Help settle a disagreement about masking and covid

Post date: 2022-08-14 16:28:50

My wife wants to give up masking for covid. I think we should continue.

My wife wants to quit masking, at least until the covid numbers get worse. She doesn't say how much worse. She does say it's hard to breathe with a mask. We are rarely in a building outside our home for an hour or more.

But she is going to a meeting at work in a few days and doesn't want to wear a mask. The estimate is that there will be about eight people in about 150 square feet.

She is 62 years old and has asthma and COPD. (I am 59 and have no respiratory or immune problems.)

Recent statewide case numbers have ranged from about 800 to 1200, out of a population of about 2 million. We live in New Mexico, which has apparently decided to move on from the pandemic. The only mandated precautions we see seem to be in medical-type settings. I think my wife is a little tired of being the only person around who wears a mask.

We have generally been cautious during the pandemic. We mask in buildings outside our house and socialize with only one or two people at a time. We've eaten in a restaurant only two or three times. Of course, we are fully vaccinated and have gotten a booster.

We have been working at home throughout the pandemic. In about a month, she will be required to start working inn the office three days a week. She will have a private office. But she will share the floor with about 100 other people, none of whom mask.

I am open to us operating with a somewhat higher but still limited "risk budget". That is, one of us might do something more risky earlier in the week, but then shouldn't do anything else risky the rest of the week, more or less.

I know the CDC recently loosened various guidelines. But my understanding is that social norms were more a priority than safety, in this latest instance.

(By the way, please don't assume gender. We are both women.)

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