When covid-19 finishes running its course; we better not get this anal about touching each other. I hate not being able to shake hands or share hug with my friends.
i'm more of a Llama ,, "No Touchy!".. an hand shakes,, "i gotta smash your hand." to prove i have more testosterone.. o.0
masks,, i was wearing before this,, but i will still wear after,, people stink.!.. some "soak, bathe, marinate." in perfume/cologne.. and some have no concept of soap...
The problem with reactive masking is that most infectious diseases have a period before symptoms while they're contagious. COVID is special in that it has a much longer period than most.
That said, post COVID, I'll probably mostly just mask up for going outside during flu/cold season. That's an especially good time for it, because I find wearing a mask in cold weather works better than a scarf.
Without getting into specific research papers, masking has had many other benefits than to dampen the transmission of COVID.
This is the normal "peak" time for the Flu season in my neck of the woods, and the LACK of cases is significant. Turns out that basic hygiene (hand washing especially) and masks (preferably 3-layer with a medical-grade interior layer) prevent communicable diseases? Who would have thought?
I have co-morbidities. I am extremely careful whenever I leave the house. I mask up when I get a package/food delivery. I carry masks when I walk my dog, in case I get too close to others.
I have been medically released from my military career, and had NOT BEEN ALLOWED to go to my workplace since mid-March of last year by my doctor. In fact, I would have been in the absolute last group of people to return to the office. I was an admin on secure networks, so while I was technically "working from home", I wasn't able to do the day-to-day work I normally did.
This pandemic has actually opened up a few different doors than I would have thought possible. Many (if not most) companies in my area are now mostly (and in the case of Shopify, entirely, since they sold their corporate HQ) home-office. We can learn a LOT from artists who's work place have traditionally been their own homes on how to cope with things.
I used to work in Japan on a regular basis. Anywhere on public transit you would occasionally see someone wearing a mask to keep from spreading germs to others. That was years ago.
One of the known symptoms of Covid-19 is the loss of the sense of smell.
I have been noticing, on the occasions when I'm out, that a large number of people smell worse than usual.
I have been assuming, out of an abundance of caution, that stinking and not seeming to know it most likely signifies that someone is infected.
I miss faces. People used to have faces. They could see each other smile. But, save for my wife, I've seen no one's face in person for a year now. I've seen them only on TV, or through glass, or whatever. When they're only seen at one remove, I feel a growing unease that somehow they are not real faces any more.
It's as though some incomprehensible aliens came in the night and stole everyone's face.
Microscopic organisms are indeed pretty incomprehensible. They may have been around us all of our lives, but we don't actually *see* them, so they're pretty alien to us.
Re: alt text, That's an interesting convention in NT. The no-touch part, coupled with the lack of masks and distancing suggest to me that their "Oblivion Pandemic" didn't have so much of the airborne transmissive component the and mostly spread through contact.
Great world-building, showing the differences of social conventions in different places, while also character development at the same time!
Did we ever see anyone in Nova Roma greet anyone with a handshake? I am not recalling any incidence before now that suggests the gesture is considered polite or commonplace there.
I don't remember any "on camera" examples of it, or really any anecdotes told, either. This is the only on camera situation I'm aware of. Of course I may have missed something, or simply disremembered it.
Lots of examples of people punching people. Even New Trojans like Dolly and Lynn punch total strangers when provoked, so “Jeff” is hardly a special case.
There was ONE NT entity that used a rather...enjoyable...method of introducing herself in NR. That STILL ended up with the other person unconscious, though... lol
I've favored population masking up any time the flu gets a bit wild in an area since SARS.
You can guess what my view of the CDC about twelve months ago was...
masks,, i was wearing before this,, but i will still wear after,, people stink.!.. some "soak, bathe, marinate." in perfume/cologne.. and some have no concept of soap...
That said, post COVID, I'll probably mostly just mask up for going outside during flu/cold season. That's an especially good time for it, because I find wearing a mask in cold weather works better than a scarf.
This is the normal "peak" time for the Flu season in my neck of the woods, and the LACK of cases is significant. Turns out that basic hygiene (hand washing especially) and masks (preferably 3-layer with a medical-grade interior layer) prevent communicable diseases? Who would have thought?
I have co-morbidities. I am extremely careful whenever I leave the house. I mask up when I get a package/food delivery. I carry masks when I walk my dog, in case I get too close to others.
I have been medically released from my military career, and had NOT BEEN ALLOWED to go to my workplace since mid-March of last year by my doctor. In fact, I would have been in the absolute last group of people to return to the office. I was an admin on secure networks, so while I was technically "working from home", I wasn't able to do the day-to-day work I normally did.
This pandemic has actually opened up a few different doors than I would have thought possible. Many (if not most) companies in my area are now mostly (and in the case of Shopify, entirely, since they sold their corporate HQ) home-office. We can learn a LOT from artists who's work place have traditionally been their own homes on how to cope with things.
I have been noticing, on the occasions when I'm out, that a large number of people smell worse than usual.
I have been assuming, out of an abundance of caution, that stinking and not seeming to know it most likely signifies that someone is infected.
I miss faces. People used to have faces. They could see each other smile. But, save for my wife, I've seen no one's face in person for a year now. I've seen them only on TV, or through glass, or whatever. When they're only seen at one remove, I feel a growing unease that somehow they are not real faces any more.
It's as though some incomprehensible aliens came in the night and stole everyone's face.
So, yes, actually, they did.
*lol* fiction gets caught up in reality... =P
Great world-building, showing the differences of social conventions in different places, while also character development at the same time!
Was it because too many people...discorporate...while watching the movie "Oblivion"? https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=discorporate
If you want delivery, you need to get Samanta to tell your jokes. In the current environment, the best deliveries are by Amazon. ^_^