Sunday, August 22, 2021

Has the Spell of the Omnipotent Mask State Lost Its Power?

Kent McManigal mentions that New Mexico's re-imposed mask mandate seems to be mostly eliciting yawns.

My comment (edited for additional specificity and because I feel like it):

The government of my county (Alachua County, Florida) re-imposed its mask mandate some time last week. Even as a professional consumer of news, I didn't notice until my wife mentioned it as we were about to walk into a grocery store.

But there was no sign up or anything. I walked into the store and at least 25% of the people in there weren't wearing masks, nor did anyone say anything to me about putting one one, which was good since I hadn't thought to bring one. That was on Friday.

On Saturday, we visited two stores.*

One was a thrift store where the owner had ALWAYS made clear that if the county wanted to have a mask mandate, it was the county's job and not his to enforce it. As soon as the last mandate ended, he put up a "masks optional" sign on the door. That sign was still there, there was no county mandate sign, and some people were masked and some weren't (including a mix of employees).

The other was a convenience store right in the middle of the more ... "state leftist leaning" ... part of Gainesville, where I would expect enthusiastic adoption to be highest. That store DID have a new county government mandate sign on the door. But inside, none of the employees were masked and maybe half the customers were.

Nobody's marching in the streets or yelling at each other about it in the stores. It's like everyone is pretty much "yeah, whatever, the politicians are gonna say what they're gonna say, and the rest of us are gonna do what we're gonna do."

* Actually, now that I think about it, we visited more than two stores. At least three. A third store had BIG "must mask" signs on the door. I needed to go in there for a quick household purchase, so I put on a mask. But when we were checking out, the people in front of us were unmasked and unmolested.

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