this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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My current general rules for masking are

  1. If I am outdoors in a sparse environment, I do not require myself to wear a mask, but should still try to keep a >6' distance between myself and others. If I am already wearing a mask, whether and when I take it off is up to comfort.
  2. If I am indoors but alone in the room, a mask is recommended, as aerosols may still be lingering in the air; but if I figure enough time has passed, and masking is uncomfortable, I'll allow myself to take it off.
  3. If I am outdoors in a crowd, or indoors with any number of people (with exemptions for a few specific people), I must wear a mask.

But when it comes to the "sparse" environment vs "crowd" rule... How many grains in a heap, right? I've tried looking into this myself, but the information I find is vague and contradictory, which leads me to feel conflicted in situations where it might be a heap but it's hard to determine.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

For 2, I make sure to air out the space by opening windows and/or usually having air purifiers, but otherwise I'm pretty much following the same guidelines as you. Though, as we travel deeper and deeper into The Forest of Are You Freaking Kidding ME I find my definition of crowd is getting smaller and smaller. Really, I just don't put myself into the situations where it's an issue as much. I put my mask on in the parking lot, if I wasn't wearing it already, because sometimes it's just easier to leave it on, and then I don't take it off until I'm back at the car/home. The occasional times I go to the homes of close friends, I only take my mask off outside and make sure I'm either directly under/in front of a fan or put some significant space between myself and the group; Sit back on a bench and hold court kind of thing. Probably the riskiest thing I do is bike drop off/pick up from school for the little ones where I'm putting my hopes on there being enough air flow to keep from catching anything as we ride past the crowd. Realistically, one snotnosed brat sneezing on me would be the start of a bad time though. Also, pets, I try to only unmask around them either outdoors or in a room with an air filter, but I'm probably putting too much faith in the species barrier given we do know they've been catching our pathogens. But if we go to that point I'd have to mask in my sleep.

edit: I should note, that being a bubble of 1 living with family, I do mask at home as well except for in my bedroom/bathroom where I have filters. I eat out on a porch where I have fan on. Which, of course, doesn't stop my family from coming out and having conversations with me as they sniffle away. So yeah, them and my cat/ their dog are the likeliest infection vectors.