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Mask Policies Handicap the Deaf
Mask policies handicap the deaf. Many deaf people read lips. You can’t read lips if they are behind a piece of cloth. I have been thinking about this lately because I had a double-ear infection. My ears were all stuffed up, and my hearing was down to less than 20% of normal. Being temporarily hearing-impaired can lead to some real adventures, but being such in the age of COVID Security Theater makes it even more interesting. I find that I can read lips. I was using that to understand what my wife was saying quite a bit while my ears were stuffed up, but when we went out somewhere, it became impossible.
I had a meeting at church dealing with the phone system. The board member I was dealing with is a woman with a very soft voice. Try to maintain six-feet of social distancing while trying to hear what such a person is saying as she is muffled behind a mask. It did not work out well.
@drewinwisconsin just posted this in the PIT: “DNR tells employees to wear masks during Zoom calls, even when they are alone at home.” The headline is enough, you don’t have to click through and read about how brain-dead Wisconsin’s government appointees are. But it brought to mind that this is an ADA lawsuit waiting to happen. How is this effecting deaf or hearing-impaired employees? What measures are in place to help them cope? Anyone know anything on the subject?
Anyone a lawyer who needs a good payday?
Published in Law
I object to the singling out of Wisconsin in this sentence. There are plenty of the brain-dead to go around.
I can’t tell jokes to the cashiers at the store anymore. If they can’t see you smiling, they have no idea if you are trying to be funny, or psychopathic.
Maybe I should work on my material.
Too true.
In your case…
Could be the melee weapons.
I’m starting to see more than one cashier with a clear face guard. Don’t know if those meet the mask requirement or help prevent it spreading but at least I can see a face.
Even without masks, trying to hold a meeting while keeping the required distancing is difficult. We have been having our staff meetings in our church’s gymnasium, with everyone at individual tables, spread way out across the floor. Because of the ridiculous echo, unless someone is looking right at me while speaking, I can’t understand a word being said.
Not that I mind too much.
When I had to get my Wu Flu test, it was a drive-thru operation and we stayed in a cars driving from one station to the next. Masks were obviously required since you could potentially have Xi’s Lung AIDS. At one station, the doctor did an elaborate job of marshaling me to his spot. I smiled and then thought he can’t see it. I told him that enjoyed the theatrics and was smiling behind the mask. He said it was okay and that he saw it in my eyes.
Yep. Depends on local laws. According to @torywarwriter, they don’t make the cut in Ontario.
I’ve been joking with my husband since this started that the vulnerable people who were wearing masks also had some degree of hearing impairment. So the masks muffle both the speaker and the hearer.
“Watch out. There’s a car coming.”
“What did you say?”
If it saves one life, . . .
Around here greeters at restaurants seem to have taken this up. I always thank them and tell them how much of a difference it makes to be greeted in person. On the other end of the spectrum on a flight last week we saw a woman wearing both. And gloves. And a hat.
When required – and only then – I use a bandana as a covering. I can fudge where it is and keep it from disturbing the precision placement that my progressive glasses need. Double whammy prescription: very far sighted and heavy astigmatism means there is one special place in the lens that results in good vision. I can’t imagine how people with more rigorous problems than mine can cope. It’s not healthy.
There was a study released recently that said 6 ft is not enough. They found virus survivors at 16 ft. They must have used a long jump pit for testing. Living rooms and kitchens aren’t that deep. That’s not social distancing. That’s solitary confinement. They did say however that their results needed to be reviewed…..
But can it be transmitted through Zoom?
Only in Wisconsin.
Wrong thread!
I do have a Van Gogh Starry Night mask.
Wrong thread!
Oopsie! I suspected as much, but turned it back to masks for you.
Sounds like a small blessing for the cashiers.
I saw someone wearing a mask and face guard. Is that double protection?
I hope your ear infection gets much better very soon. Terrible thing.
I had thought about lip reading as well. I tend to look at people’s lips when they talk anyway though I’m not deaf. It’s interesting to watch people’s mouths and see accent differences. You can still see eyes (most expressive for most people) while also looking at lips.
Yes, fine now, thank you, although a couple of days ago I was ready for some extreme measures.
My wife is deaf and she hasn’t mentioned any difficulties because of the mask. But then she is still too terrified to leave the house. :)
Kind of means she’s not such a great example.
Here is the deal: this over hyped crisis has deprived us of our civil liberties.
Even Nine Eleven did not force us to:
1) stay at home in various quarantine scenarios, despite the fact that a “positive test result” can only confirm that a person had corona, which can be a mild cold from six months ago or the current COVID variety of corona
2) become “patients” under the jurisdiction of contact tracers, many of whom I suspect will be newly arrived immigrants should you live in NY, Calif, AZ, TX or New Mexico
3) make us wear masks, despite the reports of workers experiencing collapsed lungs due to physical exertion in 85 degree weather
4) allow our community members to become victims of newly released prisoners, such that rapists now kill the victims who were going to testify against them in court
5) force the wholesale destruction of mom and pop businesses, and the forced lay off of millions of people who once supported themselves at those small businesses
6) deprive us of the ability to breathe, as masks cut off O2 supply
7) destroy so many Civil Code arrangements that actually protected the vulnerable. As a person with a seizure disorder, I cannot be allowed inside my local Credit Union w/o a mask hung on my face. (Which my doctor states I should not be wearing.) But no possibility of a lawsuit as too many attorneys and judges feel that COVID trumps the Americans w Disability Act
8) Destroys normal socialization – as we can no longer see people’s faces, and now people are divided into the pro-CoVID restriction camp and those of us who understand if our government wanted us safe, we would be given the protocols allowed under Dr Zev’s recommendations and which protocols are employed by countless countries across the globe in similar fashion. Like the “Global Climate Crisis” the vaccine mandates et al, the more informed we are, the more hated we are
9) Normal punitive consequences would fall upon those researchers who actually killed people by setting up HCQ tests that
a) used much higher levels of HCQ than any physician or medical person would ever use
b) paired HCQ with other medicines that were known to cause heart problems when paired with HCQ
Those normal punitive consequences will not apply as the attorneys and the judges in this nation seem to be owned by the Global Medical Mafia. So those civil and criminal consequences are suspended for those who have helped deprive us of the remedies, while now those workers who are unmasked are suspended from their jobs w/o pay for 2 days (This can happen even if 45 mins before your 8 hr shift ends, you are caught w/o yr mask for 60 seconds.)
10) Freedom of Free Speech, Freedom of Religion; Freedom of Assembly have been stripped from our entire society.
There are probably two dozen other major consequences of the COVID hyseria, but these are off the top of my head
I hate having to talk loud.
And boy I better not get a directive to wear a mask on zoom. That is just crazy.
We need lawyers to tell us how to fight that. It seems an egregious request.
Lord help us if we need lawyers to fight that.
From what I am reading, most lawyers feel the “pandemic status” of COVID, combined with Trump declaring it an emergency, means the Constitution is no longer of importance.
Anyway the Republic was a great thing, til we let a virus with a 99.904% survival rate rip the Constitution apart.
Not a word to add:
I’ve had to see several doctors this past week, for eye exams and hearing problems. They all know I am deaf or my hearing aid isn’t working. My aids hang behind my ears, then the glasses now slide back past the hearing aids, then the mask hangs over the ears and knocks of the aids and fogs up the glasses, and I can’t lip read.
I finally pulled off my mask and declared loudly, I can’t lip read anybody and haven’t the foggiest idea what anybody is saying. Immediately about 5 staff members dropped their masks. Was taken directly into the Dr.s station. Unfortunately, the new glasses won’t be here for 3 or more weeks, because of the virus!
However, I have found that telling people that I am deaf and need to lip read them, they all drop their mask. Grocery store tomorrow, and hearing aid place next Tuesday. Even the para-transit driver dropped his mask for me.