Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

And bear in mind, the employer doesn't want to fire people needlessly either.  They can simply ask, and record responses and say everyone is vaxxed.  OSHA won't be checking every company out there, nor could they in real terms.

My GUESS is you're at risk if someone near you sneezes or coughs or yells and is infected.  A mask would block SOME of the expectorant.  So would a hand.

The CFB games look to me like an ideal spreading environment.  They are outdoors at least.

Florida really looks to be on the downslope now.  Ohio looks to be heading up though, so the regionality MAY be a thing.

Sure you could get sneezed on in a store.  Hasn't happened to me yet in the past year and a half, but I suppose it's possible.  At the distances I maintain from people in general, even pre-COVID, it's not much of a danger.

I think it would be much harder to avoid something like that packed into a stadium with 100,000 other people all shoulder to shoulder.

But also, I'm vaccinated and not particularly worried about it.  The vaccine does a far better job than the mask.

I stated "busy", meaning crowded.  Most folks in Walmarts aren't smart enough to social distance and I'm quite sure it doesn't take 20 minutes to contract a virus

we are and have been seeing too many deaths and hospitalizations for places to be deemed safe.

Why are you quite sure of this, when the science tells us prolonged exposure is what causes transmission?

Droplets can too, so don't let the Walmart shoppers spit directly into your mouth.  Of course, that should go without saying regardless.

And then there's the vaccine.  Get vaccinated and you don't have to worry about any of that stuff, unless you really want to.

Imagine you are CEO of a small company with 125 employees.  You know them all, and they are all needed to get your job done.

So, this rule comes down and you have one HR/regulatory person.  What do you do?

You ask, and say 20 say "none of your business" and 10 say "nope".

Are you going to fire them all in this environment?  Or will you make a record of their responses and hope OSHA doesn't visit?  Or lie?  You could simply "suggest" quietly that everyone say "yes" and record that, OSHA would have no way of knowing.

And then rely on the courts to upend this eventually?

State governor in Texas is already calling it out as Federal overreach, and I agree.

Obviously I understand the irony of a governor that attempted to ban municipalities from creating their own local laws, calling out overreach from the next-higher level of government, but I sided with the locals on that one as well.

prolonged exposure increases the probability that droplets or particles will eventually be spread, but it could certainly happen within the first minute

if the only way this thing was spread was through spittle droplets into your mouth or 20+ minutes within close proximity, we wouldn't have these numbers

I agree about the vaccine, I just don't agree that a cloth mask is effective

The cloth mask can stop droplets.  Some of them anyway.  It won't stop the virus from being exhaled.  Which is why it's useless in prolonged exposure situations.

But you're wrong, that non-droplet exposure will transmit the virus if it's short duration.  There's plenty of science that backs up the fact that it must be prolonged exposure, to transmit sufficient viral load, to complete the transmission.  In fact, the original numbers a year ago had it at 15 minutes, and the most of the data is now saying 20.

This is why the cloth masks and surgical masks are proving useless in schools.  Kids are sitting well within 6 feet of each other for an hour-long class. Only N95 masks would prevent transmission under those circumstances.

The very very large company I work for has advised that it's monitoring the situation but no actions are being taken yet.

My company is headquartered in Texas, and the state government is challenging the Federal mandate and will likely push it to a court battle, so companies within Texas will wait and see, until this is decided.