For 14 months, they’ve been mandatory. Starting today, New York State lifted its mask mandate for fully vaccinated individuals in most public places, leaving businesses to decide for themselves whether to require face masks or not.
The speedy change has caught many residents off guard and presented businessowners with a dilemma.
What do you think? Should businesses continue requiring masks? Why or why not?
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Absolutely. Although I myself am fully vaccinated, how am I supposed to know the vaccine status of others in the store? And let’s not forget, the vaccines are not 100 percent effective and not everyone can take them. The mask mandates stay or I will take my business to more science-based establishments.
The CDC says you can take it off, if you don’t believe they use science to make their guidelines then keep your mask on.. . problem solved. It is sad that you got the vaccine and you still don’t feel protected.
No way. Everyone who wants a vaccine has had the opportunity to get one. If you choose not to be vaccinated or have a medical reason why you can’t be vaccinated, you can wear a mask or get curbside pickup. The rest of us are getting back to normal. Take the politics out of it. These vaccines are modern miracles and being able to return to normal life is an incentive for more people get vaccinated. Just because some people think the last year was just fine and want to live the rest of their lives this way doesn’t mean everyone else needs to cater to their extremely distorted personal risk calculus.
Just wear it.
I trusted the science when it said wearing a mask is important, and I am trusting the science as it says now I do not need to since I am vaccinated. However, I am a kind person and will businesses and organized gatherings that ask for them. I understand that many people have been traumatized by this pandemic and that it will take some time for us to get comfortable, but I will gently push folks to trust the science that says it’s time to return to normal for those who are vaccinated.
By the way, I am sure the editor knows that these “polls” tend in incite vitriol. Let’s see how long it goes before he shuts it down.
Those of us who listened to medical science and were vaccinated do not have to wear masks. Those who did not get the vaccine should wear masks everywhere. Will they wear them? Who knows. These stores will have to require proof of vaccination at the door.
Wow….you folks sure were fooled….yikes! Wearing a mask after you have been vaccinated, is like wearing a diaper after you have been potty trained. Why is it blue states cant get past the mask nonsense?..Mask free southern states have zero problems…..but I guess that was “Neanderthal thinking”…..
So you can’t ‘believe in science’ just when you agree with it, that’s not how it works. It’s funny seems like the same people that were hollering MASK!, FAUCCI! SCIENCE!, are now like hold up. I mean the SCIENCE says if you are fully vaccinated you don’t have anything to worry about. Really they have probably known for a while but did not want to announce until we hit a certain level, cause there are people who won’t get it or hesitant at getting it. So here we are the people wearing the mask are now the qAnon people and the people not wearing the mask believe in science.
I can tell that you wish it were true that the, “same people that were hollering MASK!… are now like hold up.” The vast majority of us that were good enough to wear masks to protect others are celebrating the new CDC guidance and taking our masks off. I am proud to have done such a small thing as wear a mask in order to slow the spread of this virus until vaccinations were created. And I am REALLY happy to take it off, just like so many others. There is no QAnon nonsense to be found here. Sorry, that’s a right-wing creation to feed the uninformed. What’s interesting here, though, is that you maybe unwittingly are contributing to jump-starting one of the latest QAnon-like theories. Here it is when you say, “Really they have probably known for a while but did not want to announce…” That is precisely a conspiracy theory, and this is how they are born. That assumption, coupled with your false claim that those who believed the science no longer do, and reuse to take their masks off, might FEEL like vindication for you, but it’s about as low-quality as your average Tucker Carlson rant (which sadly is where millions of people get their “news”).
I know it would fit the nay-sayers’ point of view so perfectly if the reverse were true about people that believe in the science. I wonder, though, are you one of those that rejected the science before and are now embracing it, or is your’s simply a bystander’s perspective?
It’s confusing and subject to unvaccinated people acting as if they are vaccinated by not wearing a mask- sadly there’s no way to know who’s vaccinated other than by knowing that a certain percentage of people in any given region have been vaccinated as posted by local government.
The facts are that if you’re vaccinated you’re not at risk and don’t need to wear a mask. The vaccines are much more effective than the Flu shot too. At this point unvaccinated people are the ones with the risk of getting Covid, not vaccinated people. If two unvaccinated people mingle indoors and one of them has Covid and shares it that’s a choice they’ve each made. Vaccinated people won’t get it regardless. Kind of like Darwinism at work I suppose.
Bill H
I wore a mask et al, I hate the mask but I did because that is what a good citizen does. I mean science is not like religion where you can pick and choose what you can and can’t believe in, that’s not how it works. Maybe cause I stay off social media which is created to manipulate you and keep you in hate echo chambers. So from my point of view, the people that would go to a grocery store to recorded people NOT wearing the mask are the same ones today that are vaccinated and have on two masks. I think you’re looking at this as one side has small-minded people, which is false both sides have small-minded people.
My point is that the people that wear the mask vaccinated or swear not to take it off are grossly misinformed. Just like the people who are like NO MASK are grossly misinformed. I pity both these types, neither can think for themselves are see the stupidity in their thought process. Which one are you Bill H? small-minded hypocrite or free thinker?
Joe, I am glad to hear you are not using social media for information. Me either. How about entertainment media like Fox News, CNN, and the like, who are just as responsible for perpetuating the BS? I can’t help but notice that your example is of people who go to grocery stores and record people not wearing masks being the same ones wearing two mask while vaccines. Where do you get that information? How many people do you think are doing that? More importantly, how many people in OUR community behave like that? My main point to you is that you argue a false dichotomy, not necessarily created by you, but by those in entertainment media who perpetuate this idea about people who have believed in the science throughout this pandemic. They will find every example of a left-wing nutter with multiple masks and a camera hovering at Walmart and then state the lie that this is typical of those who have embraced the science until now. And that those people have now flip-flopped on their belief in science because they want to wear masks. Fox News in particular allowed their clowns to attack the science, and scientists, throughout the pandemic.
The truth is that, by and large, we who trusted in the science are so happy and relieved to be able to take masks off. That should be good news for folks on all sides (there aren’t just two sides) of the debate. And we are proud that we are contributing to helping get this pandemic under control.
To answer your question, I am a free thinker.
Do what you feel is correct, too do. This is The UNITED States of America; where you, and I, each have free will, only withheld by a majority of our own society and the laws of this great land, created by, of, and for us “People’s”, too decide our own course of action, in freedom, liberty, and happiness. Why; the sky is the limit, and even that simple statement stands challenged.
You, and here is the biggie, do not have too convince others, that you are correct, and have total universal knowledge, na-na-nah-nah-na. And, you other responders do not have to prove them wrong, contesting this, self-assured ultimate knowledge label, for your own special omnipotent selve’s. Think, act, and do whatever your little hearts desire, but do, indeed think, and make sure you live your life, and let others live theirs. Heck, wear a self-contained, positive airflow fully self contained spacesuit, or go buck naked, if you wish, for all I care. Believe whatever, you want too believe, and act as you, yourself, wish too. However, except, all and every consequence too, and of those actions, and, Please don’t go buck naked, just saying. Enjoy life! Do not get wrapped up with what “others” write, in discontentedness toward your own personal machinations, rather celebrate America, where we all can live, and most importantly, independently think, as we each see fit. Oh, and by the way, I may actually start leaning towards wearing the spacesuit…
That is beautiful hyperbole about the United States of America, but it has never been true for every citizen. I think the potential lies in our founding documents, and we are moving in that direction, but this is not a country where all citizens enjoy the same freedom, liberty and happiness, and can say, “The sky is the limit.” It is easy to live in this region and be relatively unaware of the suffering of so many citizens who are denied those basic rights. Herein lies the problem we must continue to learn about, together, and debate together how to reach those ideals.
Can a country call itself great when tens of millions of its citizens are divided, struggling, unhappy or outright suffering? Would a great society have so many people refusing to cooperate during a pandemic in the name of their own “do whatever your little hearts desire” personal liberty?
Let’s agree that we are ALMOST there as a country, and what lies in the balance is whether we move TOWARD those lofty goals, or AWAY, back to the good-old-days horror of our past. I guess am a progressive.
I’m not going to argue with anyone who has commented here.
I merely want to say that although I’m fully vaccinated I continue to practice social distancing and wear a mask in public.
Why?
I have a heart condition, and I fear that if I were to contract Covid-19 it could be curtains. So I’m overly cautious. The vaccine is said to be 97% effective, and I hope that this true. But I don’t want, or need to take any unnecessary risks until this ugly pandemic is over.
The other reason I social distance and wear a mask is because no one really knows if I’ve been vaccinated or not. And there is good reason for someone to wonder if I’m vaccinated or not, because according to the CDC’s Covid-19 website today only 86,714 people in Ulster County have received shots. This is just 48.8% of the total county population. 51.2% of all Ulster County residents at this moment have not been vaccinated. Please consider that. Not even half the population of the county’s residents have been vaccinated, and yet many people are removing their masks. Was the recommendation to discard masks premature? Would have it not been wiser to wait until the vaccination percentage was considerably higher?
I know that suggesting we wait even longer before removing masks is a not a very popular suggestion. People are understandably anxious to return to normal times, and someone preaching the gospel of caution is not going to be embraced.
However we need to recall that we are still living in this pandemic, and that – again according to the CDC’s Covid-19 site – the virus has killed over 588,000 Americans thus far. I personally know two of those people. And I suspect that there will be many more deaths before this ordeal is truly over.
I hope you’ll agree that a little inconvenience is preferable to illness and possible annihilation.
Bill H
I am glad you’re a free thinker, but you definitely are a liberal and buy into that anything not liberal is awful, at least from your writing it seems that way. I don’t know you so I can not say for sure. Personally, I hate politics, they are professional liars, I don’t need CNN or Foxnews to tell me that.
And I saw your comments on the country and America is what you make of it. Much like life, what other country can you go from abject poverty to wealthy? Outside of the government, like all government is corrupt, it’s better than most. There have been major mistakes no doubt. If it’s so bad here why are people flocking to get here? these are POC flocking to get here.
All news is garbage except local even then it can be garbage. I don’t live in the area anymore, I mean why pay high taxes and live in crappy weather half the year, plus there are really no jobs.
I have read some of the comments and I think it boils down to this per the President, get Vaccinated it’s better than the mask, or don’t and wear the mask. It’s pretty simple really, it’s also a choice, and America is about making choices.