Whatever precautions you choose to take to protect yourself and reduce the risk you have covid with which you could infect your family members, which I’m glad to see the post trying to calculate out, I think people tend to ignore or at least underrate the agency of our elderly relatives in deciding their own risk tolerances. As an example, my great aunt is in her late 80s, she knows she isn’t doing to live forever, and she’s hard of hearing. If (and based on recent experiences at a family wedding, this seems to be the case) she wants to be able to hug all her nieces, nephews, and grandchildren, and if she’d rather have her relatives go maskless so she can read lips and actually talk to people, it’s not clear to me that she’s making a mistake. And if the cost to me for accommodating such a preference is a few hours of expected life (realistically, less than the duration of the holiday gathering itself), then that is well within my personal risk tolerance as well. Obviously individual preferences and tolerances vary.
Oh no, I only meant to recommend masks in the lead-up to the gathering, not the actual gathering itself. You are absolutely right and I’ve edited to make this clear.
Whatever precautions you choose to take to protect yourself and reduce the risk you have covid with which you could infect your family members, which I’m glad to see the post trying to calculate out, I think people tend to ignore or at least underrate the agency of our elderly relatives in deciding their own risk tolerances. As an example, my great aunt is in her late 80s, she knows she isn’t doing to live forever, and she’s hard of hearing. If (and based on recent experiences at a family wedding, this seems to be the case) she wants to be able to hug all her nieces, nephews, and grandchildren, and if she’d rather have her relatives go maskless so she can read lips and actually talk to people, it’s not clear to me that she’s making a mistake. And if the cost to me for accommodating such a preference is a few hours of expected life (realistically, less than the duration of the holiday gathering itself), then that is well within my personal risk tolerance as well. Obviously individual preferences and tolerances vary.
Oh no, I only meant to recommend masks in the lead-up to the gathering, not the actual gathering itself. You are absolutely right and I’ve edited to make this clear.