I’ve started going to the regular gym again, because I’m not getting any younger, and I didn’t buy a big enough house to install a home gym [1] [2].
I’m not surprised, but I am amazed at the number of people who hit the hand sanitizer after every exercise. And yet I’m the only person in the gym wearing an N95 mask. I am aware of no diseases passed through sweat. It’s disgusting, but unlikely to kill you. There is a disease out there that’s killing two 747s worth of people every day, and which can be mitigated by wearing a good mask [3] and getting a free vaccination [4].
You’d get a dirty look if you didn’t wipe your ass sweat off a bench, but nothing at all for a literally high chance of passing on a fatal or life-altering disease.
The cognitive disconnect is amazing. Don’t get me started on the number of chin masks I see at the climbing gym. Dude, no one is making you wear a mask at all! My partner and I and maybe three other people are the only ones! So why are you wearing a crappy medical mask on your chin? Why bother?
I also see this at the airport.
[1] and no one is ever going to open a gym that requires masks and proof of recent vaccination. Nor re-racking weights, wiping benches, and not violently dropping weights. Not to mention not playing loud music that all of us ignore via ANC.
[2] I didn’t buy a bigger house because (link to previous post) and there’s a gym less than a mile away that costs me $84/year to go to, so why would I spend the money? Oh yeah, global pandemic… was not on my scorecard.
[3] I remain also somewhat astounded that people are still rocking the medical mask, even the medical types. There are comfortable N95s out there!
[4] Oh yeah, Moderna is going to charge over $100 per shot for the vaccine that they were totally government funded to develop…