Around Chicago/IL, it seems a lot of mask mandates will fall by the roadside next Monday. I’m assuming mask usage and other precautions will pretty much disappear quite rapidly. I’m already seeing signs - went to the grocery store, and several patrons were unmasked. And I got my haircut, and the barber told me I was free to wear my mask or not as I preferred.
I’m imagining a future where COVID is treated pretty similarly to cold or flu. Most responsible people will not go out in public when they are actively showing significant symptoms, but many will go out as they feel needed - hopefully some will wear masks. And the burden will be on the most vulnerable people to try to minimize their exposure.
I’m not planning on doing much differently. I play music regularly with people in a coffee shop. All of us are vaxxed/boosted, and there is a limit of 7 participants. I imagine we will begin playing unmasked. We have tickets for a repeatedly-delayed concert in April. I guess I’ll feel more comfortable attending that. I may wear a mask. I’ll keep a man in my car - I don’t do a lot of shopping, but I could imagine for some time wearing the mask when I do.
Fortunately, weather will be warming up, to allow more activity outdoors.
Regardless of what’s lifted, I’ll be masking when indoors, except for our own house, and my wife and I will likely not eat at restaurants that don’t have vax passport requirements.
I’m working on the premise that once something begins to work, you don’t stop doing it.
I’ll quit when the health department tells me it is tome to quit masking.
Since early in the pandemic we’ve been taking a dog or two with us to breweries that offer outdoor seating and have come to really enjoy this. We had to move indoors/masked due to winter, but warm weather is right around the corner!
I’ll continue to wear a mask, mostly as a political statement. It really pisses some people off! I’ve had people tell me that I’m not required to wear one and I just tell them to fuck off. So far that has ended the convo.
I continue to believe that the relaxing of requirements is coming too soon. The numbers for most places still seem to be at about November levels where we were still masking. We should at least be waiting until we get down to the levels we saw this time last year.
I don’t plan on stopping wearing N95 masks in public when I go out until at least that point. In small private gatherings I’m ready to go back to unmasking if everyone is vaxxed (including boosters). And, if they aren’t, I don’t go.
This sort of thing is an easy thing you can do with a large amount of potential upside. I genuinely do not get why so many places seem to be rushing to go all the way with removing restrictions. Masks should be the last to go.
I’ll keep wearing a mask in public situations with strangers, indoors or out.
I’m comfortable being unmasked with friends and family and small gatherings in private. I know they are all vaxxed and boosted. It always comes up pretty early in the conversation anyways.
I’ll take off my mask at the office when I’m at my desk and more or less in the room by myself, but I’ll wear it if I go walking around anywhere.
I’m not uncomfortable being the only person in a room wearing one; in my occasional trips from Maryland to Kentucky, west of about Cumberland, I almost always am.
At this point, it’s all political. The anti-maskers want masks gone as a statement that they were right all along, and using masks really was some unprecedented assault on liberty.
Figure 3 compares the four years prior to the pandemic with the flu seasons in 2020-21 and 2021-22. We’ve essentially wiped out influenza for two years in a row now, even with the half-assed masking and social distancing we’ve been doing. There is data out there showing similar results in the US, at least for 2020-21. It’s not as nicely formatted as that Canadian chart, but it tells essentially the same story.
In any normal year, “Holy shit we wiped out influenza!” would be a huge, positive news story that would be celebrated by anyone who wasn’t an outright misanthrope, but because it happened during the pandemic, almost no one noticed, and even if they did, they’d still react with a “Screw you! You can’t make me wear a mask!”
In many places where masks are required, the requirement hasn’t been consistently enforced, and I see lots of people maskless (or wearing their masks on their chins, etc.).
It’s not all political. Some people are just sick and tired of wearing masks, for completely non-political reasons. Masks are uncomfortable and make communication harder (harder to hear and understand what someone’s saying when they’re wearing a mask).
I would love to go back to a maskless society, if and when we can do so reasonably safely.
Sadly for you, I plan to keep wearing masks in most public settings indefinitely. And I’m pretty sure there are lots of other people who will make the same choice. Why not reduce my risk of catching covid, flu, or the common cold? I am perfectly happy to wear a mask at the grocery store, on the subway, and when going to the doctor forever.
I LIKE not catching colds. Even if the risk of covid goes away, I see a benefit.
My observation for the three weeks or whatever of mask mandates being dropped last year is that in my Chicago neighborhood, largely Hispanic, most people still continued to wear masks. Or, if not most, it was close to 50% (but felt like most to me.) I suspect it will take a little time for mask wearing to drop. In other neighborhoods, especially the suburbs, no masks whatsoever. Southwest Suburbs were pretty quick to stop wearing, and many weren’t even wearing when mandates were around. So it will vary by locale.
That said, as soon as masks are not required, I will likely not wear them, as before when mask mandates were dropped.
I feel the same way about mask mandates. I wish they had been enforced. Since it’s become clear that they won’t be, we should get rid of them.
Good masks, worn correctly, help prevent the spread of many diseases. Mask mandates do not appear to increase the incidence of good masks, worn correctly.
Within the city, I found mask mandates rigorously enforced here. I don’t remember somebody being allowed to walk around a grocery store or gas station or whatnot without a mask. The security guards at the gas station on Roosevelt and Wabash (in downtown Chicago) would not let people through the doors without a mask. The suburbs were another story.
The problem is that “single ply bandana worn covering the mouth” and “mask worn under someone’s nose”, neither of which are any good at preventing disease, both count as satisfying the mask mandate.
It maybe made sense to allow a bandana in March 2020. There weren’t good masks available and we didn’t really know what to do. Keeping it now without requiring at least a medical grade mask kept over the nose is pure sanitation theater.
That is true. One of the grocery stores by me says that scarves are fine, but that’s on the edge of the city where masks are resisted. Within my local Target or Hispanic grocery, it’s rare I see a bandana (if ever), but I will routinely see people where masks under their noses. I will never see someone without any face covering.
I think we’ve reached the point where most mask mandates should be rolled back. Then people can stop wearing a bandana under their chin. But I also hope that widespread use of masks is here to stay.
It’s also interesting because in my neighborhood, I still see a lot of people wearing masks outside. Today, I took my car into a little ma & pop tire shop and I was a little surprised, even, to see the workers inside the garage wearing masks – and there was only two of them, and there was plenty of open space.
I only wear masks outdoors if I expect to need it soon. So, for instance, when I park my car and walk to a place that requires masks, I’ll put on the mask as I exit the car, and not wait until I get to whereever I’m going. Sometimes I’ll even put on the mask at home, before getting into the car. But if I’m driving to the park to walk around, I wouldn’t mask.
This is my position. Locally, mask mandates are still in place but nobody follows them. I wear one to the grocery store and feel very out of place due to the fact that I will usually only encounter one or two other shoppers with a mask on. The staff are required to wear masks but none of them wear them properly. There is absolutely no attempt by any public place such as stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and offices (with the possible exception of doctor’s offices and the local hospital) to enforce the mandate. Schools have mandates but as long as a kid has a mask on – even if it’s under their chin – they are considered to be in compliance.
So at this point the maskholes have won. Drop the mandates and give them one less thing to rally around.
