Alas, we can only know what we can know! It's perfectly *possible* that I've had covid seven times asymptomatically, and also that every time I've been sick with anything that had symptoms, i tested negative for covid. Or eleven times, or thirty times!

so if you don’t know if you have covid, how can you assess if it’s safe for you to go out unmasked? or you’re just willing to risk that on other people’s behalf?

How can I know I won't get hit by a car and die? And yet choose to drive almost every day?

(the answer is, I just do my best, like anybody, to figure out what to do based on the information I have)

right & the information says that masking protects ourselves (&&& others). it’s not a personal choice if you share the air.

It remains a personal choice, I'm afraid. Is it my responsibility and duty to my community to remain permanently in my home and never leave? Remaining inside my home makes me FAR less likely to spread covid than leaving my house with a mask on. I think most people would say "no, that's too far"

who said all that? you’re running to extreme examples to absolve yourself of any responsibility to do *anything* to mitigate risk.

I am using a deliberately extreme example to say we have to draw lines. And I think that's hard. Some people draw lines in places that I profoundly disagree with, and I think it makes them wildly irresponsoble! Some people draw lines in places that are not where I'd draw them, but ~OK with me.

Very very few people draw exactly the same lines I do, because people are different, and because it *does* often come down to individual people, deciding based on their own judgment what is their best decision.

but again, people are drawing lines that impact others. i don’t get any say in what lines are drawn about shared air. this isn’t just about personal choice.

I use that example only to point out that pure "percent chance of spreading covid" is not a replacement for human decision-making about risks and trade-offs. People have a duty to their community, and yet we *still* have to draw lines. And sometimes those lines won't be in the same place.

But I don't think it's particularly useful to organize my life that way most of the time