I'm increasingly angry at myself for not realising much earlier in life that you can just wear a respirator and basically never get sick (in my case, it would have been particularly nice not to have got Long Covid)
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The amount of colds and flus I've had in life compared to how I've had zero related to where/when I mask in last few years. Not being acutely sick for weeks a year is pretty nice, especially when teaching.
Better late, eh! Many years ago, I caught my SIL preparing party food, coughing into her hand then grating more cheese. I yelped. Sheepish, SIL turned on the tap and twiddled her fingertips in the stream -- no soap. I gave up. My last family feast, my last flu. Stopped going & stopped getting sick.
Same. Wearing an n95 would have stopped me getting ME/CFS 27yrs ago from atypical pneumonia, & sicker from every chest infection caught in my GP & infectious disease drs’ waiting rooms. And if schools had cleaned air, I wouldn’t have got sicker from every cold kid brought home.
i hardly ever got sick regardless, religiously wore a respirator indoors since covid and then caught it outdoors. post-viral fatigue still hitting hard three months later.
respirators are obv a good idea but you can get unlucky and still end up staring long covid in the face.
I could've(maybe) prevented smelling loss from influenza as a teenager awhile ago, and prevented chicken pox & then excruciating pain from shingles in my thirties.
Personally I'm not angry with myself for not knowing, but I would be if I didn't act on my knowledge now to prevent further harms.😷
Agree, regarding long covid. But honest question: isn't some exposure to pathogens actually helpful to the immune system? If you're too protected, when you get sick, you can get really really sick. From what I understand early lack of immune exposure is also often the source of allergies.
From what I heard viral infections can sometimes actually make allergies or the immune system worse. It's possible some are beneficial but I'm not aware (I'm also not an expert). Alternatively to viruses, you can also get tons of exposure to bacteria, fungi, etc for the hygiene hypothesis
I'm also no expert, but my understanding is that the hygiene hypothesis does *not* suggest that there are positive benefits to exposure to viruses e.g. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5320962/
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We've poisoned our atmosphere.
respirators are obv a good idea but you can get unlucky and still end up staring long covid in the face.
Personally I'm not angry with myself for not knowing, but I would be if I didn't act on my knowledge now to prevent further harms.😷