Sitting in the bar without a mask

I’m a wheelchair user with a variety of health conditions: in terms of Covid, a vulnerable member of the population. Tonight I’ll be signing at Phinney Books and going to the pub next door afterwards. Unless I test positive in the next few hours I won’t be wearing a mask. On Wednesday I fly to Kansas City for the Nebula Awards. On the plane I’ll be wearing a mask. In the bar at the convention probably not. Why?

I mask depending on:

Data. How prevalent is Covid locally? Current wastewater levels are a very good proxy; Kansas City’s levels, as of yesterday, were Very Low.Situation and circumstance. How crowded is it? Does the bar/hotel/banquet room have good air filtration? Will I be eating or drinking?My risk/reward ratio.The vulnerability of those around me.

Let’s focus on that last one. First, I will not be in the bar or any other public place unmasked if have not just tested negative. Testing negative means there are no perceptible levels of virus in my airways. That means that I am vanishingly unlikely to be able to infect anyone else. (And, yes, I generally do test more than once—if I have symptoms I test all the time—it always ends up being allergies. But I do it anyway.)

Remember, we’re talking about a bar, here. Not visiting an ill or fragile person in their home, a person who for a variety of reasons cannot mask, or in the ICU, etc. In these situations ‘vanishingly unlikely’ isn’t enough. I mask. In ordinary clinical settings—the ophthalmologist, the neurologist, the internist, etc—I tend to mask, mainly to protect myself (lots of sick people in doctors’ offices) but not always.

So assuming there is no reasonable risk to anyone else, the who choice of whether to wear a mask comes down to my own risk/reward ratio. If viral prevalence is low or very low, if the bar is well-ventilated, if there’s reasonable space between tables, and if the bar is full of people I really want to talk to and beer I want to drink, then the reward easily outweighs the risk. And of course the point of a bar is to drink—and you can’t drink beer through a mask.

This is a purely informational post. I’m not the least bit interested in arguing with anyone on this topic. (Fighty comments will be deleted—you don’t have to agree, but don’t be obnoxious and do not, not lecture.) This is what works for me. I have never had Covid. I intend to keep it that way.