Always_Ask_Questions,
“In one shul I daven, there are people who were mostly careless. I feel sometimes that I am at a smoker’s club as every couple of minutes you hear a chronic cough, mostly young men. In another shul, where people preferred vaccines to natural immunity and this happens way less. “
Putting aside that I find it hard to believe you personally would go into such a shul, given your singular obsession with the R rate and that you once posted that you spent most of the pandemic so isolated that you didn’t even really have much experience with persistent mask wearing, I find it odd that you maintain a double standard on usage of anecdotes. When Syag Lchochma observed that the shul near her that had the least restrictive Covid policies had no Covid fatalities, you dismissed it out of hand as anecdotal. But here you happily throw out an anecdote. But it’s not even a good anecdote, as your observations could be biased in numerous ways. For example, your ears were likely more attuned to coughing in the shul you deemed to be less safe. Or perhaps both shuls had 3 coughers in attendance but at one shul they were right behind you and at the other they were across the room. Perhaps you attended one shul in the summer when coughing was less prevalent overall, and the other in the fall when coughing was more prevalent overall.