I’m as comfortable being maskless as when the guidance first came out, but I would not be surprised if masks come back for a bit in the fall October/November.
Here in SE Texas stores no longer even have the “vaccinated OK, unvaccinated please wear mask” signs. There are usually only a handful of people wearing masks in any given place. I haven’t worn mine since getting vaccinated a couple of months ago, but it’s still in my truck just in case. (Although by now it probably has an old dirty cough drop stuck to it in the bottom of my glovebox)
Here in New York City, the rules have been relaxed quite a bit.
For those who are vaccinated:
you must still wear a face covering:
• When riding public transportation (including taxis and car services).
• When in a store, restaurant or other public space where the owner or operator requires face
coverings.
• When in a school or health care setting.
• In certain group residential facilities, such as nursing homes and homeless shelters.
• At work, if required by your employer.
• When around someone who is sick, or if you need to leave home while sick
I myself wear a mask whenever I’m indoors (outside of my own home, obviously). Some, but not all, stores still require (although they seem to call it “request” now, but an employee will still chase maskless customers around and ask them to put on a mask) masks.
My employer, which is pushing hard for everyone to return to the office (and requiring return by September) says that vaccinated people don’t have to wear masks. And unlike just about everywhere else, they’re requiring proof of vaccination.
The firm claims that it isn’t requiring vaccination to return to work, but a glitch in the system (or so they say) causes the system through which one arranges to return to the office freezes up at the point where proof of vaccination is required, and you can’t go to the next step unless you’ve submitted proof of vaccination. Supposedly this is a bug, and they’re working on it. Since I’m in the IT department, I’m pretty sure I’d know about it if anyone was actually working on it, and I don’t. So I’m convinced it’s a backdoor vaccination requirement. While I wholeheartedly approve of requiring people to get vaccinated, I don’t love weasely lawyer bullshit. Whatever, above my pay grade.
The thing that really bugs me is the subway. Half the people in the city seem to have understood the new relaxed masking rules to mean that it’s all over now and masks are not required anywhere. But they are quite explicitly required on the subway.
Since the NYPD has apparently taken the last year off, except for occasionally brutally breaking up a demonstration here and there, there was never any enforcement of mask rules (or anything else) on the subway, and there still isn’t. I have started to see a police officer or two here and there around the city, so it looks like the cops are coming back to work, but they’re not wearing masks, as a rule (hardly surprising, since their union broke with their own longstanding tradition of not endorsing presidential candidates and endorsed Donald Trump last year), so I don’t expect any help from that quarter.
Still, I’m wearing a mask, a real N95, on those infrequent occasions when I have to take the subway. Mainly rainy days, since at the beginning of this whole thing I started using a bicycle whenever I had to move around the city. Maybe it kept me from getting COVID, maybe it didn’t, but the benefits of the exercise have been perceptible, so I’m not switching back.
California is going for “no mask if you’re vaxx”
At this moment, the Illinois mandate is that we are completely open. Vaccinated people need not wear masks indoors or outdoors. Those not vaccinated are asked to wear masks indoors and maintain social distancing. Businesses, however, can have stricter guidelines on their premises if they wish. Since no business I know of “cards” patrons for proof of vaccination, it’s basically an honor system.
I don’t trust nonmasked people.
In general you fall into one of these categries:
UV) unmasked, and you’ve been vaccinated
UN) unmasked, and you have not, but think it was a waste of time and are basically lying
MN) masked, not vaccinated (for whatever reason) but at least doing the responsible thing
MV) masked, vaccinated. Overcautious, perhaps - but we still wear masks in public.
If someone a few feet away in a store is unmasked, you have absolutely no way of knowing which category they fall into - and you are almost literally trusting them with your life. Given the behavior of so very, very many covidiots, it’s a hella lot safer to assume they are in the UN category.
Which boils down to why I feel that responsible people SHOULD continue to wear masks voluntarily in public for a while yet. Even if UN people are in the distinct minority, you’re doing it to protect others and yourself.
The good news is that even if they are unmasked and unvaxxed (and probably Trumplicans—kidding! Maybe not), if you are vaccinated then at least CoVid will likely not knock you on your ass the same way it would if you weren’t. So there’s that.
At this point, it’s more like I’m trusting the vaccine with my life.
If somebody asks me to put a mask on, then I’ll do that. If I’m in town, I’ll have one handy in my pocket. But, watching the advice and the results of the vaccine and the advice in the form of the hospitalization rates dropping, I’m by now pretty comfortable without a mask in most situations.
True enough - I’ve been vaccinated and am not too worried in general.
But for someone who has NOT (for whatever reason): if you have not been vaccinated, and are out and about, you have no idea whether the person next to you on the bus is unmasked due to vaccination status, or due to being an ass.
Ah. I see what you mean.
And I’ve seen reports that the drastic drop in hospitalizations is mostly among the vaccinated; the unvaccinated are still significantly at risk from each other.
As of yesterday, New York State has lifted nearly all restrictions. There are a few exceptions, but essentially, COVID restrictions are over in this state.
New York City had its own regulations, but as far as I can tell, they’ve been overridden by the State.
The new state policy requires unvaccinated people to continue to wear masks everywhere, but that’s so unverifiable and unenforceable as to be meaningless. And a huge percentage of the unmasked here in NYC are people who were never on board with wearing masks anyway, so they’re sure as hell not going to be wearing them now.
A few restrictions remain:
Further, the State’s health guidelines continue to be in effect for large-scale indoor event venues, pre-K to grade 12 schools, public transit, homeless shelters, correctional facilities, nursing homes, and health care settings per CDC guidelines.
And I believe federal regulations still require masks on public transportation.
However, judging by my travels in the city yesterday, everyone just thinks we’re done with masks. Including on public transportation.
On the plus side, last night the State of New York put on a nice fireworks display to celebrate, in New York Harbor, right outside my windows.
When will this change for you—or will it?
I kind of don’t understand this logic. If I’m vaccinated, then what do I care what others are doing or what they think of me? I’m safe.
I remember a mantra that was drummed into my head years ago, when I was doing some personal therapy:
“What others think of me is none of my business.”
Yep. Let’s try an analogy.
Being unmasked while unvaccinated is like driving drunk, you pose a danger to other drivers on the road. Now that I am vaccinated, I’m no longer driving on the same road as the unvaccinated, I’m separated from Drunk Driver Highway by a vaccine guardrail.
Is it possible that one of those drunks jumps the guardrail and harms me? Yes, but I’m not going to stop driving because of that. I’m also not going to feel bad if people get harmed by choosing to travel on Drunk Driver Highway, particularly if they choose to drive drunk themselves.
We just spent a year fearful that we or one of our loved ones were going to die in a hospital bed. It’s going to take some time for that fear to fade, irrational or not. If nothing else, wearing a mask might make someone feel more safe and relaxed, and that’s a benefit regardless of the COVID risk. But logically, a healthy, vaccinated person wearing a mask is like a driver wearing a helmet and racing suit on their daily commute. It undoubtedly reduces risk, but it’s being overly cautious for the actual risk.
But one reason to continue wearing masks is that COVID is not over worldwide. The more people that catch it, the more chance for a vaccine-resistant variant to emerge. Likely we will have plenty of advance notice before such a variant would be a major problem in the US. Continuing to wear a mask will mean that you will be less likely to catch it if that novel variant makes it into your community. But even with that risk, continuing to wear a mask for that purpose is likely overkill compared to the actual risk you would face.
Oh, I never said it was rational… 
Cal/OSHA just gave us the all clear. I just saw the faces of four employees I hired since last summer for the first time. And they saw mine. Poor bastards…
Whitmer announced she is ending all restrictions on June 22. In all fairness, our current COVID rate is lower than it’s ever been since the pandemic started. It’s almost as if vaccines are, you know, effective at stopping the spread of disease.
Went to Meijer today for the first time in a while because of a bad back keeping me invalid. Only about 10-15% of people mask-less I’d estimate. Kinda surprising to me. My mask went back in a drawer two weeks and 1 minutes after my second shot. I doubt Tuesday will change things all that much really.
CA went maskless statewide for vaccinated folks June 15. A few places are still enforcing full mask requirements vaccinated or not (like one large supermarket I visited last night), but even those that don’t are near 100% masked, customers and employees. This is in a liberal area that has always had higher masking compliance, but I nonetheless find it interesting how behavior has not changed like flipping a light switch like I half-expected. Looks like around were it will be a rather more gradual process.
My condo complex for instance is still requiring masks in elevators and in common areas near other people. Again so far compliance seems to be 100%.