Horatio, if your grandmother is still working, I'm going to assume that your a young person and maybe you have not had enough exposure to the facts regarding the benefits of masking.

Good masks, with proper use, do work in reducing the spread of the virus and in reducing the risk of the wearer getting infected.

With regard to American Airlines: I think they banned masks with exhaust valves. For people other than health care providers, the primary reason for wearing a mask is to contain their germs and keep them from spreading to others. Masks with exhaust valves are useless in that regard.

The exhaust valve, by design, provides a path for your outgoing breath that bypasses filtration. It makes breathing easier and reduces fogging of glasses but does nothing to keep your bugs inside your mask.

Another failed experiment:

“The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the largest schools to attempt to hold in-person classes, announced Monday that it will switch to all-remote instruction after a rapidly growing cluster of cases were reported during the first week of school. “As much as we believe we have worked diligently to help create a healthy and safe campus living and learning environment, we believe the current data presents an untenable situation,” according to a joint statement from Chancellor, Kevin M. Guskiewicz and Provost Robert A. Blouin. UNC, which has about 30,000 students, has seen 177 cases among students, while another 349 are in quarantine because of possible exposure”.

Now the question is: what will the University (and the town of Chapel Hill) do with those 30,000 students that are either living in close proximity in dorms or off campus in the small town? Send them home with some taking the virus home with them, or keep them in dorms where the virus can’t help but spread between students and into the faculty and surrounding community? You would have thought the board of Governors of the University would have been smarter, especially after receiving a letter signed by over 1000 members of the faculty advising against it and a lawsuit by the maintenance workers to prevent it, but noooo.

Just hoping and praying that N.C. State University, with another 30,000 students and about a mile from my house and several blocks from both grocery stores that we use doesn’t repeat the same mistake.

The incubation period is two weeks, so if the cases were positive tests during the first week. They caught it somewhere else. That said, they do need to isolate those students and those exposed to them and take precautions during in-person classes.

My daughter is in Medical School and they are gearing up for in-person classes. If anyone knows how to do it right it would be a medical school.
However our daughter is taking a one semester break from classes and working at a lab research project in the medical school. So still a student and on campus but not in classes for one semester. Of course that means her rent etc is not covered by her scholarship for a semester and now the Bank of Mom and Dad will be paying it.

Well, we know that not wearing a mask doesn't work. Might as well wear a mask and hope that it actually does work. Since medical professionals have been wearing them for decades, I'm inclined to believe that they do. They keep me from infecting you and you from infecting me. Having recovered from sepsis and heart surgery, my son is preparing to return to work as an MRI Tech. Two individuals at his location have become infected. It's unknown whether it was from work or outside activities. He'll be wearing not only a surgical mask, but a plastic mask in front of that, plus gloves and paper gown.

I am sorry to hear about your son. I hope his heart surgery went well.

Actually, for the person wearing the mask, the mask only will keep you from infecting others. Only the N95 mask will keep others from infecting you. People think that they are protected with non-N95 masks, but they are not. What the government needs to do, is give N95 masks to all high risk individuals. But, using the N95 mask does not mean they are safe.

What people do not understand is that medical professionals have been taught how to properly wash their hands. They are also taught not touch surfaces and their faces. I have watched people with masks and plexiglass face shields, touch a variety of surfaces, then reach underneath their plexiglass face shield and rub their eyes. When you do this, you have just exposed yourself to any of the germs that were on the surfaces you touched. Consider this... many people do not wash their hands after using the restroom.

We need to practice good personal hygiene, proper washing of hands and covering your mouth when you sneeze and/or cough.