Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/08/yall-masking-hashtag-goes-viral-on-x-showing-maskers-they-are-not-alone.html
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Contributed by Jennifer Sandlin
Thank you again for your COVID awareness stories.
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I’m masking right now!
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Up until like ~2 months ago, I was on most excursions out. This was mostly out of consideration for my GF. She has slowly allowed herself to not mask in short trips, though may still in some stores and at work. I am not except under specific circumstance. If I ever air traveled for sure. If I am in some hours long line with the same randos around me. Haven’t been to a concert, but PIG is coming up in October, and I may then. (I work from home, so I am here so much out of the day and rarely travel.)
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Both People’s CDC for the US and World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) have continuing rational takes on the ongoing threat, trends and long term consequences. They dig for whatever meager info is still available. Both are superior to social media alone and there’s sufficient interest globally to assume their are others.
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Yes! I’m a big fan of People’s CDC, Mike Hoerger at Tulane Univ., WSWS, COVID Data Report, and others!
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you’re welcome! i’m doing my best!
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That’s great, thank you.
We’re still masking in indoor spaces with lots of people.
Our neighbor has bad cancer, we’ve been to the hospital a lot, it amazes me that even on the cancer floor, very few people are wearing masks.
We’ll sit outside mask free visiting him but if we go in their house we put a mask on for two reasons, they’re in and out of doctor’s offices and hospitals without masks so we’re protecting ourselves and second because we don’t want to be the one to give a guy with stage four small cell lung cancer a respiratory infection.
He asked us for a ride the other day and he came to the car wearing a mask because he knows we still take it seriously. He’s a good person.
We are so glad to see all those people as we scroll the hashtag.
Some of the comments though…
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There’s great covid info and a ton of support for masking on Mastodon – so many science people there, and as a bonus, it’s not a haven for nazis… unlike twitter.
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Anybody you can recommend to follow?
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Still wearing masks in public places. I haven’t had many colds since 2020. And I’m not getting dirty looks any more. Maybe a lot of the vitriolic anti-maskers have died off.
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I am still masking in the office at all times. More of the nurses are as well, with everyone thinking of pertussis. Hopefully it sticks?
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My best friend from HS had his kid recently diagnosed with Leukemia (he is mostly non-verbal autistic, which makes things even more difficult).
He wanted to meet up for lunch a couple times, as I am 20ish min from the hospital his treatments are at. I asked about masking, where he could meet, etc, and he said in the hospital they had a filtration system where they (him and his kid and family) weren’t masking except for specific times like when they put the actual chemo in the port. So, I have no idea how wide spread it is - but that’s their experience. 
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Same here, and especially in healthcare facilities. 
During my last visit to the dentist, I was the only one wearing a mask in the waiting area. However, most of the time healthcare providers who aren’t wearing a mask when I arrive put one on before proceeding.
The worst reaction I’ve had was in the waiting room at a doctor’s office. Lots of people started whispering to each other, etc. as soon as I sat down. 
While I was filling out paperwork, a receptionist called me back over to the desk to ask if I was wearing a mask because I was sick. So I told her (loudly, to make sure everyone could hear me) that I was wearing one to avoid getting sick, before I sat back down.
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I will say, a couple times I took my Aranet CO2 monitor and found in most common areas it was reading in the 500s so air is being exchanged well.
That doesn’t mean it’s safe to be in a room with a sick person but it does seem as though they’re doing something right.
Would still make me nervous without a mask.
And from the not completely convinced it works but it certainly can’t hurt department we use Enovid nasal spray before going into the hospital.
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I was on a flight a couple weeks ago and someone in the row behind me coughed the entire way. I swear I felt some droplets land on my neck.
Only a 2-hour flight, so keeping the mask sealed and not eating / drinking was no biggie. I got home and dumped my clothes in the wash, dropped the mask in the trash, and showered.
I have no idea what he had - COVID, pertussis, or just some damn run of the mill cough. I didn’t want it. I was pleased when three days later I still had no symptoms.
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well, the cool thing i’ve found about Mastodon is you can follow hashtags, so if you follow #Masking and #Covid, for instance, you’ll see any posts made anywhere that use those hashtags.
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I’ve only been using RSS, I haven’t the slightest idea how to do that :-/
i got you. try this!
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Mostly, sort of. That will get you posts from anyone using the hashtag that’s within reach of your server (at least one person on your server follows the person who made the post). On a big server and with a person that’s widely followed it’s effectively the same thing, but if you’re on a smaller server and/or the post is from someone that’s relatively obscure there’s a good chance you won’t see the post just by following the hashtag.
[Smaller server admins can somewhat mitigate this by manually opting in to the full feed of specific servers but typically this is done on a topical basis, like if you’re on a smaller server that focuses on say the InfoSec community, they may automatically pull the full feed of other servers dedicated to or with a high number of posts related to the same topic.]
[There are also “relay servers” that propagate popular posts that a small server admin could elect to pull a feed from as well, although this isn’t as widely embraced on Mastodon servers as it is on other parts of the Fediverse.]
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