It has been both surprising and somewhat depressing that wearing a mask during a pandemic (an act that benefits others more than the person wearing it) has been such a difficult thing for some people to do. In the US alone, over 571,000 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported.[1] The people today who criticize mask wearing outside as unreasonable are the same who downplayed coronavirus during Trump’s presidency, and mask wearing in general.[2] Ironically, these are the same people who tend to believe the virus was created in a Chinese lab and intentionally let loose upon the world, a claim disputed by our own health experts.[3]

We’ve made amazing progress with vaccines. Through Emergency Use Authorization, we got vaccines to a novel coronavirus on December 11, 2020. Incidentally, I got my second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Sunday, April 25, 2021. While I, too, suffered side effects (headache, fatigue, nausea), I highly encourage everyone to get vaccinated as it is the responsible thing to do and recommended by our own health experts. This April, the CDC released new guidelines regarding mask wearing. To summarize, mask wearing outside for the fully vaccinated was deemed unnecessary, except in crowds, such as in one found in a packed stadium.[4] This is good news for those, myself included, who want the economy to completely reopen again when things are safe enough to do so. So, all good, right? Not so fast. Fox News Host Tucker Carlson took this opportunity to encourage his followers to instigate a confrontation with “Biden voters,” those wearing masks outside, comparing the seemingly conscientious act to exposing oneself in public.[5] He wondered aloud why people were still wearing masks outside. He made these comments immediately following the CDC update, which, presumably, many still hadn’t learned of! Still, as silly as I found his comments, many Americans concur with Tucker on issues such as mask wearing and getting vaccinated. Therefore, in case this serves any good, I wrote this.

The simplest and most obvious answer to Tucker’s query is that many people still aren’t vaccinated. At the time of Tucker’s comments, only about 30% of Americans had been fully vaccinated.[6] Furthermore, fewer and fewer people are getting vaccinated.[7] This is dramatically less than the 70% necessary to reach herd immunity, which experts no longer believe achievable due to vaccine worries and new variants of the virus.[8] What this means is that, generally, you’re more likely to run into people who aren’t fully vaccinated than who are. While you’re unlikely to catch the virus outside from someone else, it is still possible. One viral expert, Dr. Linsey Marr from Virginia Tech, compared the action of the virus outside to releasing “a drop of dye in the ocean”; If you happen to be near it, you can get affected. Otherwise, it dissipates into the water.[9] Therefore, wearing a mask outside may put another at-risk person (or one who lives with or visits such a person) at ease. It’s impossible to tell by looking at them who is and isn’t fully vaccinated. In addition, there are many reasons, some reasonable, some not so, why people may not be fully vaccinated at this point – or ever: concern over side effects; paranoia about government conspiracies; absence of time (due to work, family, etc.), which more commonly affects those who earn less; and physical or mental handicaps. And these are not mutually exclusive.

Now, here’s a small list of yet more reasons people might have for wearing a mask outside:

-       It’s simply more convenient to keep a mask on when out and about in the city than to put it back on and take it back off; it’s also easier not to forget to put the mask back on when entering a store or indoor establishments.

-       Many people are still unaware of the recent update in CDC guidelines.

-       It has been common for decades in East Asian countries for people to wear masks when sick. There’s not much to this. East Asia tends to have more conscientious societies than in the US

-       Maybe the air quality is bad (as in certain cities, such as Beijing and Los Angeles) or perhaps the masked individual has asthma and doesn’t want to breathe in cigarette smoke from a crowded street. 

-       Here’s another simple concept: It’s better to be safe than sorry. The virus is still mutating and every person this thing infects is another opportunity for it to mutate and spread.

All that said, what will I do? Harass those without masks? No; I will not judge those with or without masks, in- or outdoors. I will give people the benefit of the doubt. Personally, I will continue to wear a mask outside when I am generally near other people or in a crowded street or otherwise in accordance with current CDC guidelines. Otherwise, I won’t wear a mask. Really, it’ll depend on how I feel and my judgement of the situation in the moment. At some point, after it has become the norm to see most people outdoors without masks, I will likely not wear a mask outdoors. Likewise, if we reach herd immunity, which, as mentioned, is unlikely, I’ll probably not wear a mask out then either. 

So, what do I think you should do? Easy. Don’t pass judgment. You don’t know strangers, masked or unmasked; don’t act like you do. Yes, sometimes people are breaking the explicit rules that keep others safe. Otherwise, respect others’ autonomy. I have someone special in my life with a mother who has both lupus and fibromyalgia. She’s been petrified of infecting her mother, who would certainly die if infected. She is not, as Tucker suggested, akin to some sexual pervert. She is a caring human being, who, by the way, has not yet received her second vaccine shot. Here’s a helpful idea: Let us assume people are good. Not all of us are, sure. But if we are on Team Human, which I certainly am, then we must work harmoniously to promote that we not only survive but that we thrive emotionally, physically, psychologically, and morally. 

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[1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

[2] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/fox-news-covid-denial-hasnt-aged-well

[3] https://www.foxnews.com/media/chinese-virologist-government-intentionally-coronavirus

[4] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/participate-in-activities.html

[5] https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2021/04/27/tucker-carlson-encourages-mask-confrontations-newday-vpx.cnn

[6] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

[7] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

[8] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/health/covid-herd-immunity-vaccine.html

[9] https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/92343