But we didn’t know that at first. Even the experts had no clue how it transmitted and had to just be like “assume it spreads in all the ways until we can figure out how it spreads.” And then of course once they knew people needed to mask, they told people not to mask for a good while. At least in the U.S…
The logic was “medical workers need masks more than anyone else, so we have to tell everyone not to mask to save our reserves of masks.” But they didn’t say “don’t mask to save reserves for medical workers.” They said “you don’t need to mask.” (Fauci himself was saying this knowing full well people needed to mask.)
There was an early scientific paper that suggested the Covid virus was surviving for 5 days on surfaces. Turned out only to be in extremely optimal conditions, but still very sobering
Can’t believe they didn’t ask us to make homemade masks… some would’ve still made a run on store-bought masks, but we could’ve been a little better protected. (Protected better by how much much still seems to be hard to determine exactly?)
Sometimes I forget how fucking weird 2020 was. I joined a group of people at my local church who were sewing masks. I didn’t know how to sew, but I could cut fabric. I’d bike across town (too young to drive… wait a second, 2020 was four years ago, holy fuck) to pick up a bag of fabric with instructions included, then drop off the cut pieces at another house. The weirdest part is that I never met anyone in the group, save for the one person I talked to over facebook messenger.
They did! There was a a video by the US surgeon general showing how to make a mask out of a t-shirt and rubber bands. That was an unexpectedly spooky video.
I should’ve been clear that I was referring to only the earliest days of the pandemic. Wikipedia’s summary jives with my memory:
Federal officials initially discouraged the general public from wearing masks for protecting themselves from COVID-19. In early April, federal officials reversed their guidance, saying that the general public should wear masks to lessen transmission by themselves, particularly from asymptomatic carriers.
Which was always overkill because Covid doesn’t really transmit by touching contaminated surfaces like the flu does.
But we didn’t know that at first. Even the experts had no clue how it transmitted and had to just be like “assume it spreads in all the ways until we can figure out how it spreads.” And then of course once they knew people needed to mask, they told people not to mask for a good while. At least in the U.S…
The logic was “medical workers need masks more than anyone else, so we have to tell everyone not to mask to save our reserves of masks.” But they didn’t say “don’t mask to save reserves for medical workers.” They said “you don’t need to mask.” (Fauci himself was saying this knowing full well people needed to mask.)
There was an early scientific paper that suggested the Covid virus was surviving for 5 days on surfaces. Turned out only to be in extremely optimal conditions, but still very sobering
Can’t believe they didn’t ask us to make homemade masks… some would’ve still made a run on store-bought masks, but we could’ve been a little better protected. (Protected better by how much much still seems to be hard to determine exactly?)
Sometimes I forget how fucking weird 2020 was. I joined a group of people at my local church who were sewing masks. I didn’t know how to sew, but I could cut fabric. I’d bike across town (too young to drive… wait a second, 2020 was four years ago, holy fuck) to pick up a bag of fabric with instructions included, then drop off the cut pieces at another house. The weirdest part is that I never met anyone in the group, save for the one person I talked to over facebook messenger.
They were strange times. ¯\(°_o)/¯
Love that emoticon, first time I’ve seen it.
They did! There was a a video by the US surgeon general showing how to make a mask out of a t-shirt and rubber bands. That was an unexpectedly spooky video.
https://youtu.be/PI1GxNjAjlw?si=nEKQbzqis8XQnKGq
I remember that!
I should’ve been clear that I was referring to only the earliest days of the pandemic. Wikipedia’s summary jives with my memory:
Yeah. I certainly made my own homenade masks when bought ones were scarce.
That was not a “known” thing right when the lockdowns kicked off.