With deaths from COVID-19 only about as bad as in January 2021 (when few were vaccinated), in both the U.S. as a whole and Maskachusetts alone, declarations of “Mission Accomplished” are becoming common, with associated rollbacks of orders to check vaccine papers and orders for the subjects to wear masks.
How do people who have clung to their cloth masks as security blankets react during the Twilight of the Coronagods?
“Massachusetts Mask and Vax Mandates: A (Temporarily Accurate) Guide” (Boston Magazine, 2/16/2022):
Whether you’re required to wear a face mask depends on where you are. When you see it on a map, it’s striking just how much variety there is when it comes to policies town-by-town and city-by-city. Boston still requires them for all public indoor spaces, as do neighbors Cambridge, Somerville, Newton, and Brookline. Some places, like Medford, Malden, and Melrose, require masks only in municipal buildings.
As you certainly know by now, Boston opted to make vaccine checks mandatory at indoor venues like restaurants and gyms in January. Brookline did the same thing. (Interestingly, Brookline’s vax mandate applies to restaurants’ outdoor patios, while Boston’s does not). Other cities and towns considered following in Boston’s footsteps—among them Arlington, Cambridge, and Somerville—but didn’t, although lots and lots of business owners have enacted their own vaccine rules.
Meanwhile, Boston is nearing the next stage of its vaccine mandate policy—per the city’s B Together plan, kids 12 and older will need to be fully vaccinated to enter those places, too, beginning February 15. Kids ages 5-11 will need to have at least one dose by March 1, and two doses by May 1.
Even though lots of states have been dropping their school mask mandates, the CDC thinks it’s too soon to take that step, and is sticking with its guidance that kids stay masked in schools.
From the linked-to article:
“As small business operators we have a civic duty to take care of the health and safety of our guests and employees alike,” Tracy Chang told Eater in July 2021. Chang is the chef and owner of Pagu in Cambridge’s Central Square. “The past year has taught us just how vulnerable are the lives of essential hospitality workers, just how broken the existing hospitality industry is when it comes to wages, benefits, and welfare,” Chang continued. “We now have an opportunity to rebuild the industry to be a better, stronger one, starting one restaurant at a time. The least we can do is pay people more, check for proof of full vaccination, take temperatures at the door, and require masks indoors when not eating/drinking.” [later in the article it notes that Mx. Chang also requires government-issued photo ID, which is definitely not a racist policy]
If he/she/ze/they really wants to #StopTheSpread, why not close his/her/zir/their restaurant permanently? People eating at home won’t generate as many infections or breed as many mutations as people eating in restaurants.
Club Passim (47 Palmer St., Cambridge): All staff, performers, and customers are required to show proof of vaccination (the card or the photo) upon entering the club; ticket purchases will be refunded for those who cannot or will not show proof. Non-performers must wear masks indoors unless actively eating or drinking. Passim continues to offer livestream performances and online classes.
Again, if you’re concerned about COVID-19, why assemble COVID-19-spreading people to hear music when everyone has the capability of streaming audio and video at home?
How about those schools? February 17 email from a suburban district is presumably typical:
The Lincoln Board of Health met on Wednesday evening, February 16th to discuss the February 28, 2022 expiration of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education school mask mandate. While they agreed that our positive case numbers have dropped to low levels, concerns were raised about the possibility of an increase in cases after the February vacation week. They would like to see that our low number of cases are sustained over the next few weeks. In addition, Board of Health member Dr. Kanner shared that state level data is still at rates higher than it was in August when the BOH instituted the Town and school mask mandate.
The Board of Health voted to hold off on a decision until March 9, 2022 when they will reconvene to review the COVID data for the schools, Town and state and consider rescinding the town mask mandate.
The School Committee met this morning and received an update on the outcomes of the Lincoln Board of Health meeting. The Committee voted to re-visit the decision regarding maintaining the mask mandate or moving to less masking in the schools at it’s upcoming School Committee meeting on March 10th.
Interim Health Commissioner Patrick Maloney announces that the Town of Brookline’s mask mandate and proof of vaccination requirement continues to remain in effect though the need for these requirements will be reassessed next month. [i.e., in March 2022]
Proof of vaccination will continue to be required for patrons at all: … [restaurants, gyms, theaters, museums, etc.]
Additionally, masks continue to be required in all public indoor spaces in Brookline.
(Most of the above is actually illegal in Florida, of course, which refuses to follow Science. The legislature, for example, passed a law that forbids public schools to order children to wear masks.)
With the rollbacks will you consider a migration back from Florida or is the allure of an infinite amount of activities enough to keep you in the sunshine and fun state?
JJ: that would be a decision for Senior Management! (Remember that this isn’t the first time Maskachusetts did a rollback. Simon said not to wear masks in MA from June 2021 to September 2021 (except for school kids, who got no relief). Unless you want to say that Nature has run out of respiratory viruses I don’t think it would make sense to tell people in MA to throw away their masks and vaccine papers.)
Today during a medical appointment for a therapy in a large Massachusetts Poor Mine™ town, where almost all “commerce” is sick people or those attempting to treat sick people, of course I had a COVID-19 screening upon arrival. I was wearing not just my N95 mask but also my bright yellow double-mask from the day before. The facility has a large placard/billboard display at the entrance declaring in two languages with a very diverse group photo that no aggressive behavior whatsoever will be tolerated, including spicy language.
Of course, I did not intend to engage in any of that, as I am aware of the potential consequences and had much more important things on my mind. Regardless, when I was screened, I did feel a bit puzzled: I sanitized my hands, my temperature was taken (normal) and I attested to my health. Then I was told to *remove* my bright yellow mask – which I had received the previous Friday and used exactly once, and replace it with a brand new one, again on top of my N95. I cast my voice into my best and most authentic Jamaican English (I know this guy) and said: “Hey, mon, you were here Friday with me, gave me this mask, I wore it once, now I gotta wear a new one?”
The gatekeeper with the Rastafarian hair and the temperature gun behind the table said: “Hey, mon: That’s the policy we been TOLD!” with a big smile, as he handed me my new mask and discarded my Used One Time discard into a big trash container, which looked like it had at least 100 others inside.
I didn’t think to say: “Götterdämmerung!” and instead said: “No worries, mon. I’m Broader than Broadway!”
[BIG LAUGHS]
I wore both my masks, tried to breathe normally, and all was well. Just like In-N-Out Burger, and no disruptions to the flow!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3epH_KNnwYE
The climbdown is going to take TIME, mon!
BTW I was particularly struck by the spread of the anti-aggression billboard, which didn’t exist at the beginning of the pandemic and started appearing in large hospitals and other health care facilities less than six months ago, as far as I can tell.
They’re always posted right at the entrances and also in the emergency rooms, probably in a couple of other locations throughout the buildings as well but I haven’t taken a careful accounting. I take it from their ubiquity (and cost: these are large format full-color signs) that HC facilities throughout the state are trying to preempt or defuse aggressive behavior among their patients. I’ve never seen anything in my life like that until COVID-19 – where walk-in patients had to be pre-admonished not to get angry. Or ELSE.
Gee I wonder why people would be upset in hospitals.
https://sergei-mosin.tumblr.com/post/676834692965810176
I do not support such but suspect healthcare workers are going to be shot in the streets.
> Even though lots of states have been dropping their school mask mandates, the CDC thinks it’s too soon to take that step, and is sticking with its guidance that kids stay masked in schools.
These people should lose their jobs as reporters. In Massachusetts, the Baker-Polito Administration of course ordered 26 million rapid test kits to support the “Test To Stay” program and my guess is that until that winds down (MA was and is one of the pilot states) the CDC will not rescind its mask order.
Including that information in an article that is supposed to be honest and informative is typical of the selective reporting that has characterized “journalism” during this pandemic from almost Day One. It only takes a few minutes to include that paragraph and relevant information, but it never makes the cut, and that’s because the people who have ordered these things and spent the money can *never* receive any blame for what they have done. Charlie Baker will retire from government with all of his Executive Orders and not a single person in the MA Legislature will ever be held responsible for anything that has happened – right or wrong.
That’s not a government, folks!
Calif* has been mask free for almost a week now, but they’ve become social norms after 2 years. Being without a mask has become like being naked so everyone just wears them like underwear.
You need to move back & give us ground floor coverage of greenspunchusetts. In all those years of Hanscom field news, you never showed us the Louise Alcott & Nathaniel Hawthorne houses.
The people from Maskachusetts who are afraid could attempt to move north to Canada, where they’ll find the safety of martial law deployed against dissidents.
I haven’t left the state of FL in over ten years. And, w/o any problems, I have’t worn a face mask in almost 18 months. I am double-vaxed and boosted.
double-vaxed and boosted deplorable? deplorable wanna-be prole
Leftism is intimately intertwined with post-modernism, the philosophical theory which is akin to collective solipsism. By using the right language and having the right thoughts “we” together can shape reality itself. (Hence the leftist insistence on dragging everyone along on their quest to utopia, on moving in lockstep.)
It makes no sense to think of their positions in terms of anything rational or objective. In their world no such things exist, even if they are paying lip service to “science” (none of them, scientists included, understand what science is about, even as they go through the motions of collecting data, formulating theories, and running their z-tests). They are magical thinkers, having lost the rationality of the world purposefully created by God and fancying themselves as acolytes and parts of their Collective God.
So… masks, lockdowns, and vaccines are not about anything objective; these are just magical rituals their credentialed shamans told them will purify the miasma if everyone will just try hard enough. If somebody disbelieves and doubts their new magic reality collapses, rendering all their sacrifices useless and ineffective. It’s not at all different from the shamans of old telling their tribes to do rain dances and blaming failure to cause rain on those who slacked.
The sophisticated transhumanist and builders or technological utopias are, in fact, just the throwbacks to the primitive. Doing modern-day equivalent of dances with dunduns around a fire.
…and if you ever went to a rave or Burning Man, you’ve seen that – even if you didn’t get the meaning of it (PLUR and stuff).
@averros:
regarding your comment on the efficacy/side-effect of Pfizer in the other thread (can’t find it):
https://twitter.com/drsimonegold/status/1496084166416420869?s=20&t=c6c_uv5pLVYaDB8T7UmUOw
India has declined Pfizer’s use (for now).