The masks are still everywhere. Masks cover vaccinated faces. Masks cover outdoor faces.
If we ask why, given the consensus that masks are useless against the coronavirus in these circumstances, and given the virus’s increasing rarity in the United States, we usually get a slightly syrupy answer: People are simply being considerate to others. Or we get some vague answer about being conscientious.
Yes, some concepts of considerateness and conscientiousness might push vaccinated or outdoor people to mask up. Individuals are unique in countless ways, and so, anyone may have any number of reasons to mask up. But it’s impossible not to smell the opposite: antisocial tendencies, possibly tendencies cultivated over 14 months of treating other human bodies as a threat.
“Masks have also become so much more than mere barrier between germs and lungs,” a New York Times reporter wrote. “They can keep that too-chatty neighbor at bay or help the introvert hide in plain sight.”
Because that’s the problem with America today: Neighbors get to know one another too much.
“I am not all that eager to see noses and mouths,” one Twitter user said in defense of mask theater.
Faces are gross, am I right?
But the most common reason vaccinated people continue to wear masks, even after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they were unneeded and after states and localities have dropped their mask mandates and after major retailers have, too, is distrust.
The argument goes like this: I am fully vaccinated, and I know masks don’t do anything for the fully vaccinated, but we’re now operating on the honor system. Over the past year of watching other people flout the social distancing rules I follow, I’ve come to trust people a lot less. So because I suspect many unmasked people are unvaccinated, I will continue to wear a mask for now.
The illogic here is manifold. For one thing, your mask is not there primarily to protect you, but to protect others from your exhalations. More importantly, if you are vaccinated, you are protected from any unvaccinated people who may be sick. The only people they are endangering are the other unvaccinated people.
A deep distrust of others trumps logic and science, though. So until we see other people as friends, neighbors, and children of God, expect to see less of other people’s faces.
