An indoor mask mandate is back in San Francisco and seven other counties in the Bay Area. Not that residents here ever really took their masks off while out in public. I can remember going into the local Target after California fully reopened last month, and practically everybody still had a mask on. My workplace - San Francisco State University - never got rid of its indoor mask requirement. The only time I was cavalier with not masking properly is at restaurants. Soon as I sit down, the mask comes off.
What I am trying to say is: San Francisco has some of the highest vaccination rates in the world, plus a robust masking culture. Despite that, the highly contagious delta variant of COVID is forcing City Hall to reenact safety measures officially. I shudder to think what other locales are like right now in areas of the country where vaccines are seen as the devil.
The whole point of this latest exercise is to curb the spread of the delta variant. Even though vaccinated people are super protected against it - breakthrough COVID case rates are infinitesimal- I guess we still make good carriers? It’s truly a pandemic of the unvaccinated now, but that’s the not the point. What we don’t want is for this COVID variant to mutate into something that will do things previously unseen: affect children, and render current vaccines ineffective.
To that end I have no issues with masking up again while indoors in public. I never stopped! I’ve had a habit of masking way before this whole pandemic (I’m Asian, after all). Often times you don’t want to make yourself up to go outside. A mask and a hat solves all the facial and follicle presentation worries. Real shame that masks have turned into such a hugely bitter partisan symbolism.
Let’s hope this delta variant wave will subside relatively quickly, with little damage.
Unnatural habitat.