Free to choose

plaguedoctormasks.com

We have been on vacation in another state again.  The state we visited has had no statewide requirements for the wearing of masks as protection against COVID since May 24.  Nationally, as of this writing a few municipalities still have requirements in place, but although some elected officials and bodies have either banned requirements all along or lifted them as early as March, most provincial health departments concur, voluntary mask wearing for the unvaccinated is recommended.  In the state we visited, in public retail and dining establishments, most but not all workers wore masks and few to no customers did.  Coming from a state that still had some requirements, we at first erred on the side of caution and kept covered but, being vaccinated ourselves, were soon seduced by entreaties to forgo masking if we desired.  I confess, I desired.

In the two fairly rural counties of the state we visited where we spent most of our time, more than 70% of persons had reportedly had a least 1 dose of a vaccine.  The one we spent our nights in has as of this writing a somewhat more than 50% rate of full vaccination.  This is comparable to the large suburban county we live in, where mask wearing is similarly voluntary for the unvaccinated, but still quite de rigueur we noticed on our return, even though the state mask requirements have been lifted since July 1.  Even having tasted freedom and breathed free on vacation, I comply.  When in the suburbs, I do as the suburbans do.   Moreover, our county was hit particularly hard in the thick of the pandemic, has struggled to come out of it and has had an uneasy relationship with the capitol from the outset during the crisis.  I understand the reluctance to trust that everything is back to normal just because the governor says it is.

I'm never on the vanguard of fashion.  I resisted making the transition to mask wearing last spring but when the CDC's recommendations finally gelled into coherence, I had the confirmation I needed that wearing a mask like a doofus was warranted.  Now that I've been fully vaccinated since the end of May, I'm likewise not about to pioneer free-facing it.  As always, my motivation is selfish and stupid-- I don't want to stick out.  But while I know that interaction with me is safe for an unvaccinated person, they don't know that, so as long as the prevailing winds are with precaution, I'm down with it.

Looking through the status of mask mandates by state, I'm reminded that not everyone has health as a priority in setting public health mandates.  It's a pretty thoroughly politicized thing in this country, reflecting the polarization that is a hallmark of this precarious era.  At the base of things, I can't help but think we've got to be much more alike about this than our divergent attitudes, which fall along very predictable faultlines bordering the expected shades of the political map, would indicate.  Nobody having gone through what we've just been through wants to end up dead from the fucking thing.  But by the same token, neither should anyone look askance at those who cast a leery eye at the Professional Managerial Class that monopolized information about the disease as a means of orchestrating a coordinated national response to the threat it posed to the status quo.  Banning common sense requirements of mutual protection by edict in the throes of a pandemic is clearly a contradictory and asinine response to the notion of safeguarding public health.   But if you're wearing a mask as a pussy hat for the face, you're doing it wrong, too.