u/LostInAvocado

Went to get some medical imaging recently, and requested the tech wear an N95 while in the room with me.

The appointment person checked with the tech and the tech said, if they can find one they will wear it. I said I could provide one. Appointment person says "they can only wear one that the facility provides, and not one touched by patients", when I mention the one I would provide is a factory sealed 3M Aura, they go "well N95s have to be fitted, they can't wear a random one". I point out that the policy doesn't make sense because they weren't going to wear one to begin with, so it can only help, not hurt. They said the tech would let us know by EOD if they *can't* find an N95.

Anyway on to the main issue-- I didn't get a call back, so I go to the appointment, and the tech did indeed find an N95 and kept it on the whole time from the waiting room until we finished. Yay!

BUT... it was valved.

I decided not to say anything since it was better than nothing and face-to-face interaction would be minimal, and I was in a KN100.

Couldn't help but think this was malicious compliance, but then again we all know that most people seem incapable of connecting dots these days "why was an N95 requested? does a valve still fit with that?" and maybe it was just "here's an N95 I found, criteria met"?

But as someone in another post mentioned, we now have to be VERY SPECIFIC: "UNVALVED N95 please".

Don't know if anyone is watching the second season of this series, but S2E6 is about flashback to early 2020 COVID times.

Basically, it's illuminating as this is probably how most people felt/thought about COVID in the early years, while highlighting just how lacking in education/tools for dealing with it.

If seeing terrible COVID behavior is triggering, you can probably skip this episode, I think the only real new info relevant to the story is that (don't click unless you want spoilers) >!Danny and Claude have always had trouble communicating properly about things like having kids (in this case, a dog back in 2020 that they ended up giving away a few months after getting), and they apparently always treat Jack like an idiot when he's probably one of the more informed people.!<

The rest of this post will be spoilered to avoid giving away more of the episode if you want to watch it, and because it's somewhat of a rant:

>!So clearly the writers of this episode were not interested in treating COVID seriously in any way, and the way they did approach it was not that funny. It mostly consisted of them making fun of Jack for his precautions that were mostly sensible-- stay outside, stay masked. And then they pressured him into dropping his precautions, which I guess is realistic to what we all experienced.!<

>!They framed it as he was being overly anxious... and then, they all got COVID. While they did sort of quarantine people as they tested positive, they didn't really do it seriously and of course, everyone got sick. And then they portrayed Jack going around accusing everyone of breaking quarantine, like what? With the punchline being, maybe he was patient zero, having gotten it when he went to pick up RATs for the event? Even though he's the most careful, masking, etc? Unlikely but also unfair to write it this way.!<

>!Oh, and they throw in casually that maybe Jack is most cautious because he's a teacher, constantly at risk, and a close teacher friend almost died (or did die?) from COVID. WTF. Lots of other little jabs at COVID precautions too. SMH. But I guess it confirms what we all know about how everyone else treated things and remembers that time.!<