Unpossible!
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There’s actually two different questions hiding in this. One of them is an anti-vax talking point, not just about masks but about why to even get vaccinated at all.
They box it in and call it a gotcha question is something like posted “So if you have an unvaccinated person and a vaccinated person with Covid, how likely are either one to infect me?”. And, if the timing is just right, the answer is probably “about the same”. Which is the gotcha the anti-vax group like to use for why bother and it’s not going to stop or even slow down spread. I don’t think you’re trying to say this, but that group coopting it to drive their anti-vax message distorts discussion.
The second question is more about the public health and statistics. The first question starts with the assumption that the vaccinated person is already infected and infectious.
Any number of studies, reporting, and public health graphs shows that the number of cases in vaccinated people is way less than in unvaccinated people. Even lower in boosted people. So, given 100 random vaccinated and 100 random unvaccinated people at an event, a larger number of the unvaccinated are likely to have COVID on any given day. If you only interact with 50 people, 25 from each group, the chance that you’ll be exposed to someone who currently has COVID is much larger with the unvaccinated interactions. So, if this was the only difference, the vaccinated group is less likely to even require an answer to the first question, there’s a reduction just because the first doesn’t happen as often.
Next, there are some studies that relate to the time frame of infection and how long someone is infectious. Those studies seem to say that a vaccinated person is in the infectious window for less time. Applying this to the first question, if you hit the timing just right it may be the same, but the vaccinated person is in the time window for less time.
Applying these two public health parts to the original question means you’re less likely to run into a vaccinated person that’s at the spot in the infection lifecycle to be as infectious as an unvaccinated person. You could get unlucky, but the statistics are in your favor.
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Home Depot has been selling the 3M 9205+ N95s, which are great for me. They are valveless, tri-fold masks that fit me better than the “cup” style 8511 or 8210V N95s. And they are individually wrapped, and come folded flat, so it’s easy to keep extras handy.
However, without fit testing, even an awesome n95 like the Aura may be leaking 10% or more - you don’t know. So be careful about doing risk compensation because you are wearing a mask with high filtration. The filtration may be great, but you aren’t getting the full benefit if it is leaking, which it almost certainly is.
Wear a NIOSH certified elastomeric source control mask for better likelihood of a good seal. Dentec NxMD is an example. No valve. Silicone body. There are others too.
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According to the Ontario dashboard, two shots reduces the chance of catching it by 62.6%.*
* all kinds of problems with a ballpark number like that. Just what are they measuring and how? Combine that with initial Omicron overload followed by Ontario policy of “fuck it!” towards testing.
Without good contact tracing (which we’ve never had), figuring out if someone got it from a vaxed or unvaxed person would be a problem, so transmission rate probably has even worse numbers.
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Those are exactly the kinds of folks I don’t want to go to Disneyland with.
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Clearly being vaccinated drastically reduces your change of death, hospitalization, and even having bad symptoms of Covid. What is less clear is how well it prevents a vaccinated person from spreading it.
As much as I like the idea of a vaccinated person being “rewarded” with not having to wear a mask - and the are significantly protected from the disease - I am not sure if them NOT wearing a mask is the safe thing to do or not. Vaccinated people spreading it to other people - vaccinated or not - is not a good thing. Remember most masks prevent one from spreading the disease, not from catching it.
I can’t help what mental gymnastics anti-vaxers do where they take a specific fact and distort it into nonsense. (e.g. “You can still get infected when vaccinated, so what is the point?”)
I will keep those in mind. The cup ones have super god damn tight straps, but I get a decent seal. I was at Vintage Stock (they resell video games, movies, cds etc) and someone asked “What incense are you burning?”
I was surprised, as usually you can really smell incense and I could not. So I put a finger into the side for a second and sniffed, and sure enough I smelled it. So it gives me a little extra peace of mind that it should help prevent me from catching it than a cloth mask.
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N95 fit is very individual. So those cup style N95s really could be the best for you. Sounds like you are getting some useful feedback.
I wish there was particle count mask fit testing available outside of workplace testing. Because there is not, I only think the Aura tri-folds fit me better in terms of seal (they totally do in terms of comfort). I don’t actually know.
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The mask question is a different one. I agree that it shouldn’t really be tied to vaccination status. Having said that, if you knew for sure that everyone you’re interacting with was vaccinated, the risk of infection would be lower than if the interaction group includes both or unknown people.
Really, mask usage should be tied to community transmission level. Which the overall level is largely set by the unvaccinated. Unfortunately, the higher it is, the higher is also drags the reduced vaccinated level.
If we say that below some level of community transmission masks are no longer needed. A group of vaccinated people will hit that level prior to a group of unvaccinated people. It’s unlikely the value we pick is 0, but something above that where transmission is still possible. Which does mean, for some level the math works out that vaccinated could remove and be no worse than masked unvaccinated, no better either. I don’t think we’re at that level now, and if we were, might as well wait until it’s low enough for everyone just to keep it simple.
For me, that’s somewhere lower than daily cases 5/100K, or 7 day average cases below 50/100K, closer to 10/100K. We’re not there yet.
That was more commentary on why it’s so hard to find information. The zone if flooded with crap around this. (Clearly it wasn’t commentary about you.)
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I was at EPCOT yesterday, will be there again tonight (food festivals, I mean, I moved here for a reason).
Pre this announcement mask-wearing was surprisingly consistent, nearly everyone followed the posted guidelines without issue. Yesterday, post-announcement, no one had any on, nor did they have them around their necks - they’re effectively non-existant now.
We were wearing ours indoors and anywhere crowded pre-omicron (we didn’t attend during the height of the surge). Post-omicron, we’ve been wearing them everywhere and will continue to do so, and while there are still folks doing the same, the numbers are very very few.
That being said, we moved here to Orlando in November and despite very many Disney visits, have managed to escape unscathed, so the common-sense rules we’ve been following (stay outdoors as much as possible, mask up indoors, stay out of large groups) seems to remain effective. Will be a little more difficult in Disneyland Park though, given how squished together everything (and as a result, everyone) is there.
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Say safe, brother, we won’t make it without you.
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When you wish upon a star…I suppose.
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Glad you’ve been safe!
My worry would be that each time I go into an area of possible transmission it is like pulling the arm of a slot machine. Each time is a gamble, and the more I gamble, the more likely my odds are going to come up.
I was kind of surprised to learn what in hind sight is obvious. Once your mask gets to a certain high level of filtration the primary factor becomes leakage. And a typical N95 mask worn by someone like me who isn’t fit tested may be leaking 10% or more, meaning that I might be getting a protection factor of 10. That means it would take me 10 x as long to get an infected dose as without a mask. So masking increases time to infectious dose, it doesn’t eliminate it.
I took way too much comfort in knowing that my model of mask had tested at 98.9% filtration or some such, not realizing that the chance I was really getting 100 factor protection was incredibly unlikely. Which was bad because wearing a mask leads me to risk compensation - such as in person shopping. So over estimating my protection levels may cause me to overestimate what activities are safe to participate in.
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Yeah, I’m literally 20min south of the Maus Haus, and while I’m honestly not a big fan (I’ve known people who’ve worked there and for the animation dept., and have perhaps seen too much of “how the sausage is made”), GirlChild would love nothing more at this point than a carefree “Magic” day, not having to worry about the pandemic etc…
But yeah, it’s kind of become a hotbed for privileged a-holes trying to make a point. Because, you know, if you ruin a day that’s costing me hundreds of dollars, I’m definitely going to consider your point of view…
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Exactly. This is why we can’t have nice things
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I’ve boiled all my after pandemic wants & needs down to hitting a dive bar, that’s it folks, just want’a go to a dive bar and drink, preferably without dying a slow and agonizing death as part of the price.
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maybe litigation. they have a policy, so if someone decides not to follow it - that person is to blame not disney
plus, they don’t really care about their guests. they care about their guests’ money. they may figure this is the most acceptable solution for the largest number of ticket buyers
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I guess I would have thought that having a policy - then completely failing to enforce it - would be more problematic for them than having no policy at all.
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it is floridia so… 
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Children under 5 cannot get vaccinated. But I’m sure Disney won’t make kids under 5 wear masks :-/
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