Autumn is coming, bringing with it Pumpkin Spice and further attempts at enforcing mask mandates. Over the past few days, the Hollywood studio Lionsgate and a Kaiser Permanente hospital in Santa Rosa, California, began requiring face masks on their premises. Both have quickly rescinded their policies because of pushback.
Good.
A hospital is the one place where I would actually comply with a mask requirement, because there are sick people there who don’t need an extra infection on top of what they’re dealing with. That is, I would comply — if the hospital is providing the masks, and requiring you to throw them away as you leave. Because masks do work to reduce transmission of airborne diseases, if they are worn for no more than an hour or so from a brand-new state and then discarded. (As doctors have been doing for years and years). Anything other than those requirements proves that the place isn’t asking people to mask for medical reasons, but for political and/or fad-following reasons.