That’s approaching herd immunity. 
I think there’s a difference between “generally avoiding shopping because of the risk” and “absolutely refuse to enter a store under any circumstances”. I’m still doing pick up, both for convenience and an abundance of caution, but if we run out of milk midweek or if I want something that’s only available at a specialty store that doesn’t do pick up, I mask up and go in.
So you guys may be arguing past each other.
I went to my local Walmart in Colorado Springs earlier this morning. It was split roughly 50/50 mask wearers and non-wearers.
Jealous! Mine is 62%/46%
Come to Georgia, where we can demonstrate just how badly these things can be. My county is actually one of the better performing in the state and we’re still at 38% with at least one dose and only 31% fully vaccinated, which happens to match the state as a whole. The only reason the state is doing that well is a few of our heaviest populated areas approach a mid 30s fully vaccinated rate. One of our counties is still stuck at 10% fully vaccinated. Wish us luck!
42.24% at least one dose; fully vaccinated 37.61%. I hoped we were higher than that (New York State as a whole is considerably higher), but can’t say I’m too surprised.
Truth be told, I expect my county to top out at close to 70% vaccinated, which feels like enough to put a significant damper in spread. I think the whole northeast has a chance of that.
My local Walmart had a sign saying fully vaccinated were not required to mask. So I didn’t (and I am fully vaccinated). Still saw a number of people who weren’t. But they weren’t enforcing masking even before this. I didn’t notice whether the ratio of masked to unmasked was any different than in the past, but I didn’t think to pay attention.
Georgia grocery chains lifted mandates recently. I’ve heard anecdotally that going as little as a couple of miles outside the main city area changes the mask equation quite a bit, but here in town, it was still probably at least 90/10 masked to unmasked when I went this afternoon (I saw one employee and 4 customers unmasked at a busy store on a busy day). I was surprised by the fact that they allowed the employee to go without, but not particularly bothered, as I went in her line as it was short.
As of today, 51.14% of people in my county (most populous in Minnesota) are fully vaccinated, 59.93% have one dose. The mandate has mostly been lifted: no longer mandatory unless a business or city keeps it in place. Government buildings and medical offices still require them.
I had monthly labs this past Tuesday, decided to ask if I could get an antibodies test added. Nope.
John Hopkins released a study earlier this month, stating a woeful 54% of fully vaccinated transplant patients have antibodies. I wanted to see whether I’m one of the lucky ones.
According to the coordinator, they basically don’t want us to know, presuming we’ll suddenly become stupid and completely disregard mask wearing.
So, despite being harassed at one store for wearing a mask, and having offended a waitress at a local restaurant for putting it on whenever she came close, on it stays.
If you don’t need to use insurance, you can pay one of the big testing companies to test you for antibodies. Quest will do it, for instance. But when I searched, i found a bunch of warnings that you shouldn’t rely on that to measure your immunity.
It seems odd to me to say, “if you are vaccinated, don’t worry”, but also, “don’t check your antibody levels, because we’re afraid you’ll take too many risks if you come up positive.” I mean, they are literally recommending you take those risks without the test.
But there are different classes of antibodies they test for, and i guess some of the tests test for antibodies to the “shell” of the virus, rather than to the spike protein, and those would come up negative even if the vaccine worked.
I think this is a “one hand isn’t talking to the other” thing.
I shot my first wedding this weekend since the mask mandate has been lifted (for the most part) in Illinois. Approx. 180 guests in the Chicago suburbs. Not a single person masked except for a handful of staff (most were not). It was a bit … oddly surreal being back in this situation as the last unmasked wedding I worked was back in December of 2019. (2020 was not a good year to be an event photographer.) I guess we’ll see how it plays out from here, as events seem to be picking up full steam. (A few doors down, there’s a loud outdoor party with a live band going on with dozens of people.) Grocery and big box stores are still masked, so far as I’ve seen (and I shop every day and have pretty much through the pandemic except for the very earliest bits). But I did stop at a gas station in the Loop which had a sign that said “masks are not required, but encouraged.”
Yeah sounds good. But in the mask I could not hide my emotions :). That would be hard to control that.
Interesting.
I’ve gotten the impression from your posts that you live in New York City.
I do too, but I haven’t seen that anywhere yet. Every retail establishment I’ve entered since the new CDC guidance still requires masks, vaccinated or not.
I’m not challenging you in any way (and I’d be wearing a mask in that store too), just a bit surprised. I didn’t think NYC was quite at the point of not requiring masks indoors yet. With the exception of restaurants, I suppose.
NJ is lifting its mask mandate on Friday. There are a bunch of exceptions and business owners may still ask people to stay masked.
I do plan to unmask, except where required or requested.
I am presiding over my Toastmasters club’s first in-person meeting in a good long while in a week, and am waffling over whether to have everybody mask up or not. I’m leaning towards the masking, however. I think unmasking might make some people intensely uncomfortable, while masking is a minor inconvenience. I might make distancing optional, however, except that there will be a generous buffer zone around the area where people will be making their speeches. A member has a forehead thermometer, so we might as well do temperature checks. It’s “security theater” at this point, but I see little downside and it will make the more nervous feel better.
Personally, I wouldn’t inconvenience the many to accommodate the few.
Personally, I wouldn’t spend an hour in a room with people not wearing masks unless I was certain they were all vaccinated.
I’ve told several clients at work when they didn’t wanna mask that I didn’t want to spend three minutes indoors with them unless they were masked. A few have taken offense.
I’ve settled on some kind of equilibrium in my own life.
I live in Brooklyn, in New York City. In my neighborhood, according to the NYC Department of Health, the current vaccination rate is 71.37% overall, 62.6% with at least one dose.
So I don’t wear a mask outdoors. I do wear a mask, a good one, indoors, and I don’t make any exceptions to that that rule (except, of course, my own apartment and my office).
When I’m in other neighborhoods, I re-assess my outdoor mask policy depending on vaccination rates and other stuff I may consider.
If you are vaccinated, why not?