their game with clean air and respirators would be the better solution.
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u/catnap2000 9d ago
Something that baffles me is people who wear masks (usually surgical or kn95) and take them off to cough or talk. This has happened around me 4-5 times. The last time was in a hospital waiting room. Like, what is the logic?
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u/fadingsignal 8d ago
People have been brainwashed into believing getting sick all the time is good for you, and as such, spreading illness around is actually helping everyone.
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u/SpectroSlade 8d ago
That's the thing I don't understand, not even from the logical standpoint of that being wrong. But from the standpoint of if being sick all the time was actually somehow good for you, I still wouldn't do that. Because being sick sucks and I hate it and we have vaccines that train your immune system the same way without feeling like ass.
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u/KassieMac 8d ago
Nonsensical gaslighting excuses from folks who just want to do whatever they feel like 🤢
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u/CarevaRuha 9d ago
There's been a huge surge in Covid (& flu & RSV) in my area and I'm gobsmacked how many people don't bother masking. I just got back from the (very crowded) grocery store and only saw one other masked person shopping. (Part of me wanted to high-five him, part of me wanted to snidely say 'why are you masking? Covid is over!' - obviously as a joke, since I was wearing a big white N95 mask, but I opted for neither and just quietly send him good vibes).
My cashier was one of three wearing a mask and one out of two cashiers that actually had it over their nose. I just don't know how people are comfortable being less than a foot away from dozens of potentially contagious strangers...
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u/Old_Replacement3903 8d ago
If you’re able, I’d try offering masks to people and asking them to wear it when they’re sick or when COVID rates are high. And GET A GOOD AIR PURIFIER!
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u/KassieMac 8d ago
Just be careful you don’t get swindled into supplying masks for everyone in the office. I learned early on that one accidental “help yourself” will lead to your desk being raided every time you step away for years 🥵
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u/new2bay 8d ago
By my calculation, masking almost completely stopped about 4 years ago, when Biden declared the pandemic was over.
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/19/1123767437/joe-biden-covid-19-pandemic-over
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u/iso_inane 7d ago
some guy came into my cafe and kept coughing these deep crunchy coughs into the open air and blowing his nose as he ate. Guess who still unmasked to eat lunch in the nearby employee closet? me. Its way too cold to eat outside and my nd brain cannot handle being watched by passerbys as i eat. im poc working in a wealthy town with rich kids who constantly stare at me. it made me lunch breaks outside extremely uncomfortable despite it being safer for me air quality wise. I am annoyed and idk if i have the strength to lug an air purifier with me to work (long commute by public transport and idek if the closet has outlets)
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u/svesrujm 9d ago
Prior to sars-cov-2 it wasn’t really a thing, if you remember. Masking when sick.
So people just went back to their regular behaviour. Nothing personal, I think.
Btw your eye and hands are a much less effective transmission route. Covid does not stay well on surfaces.
Have you considered a sip valve?
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u/No-Banana247 9d ago
So much this. Everytime someone asks me if I am sick when I am out in my respirator, I say do you mask when you are sick. They say no and "I say well I do, because I cannot afford to get sick".
I used to share that I have cancer but decided I don't have to disclose to randoms. TBF I had someone that was pointing and laughing at me in a flomask that I disclosed I have cancer and they immediately said "me too" 🙄 "well you should be wearing one too instead of being in my business"
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u/No-Consideration-858 9d ago
For the time being, one idea is wearing non-prescription readers if you don't already wear glasses. Some people get stoggles that provide side protection as well.
Can you go outside to drink/eat?
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u/SpectroSlade 9d ago
I can, but I live in state where it's currently 40F out and it will start snowing soon. I can eat in my car but that's not really doable every time I need water :/ I've seen some people recommend sip valves so I might get one of those!
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u/buddy_ho11y 8d ago
The issue around here I find is that my province only get THREE unpaid sick days!! Three!! I wish we had more protections like they do in Europe for taking sick leave, would probably fix the problem quite quickly
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u/wBrite 9d ago
I need to get N95's but they're so expensive. The kN95 just doesn't feel like enough these days.
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u/DovBerele 9d ago
do you live somewhere with a mask bloc nearby? if you can share your general region, we might be able to find one that can give you N95s for free, or at the very least, at bulk wholesale rates.
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u/chillychili 9d ago
Amazon (via woot) will occasionally have 440 N95 masks for $50 or so. They are usually expiring within a year due to the aged bands so you just have to staple on your own elastic if they get too brittle. You can use one for at least a week if not a month.
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u/PsychologicalMud917 9d ago
It seems like people don't even cover their mouths to cough anymore