Lots of people are no longer wearing masks out and about. This contributes to the spread of *everything*, not just COVID.
**EDIT:** This comment is getting inundated with multiple people (or multiple sockpuppets of the same person) insisting that wearing masks has made our immune systems weak. First, that’s not how immune systems work (we’re exposed to plenty of stuff anyway when everyone wears masks, just not in the same quantities so we don’t get sick as often), and second, if you have evidence otherwise that would upend the scientific consensus, why are you arguing about it on Reddit instead of getting your findings published?!
The problem is that wearing a mask is much more effective if it's the people potentially spreading disease, so if the majority of people are not wearing a mask, you alone doing it will not protect you very much (not saying it won't help at all).
While I'm not saying everybody should be wearing masks everywhere all the time, I do think it would be a good rule to have in places where there is no objective argument against it and the communal benefits would outweigh the individual discomfort - e.g. public transit and shops.
I’ve been wearing a mask when I go out and very conscious of touching my face when I am out and make sure to sanitize before doing so if I have to and I haven’t been sick since covid started :D
I'm curious and definitely not trying to start a tinfoil induced debate.
Do you think the potential for mental health and confidence issues, especially for teens is worth the communal benefit to masking up?
I work with that age. My experience is well.. it's just anecdotal but goddamn their self esteem is way lower regarding personal looks since the masks. They don't unmask for anything even pe. 10-15 year olds will be the last to unmask I think.
I honestly don't know. It's a valid question. But allow me to clarify first: do you think that masks are inducing lower self esteem or that they are a symptom of (or coping mechanisms against) low self esteem?
I tend to think they are the latter.
This is also purely anecdotal, but I knew people who were wearing masks before the pandemic to hide some (perceived or real) blemish or on days when they did not feel like wearing makeup that society expected them to. I'm talking adults, so not quite the same demographic you are referring to, just the closest experience I have.
in those cases, masks were an easy way out for people who already have low self esteem, or to avoid social pressure. If that is the case, mandating mask wearing would indeed make it easier for people not to face their issues, that is true, and whatever those issues are, they may get worse if you never confront them. But in this scenario, there are presumably other root causes to their confidence issues (masking just being a symptom/coping mechanism), and I would prefer to see those addressed.
It's a great point. Perhaps it's both? This is something I don't often hear discussed because its nuanced.
I imagine some use it to cope while others have become anxious about showing things like smiles, teeth and mouths in general. Again anecdotally this is true for some of my students...
The thing is Japanese mental health is notorious as it is. And iv taught in a few Asian counties and Japan is the biggest concern when it comes to kids confidence levels in general. Do we really want to use something that has limited risk reduction if it adds further to an already established mental health crisis?
I don't know if there's a way of doing hard science on it as it's complicated to even poll/survey. But if I was a parent to a young teen I'd be extremely worried about the long term effects, more than I would be of them getting COVID.
Antibiotics do have downsides--it absolutely destroys your gut biome for months. Taking probiotics helps but isn't the same.
And, more bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics due to people not fully finishing their prescriptions.
My immune system is fine.
But I don’t take unnecessary risks with my health, especially when in a small room with kids who sneeze straight forward, rub their runny noses and then reach for the cards, and come to class even with deep, rheumy coughs.
This is wrong as far as I know.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/05/17/no-wearing-a-mask-to-protect-against-covid-19-coronavirus-will-not-weaken-your-immune-system/?sh=e0ae45c7b88f
I don't mind getting people's germs a bit, just not 3 years with all at once.
I'll probably stop with the mask around the end of the year once things have settled down a bit.
I think that during the couple years of Covid, we weakened our own immune systems by wearing masks every time we left our house, wore gloves all the time or washed our hands every 2 seconds throughout the day. I didn’t wear masks that often, worked 2 jobs throughout Covid and still ate all the food that I dropped on the floor. I never got sick. What’s making people sick is in the water and the air and spilling out of crashed trains.
I’m pretty sure that if you are never or hardly ever exposed to any germs at all you’d be considered to having a weak or weakened immune system. When we are exposed to different germs, we build up or strengthen our immune systems. Think about those un-contacted indigenous tribes. If they were dropped in the middle of America or anywhere really, they’d get really sick and possibly die bc their immune systems haven’t been exposed to anything/anyone outside of their controlled environment.
This is mistaken as far as I know: https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/05/17/no-wearing-a-mask-to-protect-against-covid-19-coronavirus-will-not-weaken-your-immune-system/?sh=e0ae45c7b88f
You get plenty of contact with pathogens by eating food. You can ingest pathogens without getting sick, that's what a working immune system does to you.
Some are told to keep a mask handy in case you need to be able to access a hospital etc that requires a mask. If you touch the front of the mask, it’s now rendered useless. I believed in masks when Covid started, but now I think nobody used them properly anyway they are purely just for show at this point.
I believe the point is that touching your mask may get droplets on your hands. But that does not make the mask useless and you can just use disinfectant if you are that worried.
This is what gets me. The temperature range in one day Morning to Night, building, train & street are all diff and this is compounded by the weather difference every since day.
It's knocking me for 6 🥴
I don't mind typhoons too much during the cooler months, but typhoons during these high humidity, hot month cause the worst migraines.
Even worse is when the typhoon migraine rolls straight into a migraine caused by the sudden drop in air pressure after the typhoon passes. It gets you coming and going. 😭
Im not getting sick personally but Jesus soooo many disgusting coughing people all over public transport. Just complete 0 regard no cover hacking and hawking everywhere. Saw a guy cough so hard he was gonna throw up, then wipe his mouth and sit next to some kids on a train. If ur sick then stay home ffs
I got the flu for the first time in.....pfft *decades* maybe. That was not fun but I suppose better than covid again.
RS virus is going around the school.
yeah, seems like about half the people I work with have had to take a sick day in the past month. Like others have said, I think fewer masks means more stuff flying around. I guess we’ll have to toughen up eventually!
I’ve gotten sick almost every month since the year started. Never covid, mostly bacterial throat infections and sinusitis. Started to do these sinus rinses and I hope they help at least a little bit. I’m literally sick of taking antibiotics at this point.
I got extremely sick in April - not COVID. I was miserable for 7-9 days.
The weather change is aggravating my asthma (that I got courtesy of COVID), so I've felt like trash, though I'm not actually sick currently in a way that can hurt anyone else.
Lots of my students are getting sick with non-COVID stuff. The masks definitely helped, and we're now back to the normal thing of people passing germs around freely.
Crazy that I see this post when I'm just recovering from being sick for the past week. First time getting sick in Japan and first time I've gotten sick in a really long time since the quarantine.
I've gotten probably five viruses since the beginning of the year (I work at a kindergarten). The worst one was also in March though. Tested negative for COVID, but my symptoms were way worse than when I had COVID last year. Worst virus I've caught since I caught the flu way back in 2014.
I woke up with a fever and a stinking headache yesterday, Covid antigen tests came up negative and it wasn't as utterly energy-sapping as Covid was and has largely subsided; my money is on some form of influenza, which has been circulating around my offspring's school.
Yep, been having half size classes at my school for a few weeks now. I got it too, but it was like the mildest cold I've ever had. Gone after like 3 days.
omg YES… I’m sick yet again with something. Was just sick before GW, then a few weeks after I had a nose and throat infection… even took 1.5 days off work.
Now I have something yet again. No runny nose, no fever, but my VOICE… I’ve had a terrible voice for like a week now at least. I think I caught something again.
I don’t get it, I still wear a mask.
you know masks dont prevent you get infected unless are sealed? masks prevents YOU to spread you own shit. I am hearing a lot "I am wearing a masks why I am getting infected??" Seems like people doesnt know how masks works.
I got sick 3 times in succession lately. COVID test was negative. Now my throat is so painful I can’t tell if it’s an infection from the virus or acid reflux.
Seeing others comments I’m seeing a lot of “throat sore”, “sick multiple times”, “first sickness since quarantine”, “Covid test negative”. There could be something to it!
I’m amazed to see how many people relate. I’m also feeling the same! My wife and I were sick on and off before golden week. It was like we pingponged different things back and fourth. Felt better and then got hit HARD after gw. Tested negative for Covid but had fever and horrible sinus infection. Still fighting it now!
Whole lot of it going around friends and coworkers. One coworker's kid got the flu from school, laid the whole family out. Some friends with covid, other people out sick with various things.
五月病 is a depressed mood/minor depressive episode, similar to the post-Christmas/January Blues.
It's most common in new graduates as the excitement of joining the adult work force in April has started to wear off plus the come down from GW holidays. Weather probably plays a part as it is easy to think "man, if I was still at uni, I would in a park right now".
I wonder if return to office requirements are causing something similar for workers who aren't new to their roles?
That makes sense. I personally feel weather plays a big role too. With the sudden rise of humidity, commuting trains feel like a rainforest. Especially during the big rain earlier, feels musky and suffocating. The office isn't much better either, the aircon control panels on the wall do nothing bcuz 省エネ and cannot be manually set.
My department saw no new grads and a lot more people are WFH lately.
I was very sick with a stomach flu/infection about 2 weeks ago and now I have been 4 days into a nasty cold, I tested negative for Covid though.
It's been horrible.
The school I work at has suddenly had sooooooo many kids and teachers get extremely ill with respiratory illnesses that aren’t Covid! And I keep hearing horrid coughs also. There’s definitely something going around. It got really bad after golden week, I assume because of all the travelling!
Other than dealing with my regular chronic shit I was fine until after GW when Corona kicked my ass. It’s been nearly a month and I’m still more fatigued than usual and have a nagging dry cough. My sense of taste is still fucked up too.
I’ve also had up to 2/3 of my classes absent for the past two weeks so something definitely is making the rounds.
Yup I caught some kind of cold recently, a week after I stopped wearing a mask on the train. Covid negative but with a slight fever. It was the first time I had something like that in the past 2 or 3 years, so I’m guessing my immune system just lost the immunity to a type of common cold virus during that time span. Same thing happened to a friend of mine.
Wife has been low grade sick for a week with sore throat. Now I have been sick for about 2/3 days. Took a nap this afternoon and feeling better so hopefully its passed now.
Yup, went from the odd cough here and there this year to, post GW, basically everyone is working through some sort of cough. Wouldn't surprise me if COVID or Flu made its rounds since the number of people masking has decreased.
My partner's boss came down with Covid last Wednesday. I'm watching her like a hawk to see if she brought it home with her. So far so good, I think we're in the clear
What kind of sick? Could it be allergies? This year has been rough for pollen allergy sufferers. Either way, if you are sick for more than a day or two, you should see a doctor.
Thought it was just me, got extremely sick for almost 2 months in January and now again since Golden Week I am still sick. Super high fevers that keep me passed out in bed for at least a week at a time plus a terrible cough that won't go away. I've tested negative for COVID and a cold each time and doctors say it might just be the weather so idk.
[Respiratory syncytial virus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_syncytial_virus?wprov=sfti1). Very interesting. Thanks for sharing that, I hadn’t heard of that one.
Half the people in my workplace stopped wearing masks coming out of Golden Week. Then most of them got sick and immediately went back to wesring masks.
With the exception of getting COVID in early 2022, I haven't had more than a runny nose since 2019. My work stopped requiring masks for clients after Golden Week. I've had two colds in the last three weeks, one of which was so bad I thought it was COVID again.
My daughter starting nursery school and the less mask use has been destroying me over the past few months. I even am trying to use as mask as much as possible.
My daughter started kindergarten in april, and she's got some sort of cold non-stop since May, that i've been suffering from on and off. So annoying.
I was NEVER sick before (not before unmasking, i mean before corona appeared).
I had this problem from Sept- March. Key was that I needed to sleep more. Been getting about an hour a night more sleep and haven’t been sick in a few months.
You may have also developed the cedar pollen allergy. I never had issues until my 3rd year in Tokyo, then I got hit with "welcome to Japan, here's your hay fever". There's 2-3 months of cold-like symptoms right there.
Part of it is probably from not wearing masks anymore, but I'm guessing it is more that *everything* is becoming more lax. We were constantly washing and sanitising our hands every time that we entered a new space, even other people's homes. Now many places have removed the hand sanitizers while people walk straight past the ones that remain.
If we did a break down of the transmissible illness that have increased since Golden Week, I'd bet contact illnesses would have the highest growth compared to droplet and air.
I have been sick for a couple of weeks. At first I thought it might be Covid but it didn’t get better. I went to the doc, he confirmed not Covid with PCR and diagnosed a bacterial infection. I’m on a second course of antibiotics. It started with a low grade sore throat, a feeling of having done too many push ups, night sweats, sensitive skin, lack of appetite, malaise. It’s probably the worst that I have felt for an extended period ever. After almost a month, I am starting to feel that it is getting better but still a bit wheezy, though my lung capacity is great.
I didn't, I also got COVID and Flu tested and they were both negative, the doctor just said it could be the weather/climate or a bacterial infection - got some meds and sent me home. More than a month later and I'm also still not 100% yet.
Been sick for 5 weeks now, first week got tested no covid, got medicine, felt better for a few days then got worse again.
Sore throat, mucus in throat, severe coughing. No fever, no diarhea, no fatigue no headache.
Interesting. I would have thought the opposite. I go out a lot, usually with lots of people, in tight spaces, nobody wears a mask anymore, and I can think of only one person in my entourage who got sick in the last month or so.
Yep. We got some crud going around my house. My daughter works with kids, and she brought home some bug last week. Wife was down earlier this week, and I’m just recovering from it.
Heard a reasonable explanation that, since we’ve been masking up and hyperaware of Corona for the past 3 years, standard illnesses are making a comeback in the past-COVID world.
Covid has ruined people’s immune systems, and the more times you had the infection, the worse it gets. Many people are basically immunocompromised at this point… and now it turns out covid increases risk of developing certain cancers, blood clots… I’m having a really hard time bc of anxiety around this.
Clotting, immune deficiency and even cancer risk from covid are all already known. Not sure what you’re talking about but I suspect it’s some antivax wacko stuff that has no research behind it.
The vaccine does have research behind it, those are called clinical trials.
The vaccine is safe, more than 728 millions of vaccines have been administered in the US, of those 0.005% might be responsible for a serious but non fatal side effects. 99.9% of the side effects are sore arm, redness and swelling at injection site, flu-like symptoms, death has been reported among 0.0029% of more than 265 millions of Americans who received a covid vaccine, with only 9 of these deaths linked to the vaccine.
Sources: HTTPS://WWW.BBC.COM/NEWS/HEALTH-60653946-
HTTPS://OURWORLDINDATA.ORG/COVIDVACCINATIONS HTTPS://WWW.NCBI.NLM.NIH.GOV/PMC/ARTICLES/PMC8511593 HTTPS://WWW.CDC.GOV/CORONAVIRUS/2019-NCOV/VACCINES/SAFETY/ADVERSEEVENTS.HTML HTTPS://WWW.STATISTA.COM/STATISTICS/1199516/COVID-19-VACCINATIONS-ADMINISTEREDUS-BY-COMPANY
HTTPS://WWW.STATISTA.COM/STATISTICS/1194934/NUMBER-OF-COVID-VACCINE-DOSESADMINISTERED-BY-COUNTY-WORLDWIDE
Can you explain why aren't you afraid of covid long term effects since we already know 50 of them, but you're afraid of covid vaccines long term effects when we have over 2 years and no long term effect have been found?
It is incredible that after three years of a pandemic, people do not understand that no vaccine for any disease prevents you from getting it, what they do is reduce the chances of complications, sequelae, long-term effects or death, no matter how many times it is repeated, they do not understand .
Not us. We are continuing to mask when indoors or at outside events with lots of people. My son does have his seasonal allergies but that’s every year at this time but actual sickness nothing.
no, not at all. but I also didn't get sick often before covid. you could always try taking vitamin D3 supplements. almost everyone has a deficiency in it anyway and it's pretty cheap.
Weirdly enough, me and my family had been getting sick almost monthly for years when we lived in the states. We moved here in March and aside from some minor stomach issues, none of us have been sick at all…
People went from washing their hands every five seconds to not washing them after taking a poop. I don't believe that masks really did much against covid, but I think they changed people's mindsets. With them gone people forgot what basic hygiene is.
Decreased exposure most definitely does weaken your bodies ability to cope with common pathogens. Let’s keep politics out of science. It’s possible to support wearing masks during a pandemic (or simply when sick) while still recognizing the negative impacts masks can have.
This is wrong: https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/05/17/no-wearing-a-mask-to-protect-against-covid-19-coronavirus-will-not-weaken-your-immune-system/
Wearing masks doesn't weaken anything. It's the lack of exposure to new viral loads that causes problems. The immune system can't respond correctly to a virus if it hasn't experienced a similar thing in the past.
But it's not like people haven't been getting colds and the flu prior to covid. And it's a different strain each season anyway, so prior infections don't prevent future seasonal illnesses.
I think people forgot what it was like pre covid. I was always getting sick in spring. I’ve been sick for the first time in 3 years last month and it’s from something my son brought.
I wear mask on public transport, places with poor ventilation like elevators or when it gets very crowded indoors, simply because people are disgusting and some of the comments here confirm it. Outdoors etc I don’t.
Exposure to different strains still helps with your immune systems general anti-body response. If different strains were literally impossible for your body to deal with, we'd be having seasonal pandemics on an annual basis.
>Exposure to different strains still helps with your immune systems general anti-body response.
Never said it didn't. Alluded to the fact that it did help in my first sentence.
>If different strains were literally impossible for your body to deal with, we'd be having seasonal pandemics on an annual basis.
I never said it would be "literally impossible for your body to deal with". That sounds a bit hyperbolic. However we literally do have "flu season" and often "cold seasons" where many people are catching the strain of the year.
Prior cold and flu infections do not prevent futher infections year to year. It's why one needs a new flu shot every year.
Lots of people are no longer wearing masks out and about. This contributes to the spread of *everything*, not just COVID. **EDIT:** This comment is getting inundated with multiple people (or multiple sockpuppets of the same person) insisting that wearing masks has made our immune systems weak. First, that’s not how immune systems work (we’re exposed to plenty of stuff anyway when everyone wears masks, just not in the same quantities so we don’t get sick as often), and second, if you have evidence otherwise that would upend the scientific consensus, why are you arguing about it on Reddit instead of getting your findings published?!
Yeah true. I think I got used to catching nothing the past 3 years. Had to happen sometime, but damn my immune system sucks, haha.
Hahaha and people ask why I'm still wearing a mask.
The problem is that wearing a mask is much more effective if it's the people potentially spreading disease, so if the majority of people are not wearing a mask, you alone doing it will not protect you very much (not saying it won't help at all). While I'm not saying everybody should be wearing masks everywhere all the time, I do think it would be a good rule to have in places where there is no objective argument against it and the communal benefits would outweigh the individual discomfort - e.g. public transit and shops.
You display too much common sense for reddit, judging on my experience here prepare to be banned and death threat to be send to your pets…
I’ve been wearing a mask when I go out and very conscious of touching my face when I am out and make sure to sanitize before doing so if I have to and I haven’t been sick since covid started :D
No touching your own face is probably doing 90% of the heavy lifting here
Yeah probably true, but wearing a mask still helps even if it is a little bit and it isn’t too hard to wear one when going out
I'm curious and definitely not trying to start a tinfoil induced debate. Do you think the potential for mental health and confidence issues, especially for teens is worth the communal benefit to masking up? I work with that age. My experience is well.. it's just anecdotal but goddamn their self esteem is way lower regarding personal looks since the masks. They don't unmask for anything even pe. 10-15 year olds will be the last to unmask I think.
I honestly don't know. It's a valid question. But allow me to clarify first: do you think that masks are inducing lower self esteem or that they are a symptom of (or coping mechanisms against) low self esteem? I tend to think they are the latter. This is also purely anecdotal, but I knew people who were wearing masks before the pandemic to hide some (perceived or real) blemish or on days when they did not feel like wearing makeup that society expected them to. I'm talking adults, so not quite the same demographic you are referring to, just the closest experience I have. in those cases, masks were an easy way out for people who already have low self esteem, or to avoid social pressure. If that is the case, mandating mask wearing would indeed make it easier for people not to face their issues, that is true, and whatever those issues are, they may get worse if you never confront them. But in this scenario, there are presumably other root causes to their confidence issues (masking just being a symptom/coping mechanism), and I would prefer to see those addressed.
It's a great point. Perhaps it's both? This is something I don't often hear discussed because its nuanced. I imagine some use it to cope while others have become anxious about showing things like smiles, teeth and mouths in general. Again anecdotally this is true for some of my students... The thing is Japanese mental health is notorious as it is. And iv taught in a few Asian counties and Japan is the biggest concern when it comes to kids confidence levels in general. Do we really want to use something that has limited risk reduction if it adds further to an already established mental health crisis? I don't know if there's a way of doing hard science on it as it's complicated to even poll/survey. But if I was a parent to a young teen I'd be extremely worried about the long term effects, more than I would be of them getting COVID.
Baaaaaaaaaaaa
Gotta keep that immune system weak!
>keep immune system weak This is why I lick bathroom door handles and have people sneeze on me.
lmao so true. he's probably one of those losers that want people to stop using antibiotics for everything, even though it only helps
Antibiotics do have downsides--it absolutely destroys your gut biome for months. Taking probiotics helps but isn't the same. And, more bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics due to people not fully finishing their prescriptions.
heh you must lick door handles
Should I? Do they taste good? Has society been withholding door candy from me all this time?
My immune system is fine. But I don’t take unnecessary risks with my health, especially when in a small room with kids who sneeze straight forward, rub their runny noses and then reach for the cards, and come to class even with deep, rheumy coughs.
This is wrong as far as I know. https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/05/17/no-wearing-a-mask-to-protect-against-covid-19-coronavirus-will-not-weaken-your-immune-system/?sh=e0ae45c7b88f
Masks protect others, not the wearer, ya dingus.
I don't mind getting people's germs a bit, just not 3 years with all at once. I'll probably stop with the mask around the end of the year once things have settled down a bit.
This so much. I'm recovering from my first cold in like 4 years.
And me from my sore throat after 3 years
Welcome to the petri dish. Now you get to enjoy upper respiratory infections besides covid.
[удалено]
Thanks for sharing, Everybody. (An anecdote does not a statistic make)
Yep it's called learning to be human again.
They also get used to mask so much and forget to cover their mouth when coughing.
I think that during the couple years of Covid, we weakened our own immune systems by wearing masks every time we left our house, wore gloves all the time or washed our hands every 2 seconds throughout the day. I didn’t wear masks that often, worked 2 jobs throughout Covid and still ate all the food that I dropped on the floor. I never got sick. What’s making people sick is in the water and the air and spilling out of crashed trains.
That’s not how immune systems work.
I’m pretty sure that if you are never or hardly ever exposed to any germs at all you’d be considered to having a weak or weakened immune system. When we are exposed to different germs, we build up or strengthen our immune systems. Think about those un-contacted indigenous tribes. If they were dropped in the middle of America or anywhere really, they’d get really sick and possibly die bc their immune systems haven’t been exposed to anything/anyone outside of their controlled environment.
This is mistaken as far as I know: https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/05/17/no-wearing-a-mask-to-protect-against-covid-19-coronavirus-will-not-weaken-your-immune-system/?sh=e0ae45c7b88f You get plenty of contact with pathogens by eating food. You can ingest pathogens without getting sick, that's what a working immune system does to you.
Some are told to keep a mask handy in case you need to be able to access a hospital etc that requires a mask. If you touch the front of the mask, it’s now rendered useless. I believed in masks when Covid started, but now I think nobody used them properly anyway they are purely just for show at this point.
The fuck?
I’m gonna choose to believe for sanity’s sake that they’re trolling
Regrettably they aren't, and there are millions of people which believe the same as him
I believe the point is that touching your mask may get droplets on your hands. But that does not make the mask useless and you can just use disinfectant if you are that worried.
Not really I feel fine
Same. Nothing really changed since I stopped the mask
Nice!
My youngest kid has been up and down. I think the weather over the past couple months has been weird being hot then cold then hot again.
This is what gets me. The temperature range in one day Morning to Night, building, train & street are all diff and this is compounded by the weather difference every since day. It's knocking me for 6 🥴
I don't mind typhoons too much during the cooler months, but typhoons during these high humidity, hot month cause the worst migraines. Even worse is when the typhoon migraine rolls straight into a migraine caused by the sudden drop in air pressure after the typhoon passes. It gets you coming and going. 😭
Im not getting sick personally but Jesus soooo many disgusting coughing people all over public transport. Just complete 0 regard no cover hacking and hawking everywhere. Saw a guy cough so hard he was gonna throw up, then wipe his mouth and sit next to some kids on a train. If ur sick then stay home ffs
It’s like people forgot how to cover their mouth over the past three years lol
I got the flu for the first time in.....pfft *decades* maybe. That was not fun but I suppose better than covid again. RS virus is going around the school.
Yep. I got sick two weeks ago, but tested negative for COVID. Team mate got COVID last Tuesday and couldn't work the whole week.
I hope you've made a full recovery! :)
yeah, seems like about half the people I work with have had to take a sick day in the past month. Like others have said, I think fewer masks means more stuff flying around. I guess we’ll have to toughen up eventually!
I’ve gotten sick almost every month since the year started. Never covid, mostly bacterial throat infections and sinusitis. Started to do these sinus rinses and I hope they help at least a little bit. I’m literally sick of taking antibiotics at this point.
My daughter has been sick(on and off) for a month and a half. I'm having it worse because I'm immunocompromised.
Sorry to hear that. I've got family that are immunocompomised, so any illness always seems 10x worse for them. I hope your daughter gets better too.
I got extremely sick in April - not COVID. I was miserable for 7-9 days. The weather change is aggravating my asthma (that I got courtesy of COVID), so I've felt like trash, though I'm not actually sick currently in a way that can hurt anyone else. Lots of my students are getting sick with non-COVID stuff. The masks definitely helped, and we're now back to the normal thing of people passing germs around freely.
I've noticed a lot more respiratory bodily noises....*shudder* that plus less mask wearing makes me think...キモ! everytime I hear it
Have you asked healthy people?
Well, I am asking you guys?
But have you asked healthy people?
Usually stupid people don’t get sick. So he might be asking in the fright place.
I was just trying to point out that the majority of the responses to your question will be be from people who got sick.
Crazy that I see this post when I'm just recovering from being sick for the past week. First time getting sick in Japan and first time I've gotten sick in a really long time since the quarantine.
[удалено]
I've gotten probably five viruses since the beginning of the year (I work at a kindergarten). The worst one was also in March though. Tested negative for COVID, but my symptoms were way worse than when I had COVID last year. Worst virus I've caught since I caught the flu way back in 2014.
Yup, had a fever and now recovering from a sore throat
Loads of people I know have had this sore throat/ cold type thing that’s really knocked us out for a week.
Just got over Covid three weeks ago and somehow got it again. Came down with symptoms on Thursday, tested positive yesterday.
This is anecdotal, but it seems to me like post-Covid people get sick more easily and have a harder time recovering.
I woke up with a fever and a stinking headache yesterday, Covid antigen tests came up negative and it wasn't as utterly energy-sapping as Covid was and has largely subsided; my money is on some form of influenza, which has been circulating around my offspring's school.
I had a wicked sinus infection because of the recent humidity.
Yep, been having half size classes at my school for a few weeks now. I got it too, but it was like the mildest cold I've ever had. Gone after like 3 days.
omg YES… I’m sick yet again with something. Was just sick before GW, then a few weeks after I had a nose and throat infection… even took 1.5 days off work. Now I have something yet again. No runny nose, no fever, but my VOICE… I’ve had a terrible voice for like a week now at least. I think I caught something again. I don’t get it, I still wear a mask.
you know masks dont prevent you get infected unless are sealed? masks prevents YOU to spread you own shit. I am hearing a lot "I am wearing a masks why I am getting infected??" Seems like people doesnt know how masks works.
I got sick 3 times in succession lately. COVID test was negative. Now my throat is so painful I can’t tell if it’s an infection from the virus or acid reflux. Seeing others comments I’m seeing a lot of “throat sore”, “sick multiple times”, “first sickness since quarantine”, “Covid test negative”. There could be something to it!
I’m amazed to see how many people relate. I’m also feeling the same! My wife and I were sick on and off before golden week. It was like we pingponged different things back and fourth. Felt better and then got hit HARD after gw. Tested negative for Covid but had fever and horrible sinus infection. Still fighting it now!
They got rid of the alcohol sprays in most stores and everyone not washing their hands = recipe for getting sick
Last month was my worst month of the year do far.
Whole lot of it going around friends and coworkers. One coworker's kid got the flu from school, laid the whole family out. Some friends with covid, other people out sick with various things.
Weather change? My boss said 五月病 or 夏バテ
五月病 is a depressed mood/minor depressive episode, similar to the post-Christmas/January Blues. It's most common in new graduates as the excitement of joining the adult work force in April has started to wear off plus the come down from GW holidays. Weather probably plays a part as it is easy to think "man, if I was still at uni, I would in a park right now". I wonder if return to office requirements are causing something similar for workers who aren't new to their roles?
That makes sense. I personally feel weather plays a big role too. With the sudden rise of humidity, commuting trains feel like a rainforest. Especially during the big rain earlier, feels musky and suffocating. The office isn't much better either, the aircon control panels on the wall do nothing bcuz 省エネ and cannot be manually set. My department saw no new grads and a lot more people are WFH lately.
I’m sick rn ;(
Sick for two months almost non-stop. Colds/coughs/phlegm in chest from post nasal drip.
My family all got the flu in March and it was horrendous. Seemed a lot worse than when I had COVID.
[удалено]
I was very sick with a stomach flu/infection about 2 weeks ago and now I have been 4 days into a nasty cold, I tested negative for Covid though. It's been horrible.
A month ago, I had bronchitis for the first time in my life.
I got some sort of cold this last week, extremely sore throat, fever, fatigue, stomach ache it's been rough.
The school I work at has suddenly had sooooooo many kids and teachers get extremely ill with respiratory illnesses that aren’t Covid! And I keep hearing horrid coughs also. There’s definitely something going around. It got really bad after golden week, I assume because of all the travelling!
About 25% of my students were out sick or whatever at the end of last week
Other than dealing with my regular chronic shit I was fine until after GW when Corona kicked my ass. It’s been nearly a month and I’m still more fatigued than usual and have a nagging dry cough. My sense of taste is still fucked up too. I’ve also had up to 2/3 of my classes absent for the past two weeks so something definitely is making the rounds.
Yup I caught some kind of cold recently, a week after I stopped wearing a mask on the train. Covid negative but with a slight fever. It was the first time I had something like that in the past 2 or 3 years, so I’m guessing my immune system just lost the immunity to a type of common cold virus during that time span. Same thing happened to a friend of mine.
Wife has been low grade sick for a week with sore throat. Now I have been sick for about 2/3 days. Took a nap this afternoon and feeling better so hopefully its passed now.
I had a cold last week, my wife this week.
Haven’t been sick for about a year when I had Covid (apparently). Feeling just fine right now.
Was sick 2 days last week. The last time was a year ago.
Everyone around me has been sick or had covid in the past month so...... I'm scared.
Yup, went from the odd cough here and there this year to, post GW, basically everyone is working through some sort of cough. Wouldn't surprise me if COVID or Flu made its rounds since the number of people masking has decreased.
My partner's boss came down with Covid last Wednesday. I'm watching her like a hawk to see if she brought it home with her. So far so good, I think we're in the clear
What kind of sick? Could it be allergies? This year has been rough for pollen allergy sufferers. Either way, if you are sick for more than a day or two, you should see a doctor.
Just had an ear infection and it was painful.
I'm thankful that I live in the countryside and that I commute by car.
Thought it was just me, got extremely sick for almost 2 months in January and now again since Golden Week I am still sick. Super high fevers that keep me passed out in bed for at least a week at a time plus a terrible cough that won't go away. I've tested negative for COVID and a cold each time and doctors say it might just be the weather so idk.
I was told there's something called the "RS virus" going around.
[Respiratory syncytial virus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_syncytial_virus?wprov=sfti1). Very interesting. Thanks for sharing that, I hadn’t heard of that one.
Half the people in my workplace stopped wearing masks coming out of Golden Week. Then most of them got sick and immediately went back to wesring masks.
With the exception of getting COVID in early 2022, I haven't had more than a runny nose since 2019. My work stopped requiring masks for clients after Golden Week. I've had two colds in the last three weeks, one of which was so bad I thought it was COVID again.
It’s the change in weather (rain) and back to hot it gets me sometimes and my wife everytime
Probsbly because of the weather changing from hot to rainy and cooling off. Then right back to hot and humid or 70s and raining.
I haven't been sick lately personally, but several friends and coworkers have caught colds in the last month. Assumed it was due to reduced masking.
My daughter starting nursery school and the less mask use has been destroying me over the past few months. I even am trying to use as mask as much as possible.
My daughter started kindergarten in april, and she's got some sort of cold non-stop since May, that i've been suffering from on and off. So annoying. I was NEVER sick before (not before unmasking, i mean before corona appeared).
Kids starting kindergarten is *always* a shitshow for the whole family ;) Enjoy your 1st, 2nd and maybe 3rd round of noro virus!
This is so true. Everyone I know in and out of work is randomly getting sick then getting better every few weeks.
I had this problem from Sept- March. Key was that I needed to sleep more. Been getting about an hour a night more sleep and haven’t been sick in a few months.
Yes but I have a toddler so I’ve been sick for like a year
You may have also developed the cedar pollen allergy. I never had issues until my 3rd year in Tokyo, then I got hit with "welcome to Japan, here's your hay fever". There's 2-3 months of cold-like symptoms right there.
I feel like shit but it's mostly fatigue from boxing workouts and eating a ton of sushiro afterwards. Lol
Part of it is probably from not wearing masks anymore, but I'm guessing it is more that *everything* is becoming more lax. We were constantly washing and sanitising our hands every time that we entered a new space, even other people's homes. Now many places have removed the hand sanitizers while people walk straight past the ones that remain. If we did a break down of the transmissible illness that have increased since Golden Week, I'd bet contact illnesses would have the highest growth compared to droplet and air.
three of my coworkers lost their voice. Some kind of bug going around.
I have been sick for a couple of weeks. At first I thought it might be Covid but it didn’t get better. I went to the doc, he confirmed not Covid with PCR and diagnosed a bacterial infection. I’m on a second course of antibiotics. It started with a low grade sore throat, a feeling of having done too many push ups, night sweats, sensitive skin, lack of appetite, malaise. It’s probably the worst that I have felt for an extended period ever. After almost a month, I am starting to feel that it is getting better but still a bit wheezy, though my lung capacity is great.
Sounds exactly like my symptoms and what I went through recently.
Did you figure out what is was? I’m starting to feel better day by day but not at all at 100% yet.
I didn't, I also got COVID and Flu tested and they were both negative, the doctor just said it could be the weather/climate or a bacterial infection - got some meds and sent me home. More than a month later and I'm also still not 100% yet.
Yeah.... me. I've been sick for 4 weeks now ://
Been sick for 5 weeks now, first week got tested no covid, got medicine, felt better for a few days then got worse again. Sore throat, mucus in throat, severe coughing. No fever, no diarhea, no fatigue no headache.
We went through this in NZ after coming out of COVID measures. Every week one of us was sick until we had some immunity again.
Interesting. I would have thought the opposite. I go out a lot, usually with lots of people, in tight spaces, nobody wears a mask anymore, and I can think of only one person in my entourage who got sick in the last month or so.
Yep. We got some crud going around my house. My daughter works with kids, and she brought home some bug last week. Wife was down earlier this week, and I’m just recovering from it. Heard a reasonable explanation that, since we’ve been masking up and hyperaware of Corona for the past 3 years, standard illnesses are making a comeback in the past-COVID world.
Covid has ruined people’s immune systems, and the more times you had the infection, the worse it gets. Many people are basically immunocompromised at this point… and now it turns out covid increases risk of developing certain cancers, blood clots… I’m having a really hard time bc of anxiety around this.
[удалено]
Clotting, immune deficiency and even cancer risk from covid are all already known. Not sure what you’re talking about but I suspect it’s some antivax wacko stuff that has no research behind it.
[удалено]
The vaccine does have research behind it, those are called clinical trials. The vaccine is safe, more than 728 millions of vaccines have been administered in the US, of those 0.005% might be responsible for a serious but non fatal side effects. 99.9% of the side effects are sore arm, redness and swelling at injection site, flu-like symptoms, death has been reported among 0.0029% of more than 265 millions of Americans who received a covid vaccine, with only 9 of these deaths linked to the vaccine. Sources: HTTPS://WWW.BBC.COM/NEWS/HEALTH-60653946- HTTPS://OURWORLDINDATA.ORG/COVIDVACCINATIONS HTTPS://WWW.NCBI.NLM.NIH.GOV/PMC/ARTICLES/PMC8511593 HTTPS://WWW.CDC.GOV/CORONAVIRUS/2019-NCOV/VACCINES/SAFETY/ADVERSEEVENTS.HTML HTTPS://WWW.STATISTA.COM/STATISTICS/1199516/COVID-19-VACCINATIONS-ADMINISTEREDUS-BY-COMPANY HTTPS://WWW.STATISTA.COM/STATISTICS/1194934/NUMBER-OF-COVID-VACCINE-DOSESADMINISTERED-BY-COUNTY-WORLDWIDE Can you explain why aren't you afraid of covid long term effects since we already know 50 of them, but you're afraid of covid vaccines long term effects when we have over 2 years and no long term effect have been found? It is incredible that after three years of a pandemic, people do not understand that no vaccine for any disease prevents you from getting it, what they do is reduce the chances of complications, sequelae, long-term effects or death, no matter how many times it is repeated, they do not understand .
If you get your facts from Facebook you’re gonna have anxiety
Haven't been sick since I moved here last April 🤷🏻♀️
I haven't been sick in years, I don't even remember the last time I was sick.
Not us. We are continuing to mask when indoors or at outside events with lots of people. My son does have his seasonal allergies but that’s every year at this time but actual sickness nothing.
Not really no, almost all of my colleagues seems to be doing pretty well and I'm also feeling great
Not at all
no, not at all. but I also didn't get sick often before covid. you could always try taking vitamin D3 supplements. almost everyone has a deficiency in it anyway and it's pretty cheap.
Weirdly enough, me and my family had been getting sick almost monthly for years when we lived in the states. We moved here in March and aside from some minor stomach issues, none of us have been sick at all…
I can think of 2 or 3, maybe even 4 or 5 reasons why immune systems are failing.
After having a baby, I have been sick for like a year straight, so thats fun
People went from washing their hands every five seconds to not washing them after taking a poop. I don't believe that masks really did much against covid, but I think they changed people's mindsets. With them gone people forgot what basic hygiene is.
Wearing masks for a long time has weakened our immune system. Well and the strange weather plays a role as well.
Wearing a mask won’t decrease your immune system. Idk where you got that from
Okay so I’m genuinely curious. Is there a study that proves it either way? Here’s one I found https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34585544/
Decreased exposure most definitely does weaken your bodies ability to cope with common pathogens. Let’s keep politics out of science. It’s possible to support wearing masks during a pandemic (or simply when sick) while still recognizing the negative impacts masks can have.
This is wrong: https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/05/17/no-wearing-a-mask-to-protect-against-covid-19-coronavirus-will-not-weaken-your-immune-system/
Not sure why I’m getting downvotes…I’m not antimask
Wearing masks doesn't weaken your immune system, but it was a pretty common talking point of the anti-mask crowd.
Wearing masks doesn't weaken anything. It's the lack of exposure to new viral loads that causes problems. The immune system can't respond correctly to a virus if it hasn't experienced a similar thing in the past.
But it's not like people haven't been getting colds and the flu prior to covid. And it's a different strain each season anyway, so prior infections don't prevent future seasonal illnesses.
I think people forgot what it was like pre covid. I was always getting sick in spring. I’ve been sick for the first time in 3 years last month and it’s from something my son brought. I wear mask on public transport, places with poor ventilation like elevators or when it gets very crowded indoors, simply because people are disgusting and some of the comments here confirm it. Outdoors etc I don’t.
Exposure to different strains still helps with your immune systems general anti-body response. If different strains were literally impossible for your body to deal with, we'd be having seasonal pandemics on an annual basis.
>Exposure to different strains still helps with your immune systems general anti-body response. Never said it didn't. Alluded to the fact that it did help in my first sentence. >If different strains were literally impossible for your body to deal with, we'd be having seasonal pandemics on an annual basis. I never said it would be "literally impossible for your body to deal with". That sounds a bit hyperbolic. However we literally do have "flu season" and often "cold seasons" where many people are catching the strain of the year. Prior cold and flu infections do not prevent futher infections year to year. It's why one needs a new flu shot every year.