Is this mask requirement common elsewhere?

[LAS14]

For the first time in this whole pandemic I've been in an environment where speakers, 15 feet from other people, are wearing masks. Not even Anthony Fauci wore a mask in that situation even before vaccines. I was told they were following the model that Harvard was setting, but they didn't know Harvard's rationale. Have you seen this anywhere else? Does anyone know the rationale?

TIA
LAS

[SheltieLover]

1. Pls see

Dr. Eric Ding's twitter. Harvard epidemiologist. Yes, there are very good reasons for this practice!

[LAS14]

6. I don't use Twitter. But I can get to it on my laptop. Can you send a link? nt

[unc70]

2. Indoor masking required here

Chapel Hill, NC. Most all situations except when eating.

[dweller]

5. Has that been announced somewhere ?

I saw an electric billboard in Carrboro yesterday on main st that said masks required in all indoor settings and not outdoors …

✌🏻

[Bev54]

4. If that is what makes them comfortable then fine

[Ms. Toad]

9. It has nothing to do with comfort -

it has to do with science.

COVID spreads much farther than 6' (there are documented transmissions I can find in 30 seconds of up to 35'), and the aerosolized particles linger in the air long after the speaker leaves. So, especially in the scenario in which indoor speakers follow each other to the microphone and unmask, it is incredibly foolhardy to speak unmasked, regardless of the distance from the speaker to the audience.

[iemanja]

7. My university requires masking indoors

regardless of distance between people.

[Ms. Toad]

10. Same here.

Since we started having hybrid classes last fall.

There is a space where eating is permitted, eating is restricted to that space, and I avoid it like the plague - since, literally, it is where all of the plague germs linger.

[Ms. Toad]

8. Because aerosolized particles travel farther than 15'

And linger even after the person leaves. The 6' was based on bad science tracing back decades.

An early study in a bus, in which passengers who enered the bus after the infected people left - and people on the bus seated as far away as 4.5 meters from the infected person.

https://academic.oup.com/ofid/article/7/10/ofaa430/5905033

A restaurant study - 5 minutes exposure at 6.5 meters (21 feet)

https://jkms.org/DOIx.php?id=10.3346/jkms.2020.35.e415

A case study from last May, in which a teacher infected 12/24 students in the room, including 10 of the 12 in the first two rows (and one refused to be tested, so it may even have been 11). Students seated as far away as 35 feet from her, in a room with windows and doors open

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7035e2.htm

The information that COVID spreads easily and rapidly indoors, over distances far greater than 6' is not new. Two of the three articles I've linked to are from the early days of the pandemic.

Fauci (and everyone else) should have been wearing a mask when speaking in any indoor setting. I've been teaching in a mask for a year - including in rooms where he closest student is 30' away.

[liberal_mama]

11. If Harvard is doing something, it's probably the right thing

Harvard is very cautious. Smart people always know what happens next.

My nephew went to Harvard Law School during the pandemic. When other colleges were going back in person, Harvard stayed remote. My nephew's last year and a half at Harvard was spent with online only classes. They even had their 2021 graduation online and that was held when vaccines were widely available and Covid cases were low.