I too am in a pretty liberal area, but wow did mask use ever vanish. Compliance seemed pretty good up until about a month ago, and it has completely dropped off. Last weekend I felt like I was the only one wearing a mask in several different stores.
Fortunately this area also has 75% of eligible people at least partially vaccinated, and 68% fully vaccinated.
Have not been following the thread consistently.
Ultimately there are 4 possibilities seen out in public: fully vaxxed or not vs wearing a mask or not.
Setting aside kids, elderly, and the obviously infirm…
At this point my POV is I can’t influence the non-vaxxed; their brain is stuck on OANN/stupid mode and I can’t touch that. Not by myself and not with 10,000 allies all wearing masks to provide social pressure they’re hell-bent on ignoring in addition to all the science they’re ignoring. So I now view my mask as having zero social significance. Which is a GIGANTIC change from my POV last spring/summer.
So what’s left as I decide to wear one or not is how much it protects others and how much it protects me.
Since I’m fully vaxxed, and so are 100% of my fellow citizens that I care about, whereas I now actively hope the antivax get sick as soon as possible my belief is that by not masking at all I pose no threat to the people I care about and to the degree I pose a threat to the non-vaxxed that too is a social good.
So no mask for the interests of others; they burned that bridge, slaughtered the village, and salted the earth. F them. Which is a GIGANTIC change from my POV last spring/summer/fall/winter and even into this spring.
All that’s left to affect my decision is whether my mask protects me.
Again as I’m fully vaxxed, I’ll wear it in high density situations. But not in nearly empty stores and certainly not in uncrowded spaces outdoors. As a social courtesy, and nothing more, I will put it on to directly talk to store clerks and restaurant waitstaff. They’re stuck dealing with the public all day every day and if I can ease their burden a bit I will.
But otherwise? I’m done being a good example for deluded imbeciles.
For me? Personally, a coin flip in both cases. I’m really trying to get better than 50-50 odds on both, but that’s essentially what I think. Today I was in Target, and about 80% were still masked. I honestly guess about half of those masked are already vaccinated. The 20% not masked? I’d guess about half. Maybe a little more, are actually vaxxed.
My husband is giving blood today…no mask required.
Mask use over the past week here in southern NH has dropped off sharply: I’d say less than 25% of people I see out and about are still wearing masks, and the only place I’ve been that requested a mask is the library. It’s really nice to shed the masks.
However 72% of adults in NH are at least partially vaccinated/64% fully, there’s fewer than 300 active cases statewide, and less than 3 dozen new cases being reported daily.
I should ask my husband, he gives blood (platelets) every two weeks. I think they are still requiring masks.
He just got a note from his dentist’s office that a person he was in contact with tested positive. He thinks it’s the receptionist, and they were both wearing masks, so hopefully it’s not a big deal for him. I have an eye appointment tomorrow, and the email said they still require masks. My pharmacy has changed their note from “masks required” to “masks requested”, so I wear my mask there, as does everyone else. Grocery shopping it’s about 50/50.
Although everyone I care about who survived this pandemic is now “vaccinated”, my mom is immune compromised, and I visit her at east once each week. So I don’t want to catch even a mild case, as I’m afraid I might pass it along to her.
I donate platelets every two weeks also. Two weeks ago I was still required to wear a mask even though fully vaccinated. Nebraska, albeit a ‘blue, liberal, university’ city.
It likely depends on where he gives blood. The Red Cross is pretty adamant that they are not a healthcare provider and they relaxed the mask requirements for the vaccinated in May, but leave it up to the individual local governments or sponsor who may choose to require them. Even in places in the country where masks are almost never seen, I still see them required at hospitals and doctor’s offices.
I just asked him. He gives at the Red Cross. They told him he didn’t need to wear a mask after he was fully vaccinated. But the people who draw his blood are all still masked.
I have thought about this for some time. I’m not in the risk category for being harmed by the virus but I wore a mask early on even when we were told not to because it was common sense. I stopped wearing it after getting the vaccine and the lifting of state mandates.
So with that preface I have to admit I felt funny not wearing the mask. It wasn’t because I suffer from virtue signalling. It was because of a year of wearing the mask and social distancing left a mental imprint.
For those people who are at risk I would expect that imprint to be much more powerful. If that is the case then the longer masks are worn the greater the mental discomfort of giving them up.
I went to my gym this morning, and there was a new, big sign on the door: “Masks Are Not Required Anymore”. Everyone inside (and it was not crowded) was maskless. So I did not wear my mask, either.
Last night was the first time we went to a restaurant where the servers were maskless. I’m not sure that’s officially allowed yet, but no one seemed to care.
The state opens today. I guess we are going to continue to mask for 2-3 weeks. I defer to my husband on these matters and he has a whole chart to show me to validate this decision.
We stopped wearing them at work about 2 weeks ago.
During a stop at the grocery last Sunday, I’d estimate a third of the shoppers were maskless. A visit to the same store a week earlier was maybe 15%. I didn’t wear one either time. Feels sort of strange after over a year.
The CDC mandate change did leave medical facilities (and a few others) masks still required. I’m surprised they let him be maskless.
The Red Cross, as an organization, isn’t considered a healthcare provider, even if some of their volunteers are. They removed mandates on May 21st for the vaccinated, but defer to local officials and sponsors who can require them.
When I have the flu, I stay the fuck home. The trouble with COVID is that so many infected people have no idea that they are. The last time I had the flu (actually, the only time I have had bona fide, lab-confirmed influenza), I got it from a co-worker who thought he was too damn important to work remotely, which he was perfectly well-equipped to do. If nothing else, I hope the whole pandemic clusterfuck changes the cultural equation around going to work sick, particularly when you have a job that can be done remotely.
Which reminds me: self, email HR tomorrow and ask them what their plans are if someone comes to work with COVID symptoms and refuses to go home. Sure, you told us all to stay home when we are sick, but I want to see it enforced.
Interesting…
I just went Grocery shopping on what is the second day of zero Covid measures here in Michigan. And there were a large number of empty shelves. For example , all the L, XL and Jumbo eggs gone, Seltzer section probably less than a quarter full. Meat case similarly 3/4 empty.
No Idea if the store ordered poorly, or if some Covid shut-ins finally came out and hit the town hard. Or if people are already panicking for the Delta variant or what was going on. But it was a bit concerning, and a bit disappointing, Stupid medium eggs, what the hell are they good for, and would have needed washing anyway.
Yet another weird experience for me happened this past weekend. The family and I went to a museum, and they still had a mask mandate for everyone inside. So no problem, I’ll wear one. But as I approached the entrance, I had it in my hand but not on yet. The security guard actually closed the door on me and gestured to his own mask, meaning I needed one or he’d not open the door.
It was such a weird expience. It was the first time anyone had ever (I guess you could say) physically challenged me about a mask. And after it feeling so natural and normal for months to just wear one in public, it had completely faded in just a couple weeks. It felt foreign, and a little…I dunno, abrasive…to be told to wear one.
10 minutes into it, I asked a different employee about the mandate, and they said they were dropping it in a week. 2 hours later, I’m talking to my wife and my mask slips down past my nose (as it always does when I talk, due to the fit) and a guard “asked” me to pull it back up over my nose. So it was kinda amusing or funny to see it so thoroughly and heavily enforced when it’s basically gone by next weekend.
Now, to be clear, I’m not saying anyone did anything wrong. Management sets the rules, employees enforce the rules, customers comply or GTFO. That’s all fine. I didn’t break any rules or give anyone a hard time, and they weren’t giving me a hard time, so all good. I’m just saying it was such a weird experience to kind of “regress,” so fully and so fast, after not even carrying a mask anymore and knowing they wouldn’t even be doing any of this in 4 or 5 days.
My first in-person grocery run since the mask mandate was lifted in California, at Walmart (I’m fussy enough about things like bananas that it’s easier to just go to the store and select them myself). Mask usage about 50% among customers, not quite 100% among employees (did see a couple of maskless, but since I’m not their supervisor, I don’t consider it my problem). Being fully vaccinated, I took great delight in both unobstructed breathing and being able to exchange smiles with other shoppers. Made the whole thing much more human, somehow.