Of Masks and Men

So, what? We’re just supposed to take everyone’s word for it?

Finally, after more than a year, the Centers for Disease Control has (have? Can we get a grammar ruling here?), now declared that we—the not so few, the smug, the vaccinated—may now venture forth without masks. Science has spoken!  

I don’t feel as celebratory as I thought I would, though.

For one thing, for me, it’s a minor victory. I never minded the mask much. As a somewhat chin-deprived individual, I took comfort in covering up. And now, I admit that the thought of going outside without a mask now feels. . . uncomfortable. It’s the same kind of feeling you get when you try a drastically new hairstyle: You feel like everyone’s going to be staring at you, judging you.

And, yeah, judgment: I live in a very blue part of a very blue state. If I walk around without my mask, I feel like I also need to wear a t-shirt declaring, in large font, my vaccinated status, lest I be mistaken for an anti-mask, anti-vaccine moron.

I also question the idea that this new mandate will inspire more people to get vaccinated. This presumes a large group of people who don’t particularly want to get vaccinated, but who also dislike wearing a mask, and who are avoiding vaccination in large part because they have been thinking, “Why bother? I’ll still have to wear my mask anyway.” People, in other words, for whom the primary benefit of vaccination is not being protected from a dangerous virus, nor of protecting others, but rather that they won’t have to strap a thin piece of fabric across their faces when they go down to Safeway.

How big is this population? 

And of course, these would also have to be people who are unwilling to lie about their vaccination status. It’s not like anyone is going to be checking medical records of the unmasked (or, indeed, issuing t-shirts like the one I propose above). 

All right, you’ve talked me into it! I’m going into the t-shirt business. Want to invest?