As recommended by the CDC I still DOUBLE mask (i.e., a disposable sars-fabric mask under a cloth mask, the former blocks more virons, the latter closes the gaps better than those blue masks) even though I have been fully vaccinated since the end of March, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Food for thought….

Yes, we’ve all seen those wonderful numbers of the case rate going down. Yay! Let’s all rip off our masks!

BUT WAIT….

That’s due to the 50% or so that are vaccinated in relation to the entire population. If you take those vaccinated out of the equation, it ain’t so rosey. The case rate among those not vaccinated is still at peak January levels in a lot of areas. The PNW is one of the areas that’s bad. Most of the country has unvaccinated case rates much higher than the overall national rate.

But don’t take my word for it. The numbers are out there if you research and compile the official data. However, the Washington Post has done the digging for you and put them out in easily understood graphs and text. I don’t know if this link will work here on anything but an Apple device but give it a shot: https://apple.news/AxyIwJaUDR06P6pG8hT-J_g

In that context the mask mandates still makes sense.

If you're really asking that in response to what I sincerely hope remains a farcical, sarcastic response:

The side that said, "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!"

What are you worried about? You're vaccinated. The vaccines cover all known variants or strains of the virus. The number of cases in the USA are dropping rapidly. Most of us have had the vaccine. If you didn't and you get sick, I suppose that's on your watch. I certainly don't loose sleep if someone gets or does not get the vaccine.

What's the harm in wearing a mask? plenty. Since many places are dropping mask mandates (Ohio lifted ALL Covid orders effective today for example) and businesses are going back to not requiring masks, our tourist trains are not going to be all that appealing when there is a plethora of maskfree entertainment options out there. So we will suffer reduced ridership until the Federal govt. stops playing politics and just drops the mask mandates.

I'll tell you, going to dinner tonight and not seeing any signs on the door of the restaurant and finally seeing people's faces was a welcome return to normalcy. I think the vast majority of us are ready to put this behind us. The vaccine is out there. There are open appointments available. Get it and lets move on. But its hard to do when our govt. places us at a competitive disadvantage.

The choice, when it comes to public health emergencies, was more like "Give me liberty to give me death". The simplistic nonsense from libertarian fundamentalists was proven to be unworkable as soon as someone built an outhouse uphill from someone else's well.

I'm worried about PASSING IT ALONG TO OTHERS. I am flabbergasted at the level of willful ignorance for humanity in general and it blows my mind how few people seem to understand that if you've have the shot, you can still easily catch it and pass it to others who haven't had the shot (which is something you can't know for them).
This, people, is why we are where we are. "I'm good, so [bleep] everyone else."And hence, the very reason so many people are getting sick. Most people are so desperate to put this behind, comically bad moves have taken place and are still happening because folks want to be done and won't listen to anything they don't agree with.

My child is not old enough to be vaccinated.

Plus the vaccines are not 100% effective, the protection the vaccines provide may fade over time (just as you need to get a tetanus booster every 10 years) and the novel coronavirus may mutate in a way that makes the vaccines less effective.

Those are some of the reasons why I am still wearing KN95 respirators whenever I have to go inside public places (stores, schools, etc.)
Lee, I've been following the #covidisairborne hashtag on twitter. I'm dumbfounded by just how many doctors and public health officials erroneously believe that the coronavirus can only be transmitted thru droplets that fall out of the air within 6 feet. Environmental Engineers were saying that was wrong back in January 2020!

The dichotomy here is stark.

There are people who "want a return to normal."

And there are people who, by their own words, are determined to make sure we can never return to "normal," calling mask-wearing the "new normal," and determined to impose the job of safety from their own fears upon others--in other words, making a supposedly temporary "medical emergency" a permanent destruction of liberties.

Pneumonia from influenza has killed three friends of mine and my only sibling. Yet I'm not demanding everyone mask up, get flu shots, etc. every flu season.

To the "pro-mask" folks:
Does there exist a parameter or standard whereas you will permit "normal" again?

Or are you lining up for smallpox booster shots still?

Respectfully, that’s not where the dichotomy lies. We all want to get back to normal ASAP. Where I see the dichotomy is:

A. Those that want to get back to normal now since “I’ve been vaccinated” and to hell with everyone else which is 50% of the US population. That scenario will drag out the pandemic into the next year or two or more.

B. Those that want to knuckle down, continue precautions, get everybody vaccinated and get this behind us as quickly as possible.

This is also a global problem that can have future ramifications in your own back yard if we don’t get a handle on it.

I find it an interesting study in human behavior, sadly a deadly one which I find appalling. It makes me wonder what would happen if something with a much higher infection/death rate were to be set upon us. Nature always finds a way to cull the herd. We’ve been lucky so far….

Does liberty include the freedom to potentially infect ones neighbors with a possibly fatal virus despite knowing how to take simple steps to prevent it? I think many people become so obsessed with the concept of liberty they forget that it comes with responsibilities in a civilized society. No, you don't need to water it with blood, just rational consideration.

The flu has basically disappeared in my area this past year, most likely due to the combination of isolation and mask wearing. Alberta had less than 100 cases and not a single fatality from it over that time.

If smallpox was still 'in the wild' and killing people, you bet I would get vaccinated against it. The U.S. Military continued vaccinating some personnel into the 21st century and may still, I couldn't find up to date information on short notice. Both our countries maintain some smallpox vaccine stockpiles and vaccination plans, just in case it ever returns.

The information I've read seems to indicate that getting vaccinated REDUCES your likelihood of transmitting COVID to others, but does not eliminate it.

This virus is still raging out of control in other parts of the world, and it remains to be seen if it will evolve resistance to the current vaccines before vaccination programs take hold globally.

We've had outbreaks in the diesel shops in both Winnipeg and Edmonton at different times, and crews have caught it from taxi drivers or vice-versa (an engineer in Winnipeg almost died last week). We have not had much crew to crew transmission (if any), despite working together with lots of different people in the relatively confined space of a locomotive cab for long periods (gotta take the mask off to eat and drink sometimes).

I was fascinated to learn there were anti-mask groups active during the Spanish Flu pandemic. Not to mention the controversy around the use of Cowpox following Edward Jenner's successful experiment (one cartoon showed cows bursting from the arms of the inoculated). Some things never change.

Well written!
Hey, I hate wearing the masks as much as the rest of you. Beats me why people who don't wanna wear them think anyone else enjoys it.
I'm very conservative by nature and am huge on individual rights but I gotta side with the reality of the situation, a global pandemic that is killing countless people worldwide every minute. I'm not in the least bit sorry that some folks are ticked they gotta wear masks and feel they shouldn't have to because they're.... special, I guess?
This thing hasn't killed anyone specifically close to me but it has killed at least three people I knew and it really made a bunch of them very sick (my entire optometrist office got it bad, none of them can still smell or taste anything, over a year later).
I'm still dreading the possibility for the second round of this thing that a doctor I know said could come like the second wave of the 1918 flu pandemic which morphed into another strain that took out the segments of the population that the first wave missed.
When I took NBC training in the Army, I had to study with a doctor about infectious diseases. I didn't pay that much attention to be honest as out primary focus was fallout and nerve agents (as we were a unit designed to go fight in Korea if that flared up again), but I remember a bit.
Almost 20 years ago, he told me exactly what would happen in a pandemic in the US and he nailed every aspect. He called it on the hording of goods, people refusing to accept the situation and even the "my rights trump the reality" that we're all knee-deep into now nd even those who would make up their own 'evidence' to support not getting whatever vaccine might come out. He was talking about something more lethal than COVID, though, and he said he didn't want to be around when it happened because he knew that it would wipe us out completely because people wouldn't handle having to do things they didn't like to stop the spread. Same deal happened in 1918 as well.
It's here, you gotta deal with it, and it's really that simple. Once the new transmission goes down to a point where it's clearly dying off or the spread it really going down to be well observed, then let's talk about stopping the masks.

Lots of people, and the data, will tell you that this has already happened here.

Once again, I ask: At what point are the "cautious" willing to accept it's "over" and "normal" can return? At least some evidence suggests--contrary to "jayrod's" attempt to redefine the "dichotomy"--is that there are a substantial number of people that, for whatever reason (phobia, personal experience of losing someone, preferring introvertism, etc.), have NO desire whatsoever to let "normal" return. (I read an article interviewing women who now preferred having to wear masks constantly in public as some form of equalizing of body language, dissuading male gazes, etc.)

The frustration skeptics have--and it fuels their overall mistrust of authority in this situation--is the constantly-moving goalposts, beginning with "two weeks to flatten the curve".......

Even the Orwellian-named PATRIOT Act, an abominable travesty of infringement of basic rights by the government, had an expiration date.

[Bad Math Deleted by Poster] It is just not possible to go back to "normal" after a loss like that.

The Civil War claimed 2.5% of the entire US population and that took 4 years.And women choosing to wear masks is a problem because why? You can't tell them to smile more?