Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Katie Jordan suspects she never once wore a mask.
But when another respiratory sickness — not COVID, per her test results — knocked her down this fall semester, she didn't hesitate. When she had to venture out to the grocery store, she masked up.
"I knew (other shoppers) didn't want the cold that I had, even if what I had wasn't COVID," said Ms. Jordan, a doctoral candidate in engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. She thinks the pandemic has normalized masking for people with a range of respiratory symptoms, no matter what's ailing them.
