Originally published at: Sign a petition to mandate masks in drug stores | Boing Boing
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I’m not saying this is a bad idea, but limiting it to drug stores seems all but useless. Immunocompromised people have to go many places, and I have to imagine they’re significantly more exposed to Covid by going to, say, the supermarket every week than to the drug store once every six months.
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Most pharmacies these days are in a supermarket or big box store, so this would not do much good unless expanded to cover those
ETA: Not saying “Don’t do this” just saying “Think bigger”
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It’s easier for the person who knows they are at risk to put a mask on than to demand that every person they may come in contact with be prepared to put one on. Practical solutions and what have you. I live with someone who has concerns about being in public they have their medication delivered to them. Making everybody carry on like we are all deadly germ bags 24/7 isn’t how the human race has survived through the millenia - I don’t see how arbitrary masking locations is any kind of strategy for success and the people behind the petition seem to me like they just want to bully the public not actually help anyone. I’m not signing it.
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Is that what the petition asked for?
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ETA: Also, the mask is not to protect you - it is to protect others, so it’s not even an effective strawman argument
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Yeah, good luck with that. In my experience here in Melbourne, Australia, even medical practice staff weren’t wearing masks properly. In the midst of the fucking pandemic.
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Ctrl-F says that is not in the petition. It seems to be, as I pointed out above, being very specific in the places where masks should required to the point that I think it would be ineffective anyway (even Walgreens and CVS would make the argument that they are a convenience store that happens to have a pharmacy in it, not different really from the pharmacy in a supermarket/bbstore). I am very unclear how you get from that to every person they might encounter.
As for me I work in up to 10 stores a day and I wear a mask every minute because I am going from crowded place to crowded place and consider myself a vector for risk to others.
It inconveniences me not at all. And since I got a Monokuma mask I have met a lot of interesting people.
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And drugs in mask stores.
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Hopefully none of them are high school students asking if you want to join their “mystery club”.
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The the only time I actually go into the drug store is for covid booster shots, now - and although I’m shocked by how few people wear masks in the grocery store, finding out that people waiting for covid vaccines aren’t even wearing them is just baffling. Although perhaps that’s actually consistent behavior - maybe they recognize that masks help other people more than themselves, so although they recognize that they’re at risk and seek more protection, they don’t give a shit about anyone else? (What’s really baffling is people still wearing masks, even though they don’t have to, but their noses are uncovered.)
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how does that work exactly
what power do they have to intimidate “the public”
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It’s for this reason that masks are still required in all health-care-related facilities in Canada.
Came to say basically the same. The drugstore idea seems intuitively pleasing, but is there data that it’s a high-transmission area? Any more so than any other high-traffic area? If you’re going to burn political capital with the public for a policy like this, I think you’re better off going for the best targets- grocery stores and other large public gatherings.
I’m in favour of COVID safety policies, but I’m not in favour of non-evidence-based policy of any type.
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I mean I wear an N95 if I’m anywhere near a bunch of people, especially possibly sick people at a drug store.
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The thing that makes drugstores different is that this is where the public goes for vaccinations. I can avoid grocery stores (and have done so for 3 years now). I can avoid most other public locations. I cannot avoid drugstores when I need to get vaccinated. Neither can any high-risk person who needs the vaccine even more than I do.
Last year, I got COVID by going into a drugstore to get my booster shot. I am still experiencing after-effects from that. I was wearing a KN95 and trying to be responsible. It did not help because I was the only one wearing any sort of mask in the store. I have had a constant sore throat for a year now. F*ck the antimaskers who act like wearing a piece of cloth on their face is a horrendous sacrifice.
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Ah yes… because immuno-compromised people aren’t really part of the public! /s
It’s really not and it’s been the rabid anti-maskers who are the ones doing the bullying of the public. Over a million people died (not the mention the large number of people dealing with long-haul covid), and I’m guessing a large swath of those dead would not be if there had not been such an awful backlash to common sense precautions in a pandemic.
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But you do that four times, ever? People go to the grocery store sometimes weekly.
That’s a privilege most people don’t have. Grocery delivery is expensive.
You can go to a doctor, or use one of the drive through options. The risk from four times ever for 20 mins at a time is vastly less than anything else in your life unless you’ve managed to completely avoid public life since spring 2020. If so, well good for you, but that’s extremely unusual and we’re not making new laws for your special case of that last little thing you want to eliminate from your life.
Again, until I see actual data (not peoples’ feelings on the matter) that drugstores are a high vector, I’m not going to agree to any such specific rule. If someone wants to propose masking in all public gatherings bigger than X people, then sure. I’m on board with that as a reasonable policy. There would be some debate around the value of X, but it’s a reasonable idea in general.
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No. There doesn’t need to be data because we know exposure can mean life-threatening COVID for immunocompromised people who can otherwise avoid it. People who can get their groceries delivered (whether they pay for delivery or have family/friends help). The one thing they have to be exposed is when they get their vaccinations. Doctors aren’t really an option for a lot of people in the US because that can take months.
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I’m not in the US, but I assume the petition is for pharmacies because that’s a goal that’s politically achievable in the US.
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