OP Note: The actual article has a lot of hyperlinks which I didn't bother putting in the post for time reasons.

This piece has been brewing in my head over the last few years as I’ve watched a dramatic shift happen. In a very generous framing of this dynamic, a growing number of people are questioning: what possesses someone to still wear a mask, aren’t they just anxious and paranoid?! This has created tension in families, partnerships, friendships, workplaces, social groups, and other communities. Since the answer is unclear to many, I want to address this.

And I say all this as a mental health professional who specializes in working with the chronically ill and disabled communities; is trained to recognize the impacts of trauma, cognitive biases, and thought distortions; with education and training in research methodology who has poured over infectious disease research for several years; who has lived with Long COVID and been part of this community for 5 years; and who has welcomed far too many new faces to this community in recent years.

What I think when I see someone wearing a mask in 2025:

Maybe they are immunocompromised and they need to avoid any sort of illness because they are at high risk for long-term health impacts, disability, or death.

Maybe they have one of the many conditions that puts them at increased risk for severe outcomes from COVID infections (yes, even from current variants), including asthma, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular conditions, a BMI over 30, pregnancy, any history of smoking, substance use disorders, depression, ADHD, autism, and many others.

Maybe they do not personally have any of these risk factors, but someone they care about and spend time with does, and they are trying to protect their children, family, partner(s), friends, coworkers, parents, church members, classmates, teammates, patients, constituents, or other community members.

Maybe they live with or recently had contact with someone who has been sick, and understand they could be carrying that illness but don’t want to spread it to others.

Maybe they realize many illnesses, including norovirus, influenza, and 49% of COVID infections, can occur without any symptoms, and they know that infectious diseases still spread even without symptoms or before symptoms develop - so they don’t assess whether they are ill or infectious to others based on how they feel, especially at a time when multiple viruses are running rampant.

Maybe they believe in body autonomy and understand health within in the context of consent, and they choose to honor others’ bodily autonomy by acting to prevent transmission of the many airborne infectious illnesses that are currently spreading since they cannot get consent from everyone they come in contact with in their daily life.

Maybe they are an ally and advocate for groups who experience health disparities, and they know women, older adults, chronically ill and disabled, those with mental health concerns, LGBTQIA+ and trans people, and racial and ethnic minorities are all at higher risk for more severe health impacts.

Maybe they realize spread of unmitigated illness is a tool of colonization that harms systemically marginalized groups, and they actively choose not to engage in this.

Maybe they enjoy not being sick.

Maybe they avoid illness because they don’t get any paid time off at their job.

Maybe they are actively sick but they cannot stay home, so they are preventing further transmission to others.

Maybe they know that the scientific review claiming masks were ineffective at preventing illness was retracted, but the retraction/correction didn’t get as much press as the initial “gotcha” headline, and in fact there are multiple meta-analyses showing the effectiveness of masks at preventing airborne respiratory viruses, including recommendations that good-fitting respirators are used since vaccinations are inadequate.

Maybe they know norovirus, COVID, influenza, tuberculosis, measles, and other infectious diseases are airborne and spread by aerosols that can linger in the air for hours, and that handwashing or sanitizers are insufficient.

Maybe they know that regardless of how someone feels, people can still spread illnesses for many days (COVID = 10 days, norovirus = 14 days, influenza = 7 days, RSV = 8 days, rhinovirus = 14 days) including days before there are any symptoms.

Maybe they are aware that there’s a measles outbreak, and that it still carries many risks, including immune amnesia/the immune system forgetting how to fight off illnesses it had once learned to fight.

Maybe they are health-conscious and take a preventative approach with a good diet, exercise, and avoiding viruses that can have many long-term impacts.

Maybe they adapted to new knowledge and decided to avoid illnesses after reading recent research that suggests many viruses first assumed to be mild (including chicken pox, Epstein-Barr [mono], herpes, influenza, norovirus, and others) may actually contribute to the development of neurodegenerative diseases, like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, dementia, and multiple sclerosis.

Maybe they know this flu season is the worst in 15 years and people are currently being hospitalized and dying of the flu.

Maybe they know the difference between microbes and pathogens and understand that these type of viruses are not beneficial to the body.

Maybe they know that the COVID virus has been found to have multiple impacts to the immune system.

Maybe they realize that the more times someone has COVID, the risk for Long COVID increases, that even mild COVID infections from current variants are still causing Long COVID and other health problems, and that people still get these long-term, often disabling conditions whether or not they have had vaccines.

Maybe they don’t engage in exceptionalism, and realize these long-term consequences can happen to anyone.

Maybe they remember the guildeline presented in 2021 for “going back to normal” was less than 10,000 COVID cases a day, and know we haven’t hit that benchmark in the US since it was set (or since March 2020), so they don’t think this is normal.

Maybe they have a healthy distrust of authority and question that the move to reduce COVID isolation guidelines from the original 10 days to 5 days came after pressure from executives, and not because the risks or infectiousness changed.

Maybe they were aware of the marketing research team that advised the Biden administration that people didn’t want to hear about COVID anymore so talking about it in the past and “taking the win” would be a good political move to be re-elected, but this advice was not because the health risks were gone.

Maybe they know that when the WHO declared “COVID-19 over as a global public health emergency” in 2023, the Director-General also said, “However, that does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat….As we speak, thousands of people around the world are fighting for their lives in intensive care units. And millions more continue to live with the debilitating effects of post-COVID-19 condition. This virus is here to stay. It is still killing, and it’s still changing….The worst thing any country could do now is to use this news as a reason to let down its guard, to dismantle the systems it has built, or to send the message to its people that COVID-19 is nothing to worry about.” and they decided to heed this caution.

Maybe they have seen evidence that recent COVID policies have been economic decisions and not health-oriented, even though Long COVID has had major impacts to the economy and may have an annual economic impact of approximately $1 trillion.

Maybe they know the COVID is “no worse than the flu”narrative was from Trump’s pick for NIH and was based on bad science.

Maybe they know there have been over 447,000 publications on COVID, and that among these, there is evidence of long-term health risks that can affect multiple organs and body systems, and these can occur among all age groups.

Maybe they try to avoid chronic health problems because they have seen how much people struggle to get care due to insurance hurdles, lack of knowledgeable doctors, increasingly long wait times, or the realities that health care is now a risky environment for vulnerable people.

Maybe they want to protect their health because they anticipate the already strained healthcare system will only face more challenges as a growing exodus of doctors leaving medicine is creating a shortage of providers, and changes being made by this administration are likely to create more barriers to getting care.

Maybe they are a healthcare worker who has worked with patients who have Long COVID, have seen how life-altering and debilitating it can be, know that there are no approved treatments, saw the Advisory Committee on Long COVID get axed by this administration, and they do not want to risk having this fate or and passing this on to others.

Maybe they are in good health but have assessed their other risk factors and don’t have exceptional financial means, job security, or social supports/potential caregivers if they were to get sick and become disabled or unable to work.

Maybe they noticed an air quality alert that day and know that exposure can harm people’s health.

Maybe they never felt it was ok to let “the vulnerable fall by the wayside” even though this was government policy.

Maybe there are reasons they did not get vaccines, and they wear a mask to protect against communicable diseases.

Maybe they are aware that 75% of people lie about having contagious illnesses, and that this includes 61% of healthcare workers.

Maybe they have a major event or gathering coming up and they don’t want to be ill or bring an illness to it.

Maybe it’s important to them to create spaces that are accessible because the next several years are going to require community - and they want that community to include everyone and to be healthy enough to respond and act.

Maybe they don’t believe it’s ok to leave anyone behind and know everyone deserves and has a right to exist in public spaces, and they see continued masking as a way they can actively embody and advocate for this.

Maybe they know that vulnerable people have been harassed and assaulted for continuing to mask the last several years, and that masking helps change cultural attitudes and supports the right for citizens to protect their health.

Maybe they believe that, much like smoking indoors or drunk driving, an individual can assume personal risk with their choices, but that “you do you” freedom needs limits if those choices threaten other' people’s health and safety.

Maybe they decided to do something that actively protects vulnerable groups instead of a safety pin or blue bracelet.

Maybe they care more about their health and the health of others than about fitting in with societal norms, and are willing to be weird to not go along with government-sanctioned eugenicist policies that abandon vulnerable groups.

Maybe they have seen the growing efforts to outlaw masks, even as infectious airborne diseases are raging, public health is being dismantled, wildfires are only likely to continue, and it’s important for them to actively defend rational preventative health measures.

Maybe they know that these mask bans have language about “medical exceptions” but that police or vigilante citizens should not be in a position to determine if medical needs are valid or not, and bans would only increase discrimination, threat, and harm to already vulnerable groups?

What I do NOT think when I see people wearing masks in 2025:

They are weak, living in fear, have irrational anxiety, or are paranoid.

They are uninformed and stuck in the past.

They are a criminal or planning to commit a crime.

For myself and many others, there’s been significant emotional and intellectual whiplash trying to understand the jump from the “we’re all in this together” masking camaraderie of the early pandemic days to the demonizing, pathologizing, and harassment of mask wearers today. Not that long ago, wearing a respirator was accepted as part of basic infectious disease prevention, established as part of public health policy focused on the greater good, and expected of everyone able to wear one as part of our shared responsibility to fellow citizens in this society.

I’ve watched this simple act, which protects the health of the wearer and everyone around them, get politicized and distorted into a sign of mental illness or criminal behavior. Anti-mask rhetoric that was met with disdain when it came from the fringe, alt-right in 2020 has made its way across the political spectrum and is now being promoted among even the most left “radical” groups. If there isn’t straight up hostility and vitriol, there’s often avoidance, annoyance, and refusal to accommodate mask requirements that would make spaces and gatherings accessible.

False narratives are being used to dehumanize people and criminalize a basic preventative health practice. In reality, most of the people still masking are among the strongest, most self-assured people I’ve known. They are the least concerned about other’s perceptions, the most concerned about others/our collective well-being, are embodying self-care by protecting their health (and mental health), willing to interrogate their choices and motivations, and are committed to accepting and integrating data and new information - even when they want desperately to be wrong about what they learn. They are also among the most alienated, judged, ignored, harassed, invisibilized, and forgotten.

So if your intersectionality includes these groups, your framework for social justice includes disability justice, your anti-oppression work includes ableism, or your spiritual practices involve “loving your neighbor” - please consider what you will do to reintegrate, include, uplift, and care for these valuable, integral badasses.

He said he doesn't believe in parental authority. After she left the room he called her a red fash.

Deleted my saved games. Said that property is bullshit.

Literally every Maoist I know does this. Fuck all of you and take out the bin rubbish. Cuz you all just leave it for me.

Like we'll open the box and immediately the anarchists take the best slices. Like every time.

Also I don't mind if you want another slice. And I don't mind if you don't want to eat the crust. But damn there's like 5 square centimetres of vegan cheese on there. Finish that before you move onto another slice.

Also they use WAY more ice than they need. Like seriously you can't even put any Coke in your cup, there's too much fucking ice in there.

This is why I just show up to Food Not Bombs events and just quietly stare at the organisers. They ask if I want to help out, but I just answer "nah brah" and continue watching Facebook shorts on my phone.

I've been posting faithfully in this comm for 20 years!

I'm almost 50! Who's going to let me post in their comm in my age?!?

It feels like many of you were raised by a family of pirates. Everything is f this and s that. "I'm gonna lick you in your a-hole", etc. Unlike you group of feral wolves, I was raised by a good family that cares about morality. My mum taught me about right and wrong, and using curse words demonstrates a clear problem with your character.

Also many of us browse Hexbear with small children and/or elderly relatives. I know you jerks don't care how you come of, but please don't teach your disgusting piece-of-snot habits to my young children. By Josh, let's keep this space family friendly!

I gave up weed since I was a teenager. I have a very active inner monologue, my therapists have always said that I intellectualise everything, which isn't a good thing. Weed smoking just makes my inner demons even louder, me more anxious, and the over analysing even more over done. Maybe it'll be different because it's been 20 years, and supposedly cannibis breeding has made strains that don't make you paranoid???

NOPE

Thankfully I didn't take bong rips like 18 year old me used to. (Do you all even still call them bong rips). Even just a couple of puffs brought back the old self hatred and paranoia.

The only good thing is that middle aged me is better at arguing against my inner demons than teenager me. My life sucks because this system sucks, not because I suck. Some people hate me because they're materially comfortable descendants of settlers and colonisers who still take the side of empire in 2025. I'm lonely because this system is alienating AF.

I put on positive commie music for two hours and sang along, literally crying for much of it. I feel asleep to Columbo.

tldr: if weed made you paranoid at 18, it might still make you paranoid in your 40s.

This is what you get for besting me:

The golden ass washer of protection +2

The H5N1 avian influenza virus can now be found not only in milk and on milking equipment but also in farm wastewater and in the air, say researchers who have been trying to figure out how the virus spreads on dairy farms.

The researchers identified the virus in both large and small aerosol particles in the air on farms affected by bird flu in California, according to a new preprint paper posted on the biology server bioRxiv.

“There is a lot of H5N1 virus on these farms,” says Seema Lakdawala, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the Emory University School of Medicine and senior author of the new study, which has yet to go through scientific peer review. “It is everywhere. We need to be expanding biosafety measures, biosecurity measures and trying to control where the virus is.”

The finding—that the virus is “everywhere”—fits with what has been seen in previously published work, says Richard Webby, who studies host-microbe interactions at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. “It’s a ridiculously contaminated environment,” Webby says.

The high concentrations of H5N1 in the environment may explain why the virus transmits so readily among cattle on dairy farms, as well as why a study from last fall found that 7 percent of tested dairy farm workers had antibody evidence of a previous bird flu infection. H5N1-infected cattle were first reported in March 2024. Since then the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found 41 human cases directly stemming from contact with milking cows. And the disease has spread readily within herds.

But exactly how it’s spreading has been oddly difficult to pin down.

Another recent preprint study by the Ohio State University veterinary medicine professor Andrew Bowman and his colleagues found that, when liquid containing the virus was put into cows’ teats, only a very low dose was necessary to cause an infection. But strangely, when the researchers milked the well cows with contaminated equipment—the way the virus was assumed to be spreading on farms—the healthy cows did not fall ill.

“It seems like it shouldn’t be that hard to make transmission happen, given the way we see it spread through dairy farms in the field,” said Bowman in an interview with Scientific American in June.

Lakdawala and her team wanted to figure out how the virus moves between cows in hopes of finding a way to slow or stop the spread. They began testing affected dairy farms in California in the winter of 2024 and ended up assessing a total of 14 farms by early 2025, a period representing the peak of the dairy cattle outbreak. The researchers used aerosol sampling devices to test both cow exhalations and the ambient air in milking parlors and barns. They also tested milk and the entire wastewater system, from the drains in milking parlors to the manure lagoons outdoors.

The team found plenty of opportunities for the virus to transmit, given that viral particles were found all over. “It’s not a single event or a single thing that drives transmission,” Lakdawala says. “The likelihood is: overbombardment of viruses in the environment is leading to efficient transmission. They’re inhaling it; they’re probably also finding it on their bodies; they’re licking it; they’re finding it on the milking equipment—all of it together.”

The researchers found one sample with mutations in an area on the H5N1 genome that’s known to change when avian viruses become more adept at spreading between humans. It’s not clear whether that particular mutation would have helped the virus infect humans more effectively. Luckily, that version of the pathogen did not go on to reproduce: it seems to have emerged and, just as quickly, to have died out. Another recent paper, published by Webby and his team in the journal Nature Communications in July, found that, so far, the virus circulating in cattle still looks very much like the virus circulating in birds. That research also found that the bovine virus couldn’t spread through the air between ferrets, which are used because they transmit flu viruses much like humans do.

“We’ve dodged a little bit of a bullet so far with cows and this virus,” Webby says.

But with so much virus on affected farms, there’s a chance that future human-oriented mutations could arise, Lakdawala warns. She suspects the virus becomes aerosolized during both milking and cleaning. Also, workers often spray down floors and other farm surfaces with wastewater that they now know can contain infected milk. Face shields that can block large droplets and large aerosols without the discomfort of masks might be one way to reduce cow-to-human infections among workers. Rapid “at-barn” H5N1 tests, not unlike the at-home flu or COVID tests people can purchase at drug stores, would help farmers identify and isolate sick cows before they could infect others, she says. And treating infectious milk before it’s dumped—perhaps with a weak acid such as vinegar or lemon juice to inactivate the virus, Lakdawala says—could keep H5N1 out of wastewater.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) plans to cancel $500m (£376m) in funding for mRNA vaccines being developed to counter viruses that cause diseases such as the flu and Covid-19.

That will impact 22 projects being led by major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer and Moderna, for vaccines against bird flu and other viruses, HHS said.

Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine sceptic, announced he was pulling the funding over claims that "mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses".

Doctors and health experts have criticised Kennedy's longstanding questioning of the safety and efficacy of vaccines and his views on health policies.

The development of mRNA vaccines to target Covid-19 was critical in helping slow down the pandemic and saving millions of lives, said Peter Lurie, a former US Food and Drug Administration official.

He told the BBC that the change was the US "turning its back on one of the most promising tools to fight the next pandemic".

In a statement, Kennedy said his team had "reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted". "[T]he data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu," he said.

He said the department was shifting the funding toward "safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate".

Kennedy also claimed that mRNA vaccines can help "encourage new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics as the virus constantly mutates to escape the protective effects of the vaccine".

Health experts have said that viruses mutate regardless of whether vaccines exist for them.

This was true every year for the flu virus, for example, said Dr Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Dr Offit said mRNA vaccines were "remarkably safe" and a key to helping prevent against severe infections from viruses like Covid-19.

HHS said the department that runs the vaccine projects, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), would focus on "platforms with stronger safety records and transparent clinical and manufacturing data practices".

While some vaccines use an inactivated virus to trigger an immune response, mRNA vaccines work by teaching cells how to make proteins that can trigger an immune response. Moderna and Pfizer's mRNA vaccines were tested in thousands of people before being rolled out and were found to be safe and effective.

Dr Offit, who invented the rotavirus vaccine, said the funding cancellation could put the US in a "more dangerous" position to respond to any potential future pandemic. He noted mRNA vaccines have a shorter development cycle, which is why they were crucial to responding to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since taking office, Kennedy has taken a number of steps to transform how the nation's health department develops and regulates vaccines.

In June, he fired all 17 members of a committee that issues official government recommendations on immunisations, replacing them with some people who have criticized the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

He also removed the Covid-19 vaccine from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women.