The same weekend Washington, D.C., will embrace the new coronavirus normal and scale back its mask mandate, a next-door wealthy and liberal Maryland county of 1 million people is moving in the opposite direction. Montgomery County is reinstating its mask requirement, even while its top health officials acknowledge the policy won’t make much of a difference.

“Do I think it’s going to make a huge difference to keep masks on at this point?” Montgomery County health official Earl Stoddard asked on a press call Wednesday after endorsing the mask mandate. “I don’t think so.”