At least it’s not a door knob? 
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Here’s the article I was reading yesterday about choosing the right mask. It points out that KN95s and surgical masks lose a lot of their protective ability when they are wet. So if the KN95 prevents the licking, that’s good. But if it does NOT stop the mask from getting wet, then you (general you, not you personally) should probably go with cloth instead.
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Mine will not wear a hat, but she’ll wear a mask in stores for short periods of time. We always wear ours, and we let her play with them at home. We practice on her lovies. Show her pictures of kids in masks. Let her put our masks onto us. We never pressure her, just keep it easy and fun. So it’s like a dress up item. But then as we’ve gone into stores some with her, it’s “okay, time for our masks! Help mommy put hers on. Now Latte’s!” But it helps it’s for short durations and we’re not trying to train her for like, daycare.
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Okay, y’all. Crowdsource.
Should I be cancelling pedalpalooza rides? Outdoors, mostly adults but not always (in the case of my rides) but not always socially distanced at stops (i.e. when eating or doing performances). 20-50 people expected
Cases and hospitalizations are the highest they’ve been in my state. Oregon is 57% vaccinated.
Masks required outside in my state starting friday but there are exceptions for 1) eating 2) athletics 3) when social distancing is possible which technically all these fall under
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I personally wouldn’t cancel. It seems like an event that is easy to stay safe during, and pretty easily scalable for personal risk (via distancing, type of mask worn, or sitting it out with no penalty). The only thing is if you need to be there and it’s beyond YOUR risk level and no one can take over for you.
Obviously heavily indicating that masks are required outside now is a good idea.
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Derek was one of my managers at my first real job after university. We haven’t talked in probably a decade. It’s still hard to believe this is his story.
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Ours started asking for a macks at 15 or 16 months. We give him one when he asks and he seems to slowly wear it longer. He still doesn’t wear one for a full grocery trip. I have no idea and good luck. He also won’t wear shoulder straps in the stroller or car seat. I’m pretty sure he’s gone as far as dislocation to escape
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The neighboring school district has 23 cases in multiple classrooms in one of their elementary schools. Our district requires masking, neighboring district doesn’t.
One of my coworkers, who lives in the other district, recently got two emails for contract tracing from her older kid’s HS. They’re vaccinated, but also having symptoms 
Why is everything terrible?
ETA - she has a 7 year old who obviously isn’t vaccinated. They’re homeschooling this year to keep him safer…
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I have to regularly patch my daughter’s mask because she chews holes in them
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I would only cancel if you feel uncomfortable leading.
Consider reminding riders that even though masks are not required, they are encouraged.
But I live in a completely different world than you as far as covid. Except that our hospitals are bursting at the seems…it basically doesn’t exist here. I’m still frequently the only person in the grocery store in a mask.
Our rowing coach did remind us it’s OK to wear masks, and it’s a judgment free zone if we wear them. (Except in the singles, apparently capsizing in a mask is a safety concern).
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We have a standing monthly order for the wellbefore KN95 kids’ masks that @BiblioFeroz mentioned. I also like the kids’ masks chart @meerkat posted. There’s an accompanying youtube video, if you’re a real mask nerd:
The guy making these apparently has an advanced degree in aerosols. All the masks mentioned in his google doc & the video have great filtration, but it looks like Korean KF94 masks fit better & have better breathability. We’ve been, as a family, wearing Chinese KN95 masks the entire pandemic, but I just ordered several different styles of Korean KF94, in both adult and child sizes, to try. I ordered from this site, which allows you to buy singles of different styles to try out:
According to the video, filtration for these masks holds up for 30-40 hours, and he budgets 2 masks a week for his kid. In practice, my kid sometimes goes through 3 masks in a day because they’ll get smeared in chocolate, etc.
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I’m responding to both the question about the bike ride as well as comments from other elsewhere on the forum about not feeling up to doing another lockdown this winter.
My thoughts on how to handle Covid have changed in the last few months. I locked down pretty hard. I’m one of the few people I know who has not traveled more than an hour from their homes. And my mental health suffered bigtime last year.
I think it was this podcast that really challenged my thinking:
Ezra Klein pointed out that the mortality of Covid was about 1% before vaccination. Vaccination reduces the risk of death by 90%, mortality of 0.1%, which is on par with the flu.
How much did I ever change my behavior out of fear of the flu?
Nada. Never. I got sicker some years when I got a flu shot, so for many years I didn’t even get flu shots. I got one last year and will get one this year.
But I cannot do another lockdown etc. like I did last winter. I’m fully vaccinated, and I will get the booster when I’m eligible. If I’m fully honest, I feel I’m more at risk of self-harm from mental health issues than I am at risk of Covid.
So I’m doing outdoor biking events, unmasked. I’m going to an outdoor concert tomorrow night and I don’t plan to mask their either. I’m teaching a yoga class to unmasked persons (I mask since I’m the one who talks all the way through class, and some others mask but most don’t) and looking to pick up another class. I’m swimming at the indoor pool when exercising outdoors isn’t practical for whatever reason. I’m unmasked when it’s just me and another friend in one of our homes.
I do mask in stores, sometimes I’m the only person. I’m no longer dining indoors or going to movies which one of my best friends enjoys. I would mask if I was with someone who I knew it was important to. The people who I’m with in the places I choose not to mask (where just about everyone else is unmasked) have made a choice to be there, these are mostly recreational opportunities. Basically I’m doing the things that are important to me, masking if they are indoors; and not doing indoor things that aren’t as important to me.
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Brain dump ahead:
We all live in our own localized echo chambers of news, so I’d also like to offer some perspective from one of the most highly vaccinated parts of the country.
We are currently sitting at 73% of our total population having had at least one dose, and 77% of adults fully vaccinated. Although we just (last week?) had a mandate for masks in school set to last 1 month, masks are not mandated anywhere else on a statewide basis (except the continuing mandate on hospitals, prisons, public transport, etc…), and they are unlikely to be unless things a dramatic change for the worse. Individual towns are allowed to make their own mandates, and businesses can require them as well. Most places have not mandated them. I continue to mask inside buildings (generally), but not outdoors. I’d say there’s about 50%(?) masking in stores (even though, as above, we have over 3/4 adults fully vaxxed). Stores and businesses feel very business as usual. I don’t mask in my home when people come over, nor other peoples’ homes. I’m fully vaccinated, have no comorbidities, don’t live with anyone immunocompromised, nor children not eligible yet.
We are currently having a surge, as all other parts of the country, but it is a literal order of magnitude (10x) less than the parts where the surge is worst. Cases are up, hospitalizations are up. Deaths have ticked up (slightly, but it’s a lagging indicator). Despite our high vax rates, there are obviously still people here unvaccinated. Our indicators are flattening now, though, cases appear to be peaking, as they are even in hardest hit places. (Caveat - a lot of schools here don’t start until around or after Labor Day, so.)
Why do I say all this? We are 10%+ more vaccinated than much of the country. 20%+ more than the deep south. But vaccination rates are increasing everywhere. I think that the northeast is a preview of what we can expect soon (especially if under 12s is approved soon) if people keep getting vaccinated. Yes, people are still getting sick and dying, but it’s largely the unvaccinated. I don’t feel at al the fear that I felt last April when we didn’t know what the fuck this was and I had to move cross country in it and we didn’t even have effective treatments let alone vaccines. Now, if another variant pops up that is “worse” (more deadly, not necessarily more transmissible, and in fact more transmissible but less deadly would be ideal) all bets may be off. But I don’t think we’ll have another nationwide lockdown, or statewide lockdown, despite what fearmongers want you to believe. And worrying about some future risk due to some future variant right now is unwarranted.
Boosters for immunocompromised and highly susceptible people are here (or hopefully coming soon for J&J) will help a lot. Boosters (when the time comes) for the rest of the population will help a lot. Approval for children is coming, even if it isn’t as fast as people want. Vaccination rates are increasing. We have effective treatments now. We aren’t where we could have been, which is so, so disappointing, but we’re getting there. Even if your particular situation necessitates hunkering down for a little while longer, it won’t be for long. We have to have hope for the future, and I don’t think it is a false hope, it is real an I see it happening in my community and state.
Also! I think this:
Is a very, very, uplifting statistic. I too never even worried or thought about dying from flu. So at this point, if the risk is essentially the same, I logically should not worry about dying from covid.
I also saw an article (from some doctors) which of course I can’t find now, but they point out that the goal of the vaccines is to reduce serious ilness or death. The fact that these vaccines reduced the chance of even catching it so dramatically was an unexpected and welcome surprise (pre-Delta). And no vaccine is 100%. But even with Delta, the vaccines are still doing what they are supposed to be doing, dramatically reducing the chance of serious illness or death.
I’d also say that right now it feels like when we were ~1 year (maybe 2) post-9/11. If you lived through and remember 9/11 you maybe know what I mean. Immediately following and maybe up until a year later there was extreme fear among a lot of people around flying. It really did feel like we would never be safe again. People thought they’d never fly again. People (in cities anyway) felt like death was potentially around every corner. Even a year or two later that largely subsided. Obviously there was still risk. There still is. There is always risk. We learn to live with it.
Also also, I reserve the right to change my mind if (if!) a new worse variant gains traction. But for now, I will take some sensible precautions and live my life.
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My only quibble here is that all of this overlooks the post viral factors of long covid, which do appear to occur at a higher rate than flu and other illnesses.
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This is a valid concern!
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I did since I started being immunosuppressed, but did little to alter my behavior because of it. I have REALLY appreciated not getting sick for a good 3+ times a year due to precautions and reduced travel, and I think I very well may take precautions while traveling going forward.
But it is a good point that even the reduced efficacy of the J&J vaccine in me as an immunosuppressed person is likely to be similar to the efficacy of a flu vaccine in a given year.
That’s how I’m feeling mostly, here, but I’m kinda in a bit of a pause as I think our most recent delta variant spike will burn out the way we’ve seen in some other countries. It simmered down in the UK and India (to much death, unfortunately, because vaccines were not rolled out yet to most people and the medical system got overwhelmed) but now 2/3 of India has antibodies to covid because of the high rates of asymptomatic cases with such a transmissable variant.
So I’m cautiously optimistic that in a few weeks, our current local spike will simmer down.
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Yea, that’s the challenge I’m having. We didn’t enforce masks on the ride when they were required outside at the beginning of the summer because the ride was too big (500+ people), most adults were vaccinated, and technically bike rides fall under the “athletic” exception.
Then the outdoor mask requirement was lifted. We did 0 enforcing of masks all summer on the ride. Some wore them, some didn’t. I wore them as a leader for most of the rides during the riding portion except when it was 90F/32C+, then took it off once I went picnicing at the end. I definitely played croquet and served coffee to other unmasked people closer than 6 feet away, including some kids under 12.
Now I kinda feel skeptical about how much I want to enforce the mask situation. But it’s a much smaller ride, and there’s only one left.
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I personally would hold the ride, remind people, but don’t hound anyone. But that’s my comfort level!
ETA: Unless it is 90 degrees with a heat index of 97, because I just about passed out outside just now, even without a mask. Then it isn’t worth it.
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Do we have any information on long covid in the vaccinated?
Because my doctor has told me being vaccinated against covid is a similar risk to unvaccinated against the flu. And while I get the flu vaccine now that I have kids, I didn’t used to except when I was teaching daycare.
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“ Oregon has more people hospitalized than at any other point in the pandemic” so that’s not great
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