Spring 2022 -- Moving Online?

[mamselle]

Hunh?

One can be careful and wear a mask under any circumstances; if idiots follow the "don't mask, don't tell" nonsense, you avoid them.

Insouciance is no more and no less a shallow performance of virtue than an implied consideration for one's own and others' health.

What matters is people each doing the best they can in their own circumstances for the care, health, and safety of themselves and of others.

That's been the case from the beginning, and although the parameters and meaning of what those basic principles imply may shift with various advances and/or setbacks, that's still the basic case.

No reason to be moralistic about it: we're all just people doing our best (or we could be).

M.

[the_geneticist]

My university said that masking indoors on campus is required, even if the state ends the indoors mask mandate.

[Caracal]

Hunh?

One can be careful and wear a mask under any circumstances; if idiots follow the "don't mask, don't tell" nonsense, you avoid them.

Insouciance is no more and no less a shallow performance of virtue than an implied consideration for one's own and others' health.

What matters is people each doing the best they can in their own circumstances for the care, health, and safety of themselves and of others.

That's been the case from the beginning, and although the parameters and meaning of what those basic principles imply may shift with various advances and/or setbacks, that's still the basic case.

No reason to be moralistic about it: we're all just people doing our best (or we could be).

M.

Right, but I think the problem is that at some point it becomes exhausting for me to try to gauge the public health implications of all my actions and those of others. There's really a need for a set of guidelines about when mask mandates should be loosened or done away with and when they might need to return.

[mamselle]

Sorry, I guess I just don't see a mask as a huge issue. You wear it, you work around it.

So?

A chacun(e) son gout.

M.

[Mobius]

We can't wear masks forever,  though, right? When should that occur? Vast majority don't think it should be "Zero Covid." CDC guidelines are farcical regarding the color coding scheme. How many deaths per day are unvaccinated adults? How many vaccinated adults who died had Covid, but it didn't play a role in their death? We don't have easy-to-access data for the first question and the Biden administration is trying to get a handle on hospitalizations due to Covid (or whether they just have Covid while hospitalized for something else).

[mamselle]

But, see, some places (like Japan) do have people wearing masks forever.

When I saw groups of masked Japanese tourists on my tours several years back (in the SARS years) I thought they were being over-careful.

Not anymore.

We could have learned from them.

M.

[Puget]

But, see, some places (like Japan) do have people wearing masks forever.

When I saw groups of masked Japanese tourists on my tours several years back (in the SARS years) I thought they were being over-careful.

Not anymore.

We could have learned from them.

M.

Americans are not going to do this though-- even those of us who have been reasonably cautious are not. There are certainly costs, in terms of the non-verbal information we get from faces, as well as general comfort. As I recall you've been mostly interacting on zoom throughout, so haven't experienced teaching in person with masks-- it really is harder, and really shouldn't be necessary permanently in vaccinated populations. We are going to have to transition to treating this more like flu. There may be times during surges that we go back to masking temporarily, but it won't and can't be permanent.

[Mobius]

But, see, some places (like Japan) do have people wearing masks forever.

When I saw groups of masked Japanese tourists on my tours several years back (in the SARS years) I thought they were being over-careful.

Not anymore.

We could have learned from them.

M.

Masking in Japan isn't as ubiquitous as we think.

[marshwiggle]

But, see, some places (like Japan) do have people wearing masks forever.

When I saw groups of masked Japanese tourists on my tours several years back (in the SARS years) I thought they were being over-careful.

Not anymore.

We could have learned from them.

M.

Masking in Japan isn't as ubiquitous as we think.

It's really common in China. And pre-covid, it wasn't strange here to see international students from China wearing masks walking down the street or around campus.

[mamselle]

Well, true, I'm primarily still teaching online.

But I have training in both theater and vocal music, and I've given tours outdoors for years, so my vocal projection is pretty much habitual.

As for facial communication, it's all in the eyes anyway, really--which is one thing the British actors get right and American actors always miss.

So, I still don't see it as a handicap....more like an actor's assignment.

As a friend who does Baroque dance (masked) has said (echoing the classic French mimes), "The mask reveals character, it doesn't conceal it."

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzLBE4P3dA0

M.

[Puget]

Well, true, I'm primarily still teaching online.

But I have training in both theater and vocal music, and I've given tours outdoors for years, so my vocal projection is pretty much habitual.

As for facial communication, it's all in the eyes anyway, really--which is one thing the British actors get right and American actors always miss.

So, I still don't see it as a handicap....more like an actor's assignment.

As a friend who does Baroque dance (masked) has said (echoing the classic French mimes), "The mask reveals character, it doesn't conceal it."

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzLBE4P3dA0

M.

Well, you're welcome to continue masking as long as you like. I have zero problem with that. But it isn't realistic to think that others will.
(and as a psychologist, I'm going to have to disagree about the facial expression information. . .)

[OneMoreYear]

Well, true, I'm primarily still teaching online.

But I have training in both theater and vocal music, and I've given tours outdoors for years, so my vocal projection is pretty much habitual.

As for facial communication, it's all in the eyes anyway, really--which is one thing the British actors get right and American actors always miss.

So, I still don't see it as a handicap....more like an actor's assignment.

As a friend who does Baroque dance (masked) has said (echoing the classic French mimes), "The mask reveals character, it doesn't conceal it."

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzLBE4P3dA0

M.

Well, you're welcome to continue masking as long as you like. I have zero problem with that. But it isn't realistic to think that others will.
(and as a psychologist, I'm going to have to disagree about the facial expression information. . .)

Agree with Puget. I want my students to feel comfortable coming to class. If they want to continue masking after our University mask mandate is lifted, I don't have a problem. I too will disagree about nonverbal communication being all in the eyes (there also may be some cultural differences here with regard to the impact of facial covering, given cultural differences in judgement of facial expression).   

Further, as someone who is hard of hearing, it is a significant impediment to not being able to read my students' lips in class and to have their voices muffled by masks. I wear a mask with a clear center, in case it helps my students, but I certainly can't mandate they wear one for me. We work around it, but it is more work. My students who are English language learners also report more difficulty.

I am fully on board with being compliant with health recommendations during a pandemic. I'm vaxxed and will continue to mask as required. But, I think it is important to at least acknowledge the trade offs, and to consider when it is acceptable to reduce masking.

[Mobius]

But, see, some places (like Japan) do have people wearing masks forever.

When I saw groups of masked Japanese tourists on my tours several years back (in the SARS years) I thought they were being over-careful.

Not anymore.

We could have learned from them.

M.

Masking in Japan isn't as ubiquitous as we think.

It's really common in China. And pre-covid, it wasn't strange here to see international students from China wearing masks walking down the street or around campus.

Again, not as ubiquitous. Masks are also primarily worn outside due to smog or dust storms. Just search for subway photos from China or Japan prior to Covid.

[AvidReader]

We are going to have to transition to treating this more like flu. There may be times during surges that we go back to masking temporarily, but it won't and can't be permanent.

What I would like to see, where vaccination rates are reasonable, is a gentle shift to masking when feeling unwell, just generally. Pre-COVID, I occasionally taught with colds (and warned my students to keep their distance). It never occurred to me to add a mask, but now I would. Whether I have a cold, the flu, or COVID, masking will greatly lower the chance that I will transmit that to my students or even to random people in the grocery store. Masking when contagious seems reasonable and polite and I wish it could become less politicized.

AR.

[Caracal]

Sorry, I guess I just don't see a mask as a huge issue. You wear it, you work around it.


M.

I don't think it is that big a thing. But it does have costs and those costs add up over time and we have to find ways to balance these things. I think you'd also have more success getting people to comply with mask rules during periods of high transmission if they went away when things improved.

More broadly, I wish we could drop the whole thing about whether its reasonable to get back to normal. I think it mischaracterizes what most of us want. There's no such thing as a stable normal anyway. Obviously some things will be different as a result of the pandemic for a few years, other changes might be longer lasting. I don't really know what those changes will be and don't trust anyone who thinks they do. So, I don't want to "go back to normal." What I don't want is for Covid to dominate the next two years of my life the way it has the last two. One of the ways our institutions have really failed us is by making everything about individual choices. Obviously, there's some role for this kind of stuff in terms of being responsible and following the rules. However, it isn't workable in the long run.

I want sensible rules that balance different harms that I can actually follow. Decide on a threshold that makes sense in terms of cases or illness for mask mandates. Combine that with actual monetary support for things like HEPA filters which are quite effective at reducing risks of infection. I'd like to feel like I can stop wearing my mask in the classroom if numbers get below some threshold without feeling like I'm doing something wrong. If the numbers go over the threshold, I'll go ahead and wear the mask again.