Wearing masks? Really, We have two heppa portable Air filters running. None of our guests this summer have come to our door wearing masks. This is ridiculous and I do wear a mask when in public shopping, but not at home. This is overkill. We have low covid rates where we live.
Wearing masks when interacting with guests, or anyone who you do not live with is the only way we have to beat this thing.
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Sorry to the host who say they use these, but I have to add my agreement here. I do like scents but those plug in scents are the worst. I actually used them once upon a time, but then started to realize how cloying and artifically sweet they were. Then I started realizing my throat got sore around them. Then I learned that fires were occasionally caused by them. And that was it. I havenât owned one since.
They arenât necessary at best, and at worst, could be the catalyst to a fire.
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My white flag is raised! Out with the air freshners (and microfiber sheets).
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Thatâs quite a choice of words considering our astronomical death rate.
If your community welcomes travelers from areas with high covid rates and they arrive unmasked they could be spreading covid.
Itâs astounding how persistent the ignorance surrounding the use of masks is in the USA. No wonder we are so messed up.
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OK, but I do have this feeling of deja vu, so please let us know what type of clown /arsehole/wanker/right wing whatever you are.
Signed,
The hot-spot hoster of Jerez.
JF
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The voice of reasonâŚ
Same sentiment but much louder, not so nice voice. Just sayingâŚ
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@Mountainhost just because I like a good debate Iâll say this: the smartest person I know who gave me great info at the beginning of the pandemic has not been a fan of mask wearing. She is a scientist and reads the papers from the best journals. She has continued to think there is too much fussing about masks that isnât based on science. Sheâs also lived on China recently so isnât innately anti-mask. She just thinks itâs ridiculous that Americans wonât make the simplest sacrifice for the good of the commons.
However, she lives in New Zealand where they took strong steps from the beginning: way, way ahead of the US. If the anti maskers think Michigan is oppressive they would completely lose their $h!t with the NZ restrictions.
We are still arguing over this intervention because politics here takes everything else off the table. And we have really lost standing around the world with our gobsmacked idiocy.
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I have read smart peopleâs arguments on both sides. I am for erring on the side of caution on this oneâespecially when it comes to our guests. Masks are quite uncomfortable when you wear them all day, and I have to, but it is a small sacrifice in the scheme of things. I mean, really, we have very little else in the way of prevention even 9 mths into this here in the USA.
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As a retired ID doctor, I think the requirements are over the top. The wording was a bit odd too, a veiled threat. Iâve bought a dishwasher but Iâm wondering if it is âmandatoryâ outside the US. In England, where I am, other hospitality venues donât have these requirements.
Does anyone know?
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And they had their rate down to ZERO for several months.
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Most of what Iâve read recently, both in English speaking publications and Spanish, are leaning heavily towards aerosol transmission being the biggest factor. Taking aside clinical scenarios, where the viral load experienced is likely to be far higher than that experienced by Jose Publico, the wearing of a (properly fitted and of the correct quality) mask is believed to both reduce the chance of infection from others, and if infected, reduce the chance of you infecting others.
You posted an article recently relating to formite transmission (hard surface), which to an extent corroborated this. At least I think it was your article, Iâve read a couple!
On the anti mask argument, you could look here at Spain and say that it doesnât work as itâs been mandatory here for months and we are, infection wise, in the shit. However, I think there are a number of factors driving our figures, mainly the fact we opened up to tourism way too early, but another being the âIâm invincibleâ attitude of many young folks, a problem experienced across Europe. I dread to think what state weâd be in if the majority of folk werenât pretty much compliant with the law.
Ridiculous is not the word I would have chosen.
We are experiencing a most definite âsecond waveâ here in Europe, although some would suggest itâs actually a âthird waveâ. Infection levels are higher than in the Spring in many countries and while death rates are increasing, fortunately they are not increasing relative to the infection rate. People are still getting sick; some only with mild symptoms, others with life threatening symptoms.
In the Spring, us non medical/political/scientific folks guessed that the UK and the US was around six weeks behind Europe. I sincerely hope that is not the case, because if it is then the combination of that second wave, anti maskers, virus hoaxers, anti vax, politics before health folks et al is going to cost a lot of folks their lives and for a lot of others, leave them with life changing post virus conditions.
I said before, this is Airbnb PR in the run up to the IPO.
Itâs not âmandatoryâ inside the US.
JF
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Thatâs interesting, thank you. However theyâre saying theyâll take me off the platform if I donât sign up.
I donât like to be dishonest and really donât want to have to start again with another platform. Do you think theyâd carry out their threat?
I have no idea. We signed up to it a while back, and sanitisation aside, the only extra weâd had to do was the dishes.
It is interesting that the wording has changed in their guidelines, bold text is mine:
September 2020
Wash all dishes and empty the dishwasher
Itâs important to wash all the dishes to help ensure hygienic standards. Start by walking through the space and collecting dishes from every room to help avoid cross-contamination.
June 2020
Wash all dishes and empty the dishwasher
Itâs important to wash all the dishes â even the ones in the cabinet â to help ensure hygiene standards. Start by walking through the space and collecting dishes from every room, to help avoid cross-contamination.
Interpret that how you willâŚ
JF
EDIT: There are actually a few differences between the June and September guides, if anyone wants to go through it and highlight the rest, feel free!
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Thank you. Yes, I also signed up in July when we were allowed to reopen in the UK but then couldnât see how to clean every dish, utensil, pan etc. between guests. Not to mention curtains. We almost always get pinged for being âspotlessly cleanâ, so I left the scheme. This time I felt I had to sign up because of their threat to cut me off. I did noticed there were some changes but mainly they seemed less stringent?
Correct.
20202020
JF
Seeing the changes side by side is key. Thanks for putting that out. Will be interesting to see how guests and hosts differ in their interpretation. I do think airbnb will stand by their threat to kick people off the platform if they do not sign up. But I would imagine they will give hosts 2 to 3 strikes before they kick them off the platform if there is a complaint from a guest about not sticking to the protocol. I would also think that would depend on what the complaint is. There is a big difference between a guest complaint like â The toilet was still full of shâ and had not been cleanedâ and âI found some dust on a dish on the top shelf of the cabinetâI do not know that they have enough staff to really tackle this well, either. Again most of us who are ethical hosts are cleaning to such a high standard now, only a really bad accidental oversight or a âwankerâ guest who wants to cause trouble would bring our listing to the platforms attention. My opinion anyway.
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Iâm trying to imagine what Iâd do if I had a booking site and Iâd probably do exactly what Airbnb is doing. After all, its competitors are. Itâs all they can do, surely?
Itâs a splendid PR move and it probably goes a long way towards absolving the company of any threats of lawsuits down the line. Already airlines (and third-party booking sites) are being slapped with class action lawsuits because of no-refund policies this year.
If I was the Airbnb spokesperson Iâd want to be able to explain that hosts have strict policies to clean everything (including the dishes in the cabinet) and that hosts who refuse to agree to the highest standards wonât be allowed to advertise with them.
P.S. Iâve always washed all the china, glasses etc. including that âin the cabinetâ but Iâm known to be a clean-freak. However, one dried cornflake stuck to a bowl can screw up a business in no time. Guests arenât necessarily brilliant at doing the dishes. 
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Her thinking was that the ill fitted, mostly cloth masks that Americans have made into a litmus test of silly proportions (both sides have done this, but only one side actually harms the other with their intransigence) would be ineffective. Thinking even a small amount of viral load could cause a deadly case does make cloth mask wearing seem silly. She sent me the Lancet meta analysis of 1 June and advised that I wear N95 and eye protection. Now we have as much additional info and study as we had at the time of that publication and the consensus has changed. Conservatives live in the past which is fun as a hobby put impractical for real life.
Now Iâm seeing the âswiss cheeseâ model repeated by the scientists, still hoping to deter Americans from the deadly and erroneous âherd immunityâ model.
The model isnât new to covid or any other safety issue so maybe a few more people can grasp it. There is some speculation that use of any kind of mask reduces viral load thatâs inhaled enough that infections are mild or asymptomatic. If you combine it with distancing, ventilation, sanitizing, hand washing, and flat out staying home.
As you know Iâm on record here with my predictions about the course of this disease in the US both in terms of death count and civil unrest and so far I donât see evidence that Iâm going to be wrong.
BTW, my NZ friend said the US needed to impose martial law to ensure compliance. As we can see there is no way that would happen. The writing was on the wall in March.
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