...I suffer from seasonal allergies so bad that I'm almost always suffering from nasal congestion, so it's not a huge difference for me, the idea of "not feeling sick this past year." I've never found them terribly awkward to wear, so it's hardly an annoyance.
In my current workplace which is currently pushing a big de-masking campaign without calling it a de-masking campaign, I've had conversations with no fewer than a dozen co-workers about it. Seasonal cold and flu, and allergies, tear through the place like Chipotle burritos through a Crohn's sufferer for most of the year.
My coworkers are acutely aware of this, particularly since air quality where I work is poor on the best of days and aggravated allergies are among the most common complaints at my workplace thanks to it. They also all, to a person, have noticed
vastly higher qualities of life since wearing masks to filter out the crap we breathe, and the industrial HEPA filters installed in common rooms. Despite this, they
couldn't wait to de-mask, and hell I've caught some flak for saying "thanks but no thanks, I'm keeping my mask on".
Ah, the power of cognitive dissonance.
Where I live, in the south of the US, I loath going out in public, mostly because of the weaponized politics that are all around me from the conservative fuckwads that populate this state...
If I were in a joking mood, I'd give it three months before dipshits start wiping their asses with their bare hands and not washing their hands after, just because "muh freedumb yeehaw". I'm not in a joking mood, so I'll give it six since I
already see dipshits right back to their "not washing hands, not covering their mouths when they cough/sneeze, pawing their snotty faces with bare hands" ways that got us into this giant fucking mess to begin with, as if the past fifteen months just never happened.
