There was a sign at Trader Joe's on Tuesday saying people could come in without masks on. At first I kept mine on when I went in, but my face was sweaty from playing tennis and I saw maybe 20% of the people in there did not have them on so I took mine off. It felt pretty weird. Certainly I was glad that my flank was covered by others who didn't have theirs on.
Today there was a picture of a bunch of kids in New York playing outdoors in a jazz band with black masks on, presumably pulled aside to put their mouths to their horns, etc. It seemed pretty excessive, given the moment. I also continue to see people walking around outside in neighborhoods with masks on.
To the extent that masks represent a true civic-mindedness and consideration for others, compliance above and beyond what is expected of us could be construed as a noble thing. I think we all need to be careful of letting mask-wearing devolve into a tribal statement: I am a Democrat therefore I wear a mask, and only we Democrats have the public interest in mind, the rest of yall are evil. We need to try to move past that. It is no longer serving us well.
That said, when I go into stores going forward I don't have a strict "I'm not wearing my mask to show I'm a free man" policy laid out in my mind. This will be situational. People in urban Asia have been wearing masks in public for a long time and specific situations like public conveyances it may be the better part of wisdom to wear them for a while.
I recently read a story about how lower instances of colds and flus and the like have challenged the business models of general practitioner physicians. Seems like they were dependent on the cashflow that came from visits of people coming in for assurance that nothing more was wrong with them, which could then be billed to insurers. It may be that broad public health risk avoidance behaviors in the general population changes the economics of healthcare going forward. I think we could all live with that;.
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