Ave, Charles!

Over at Liminality, Charles writes about the new mask mandate. As he puts it: 

Today was a special day, at least in theory. After nearly two years of collective insanity, the government finally lifted the outdoors mask mandate. Of course, as I discussed last time, the actual “mandate” was quite narrow: You only had to wear a mask outside if you were unable to maintain proper social distancing of two meters. At some point, though, society decided that we were just going to wear masks outside all the time, even if there was no one else within a hundred meters. I won’t rehash that rant, though; you can go back and read my previous post if you missed it.

The specifics of the new government directive were that wearing masks outside was now optional in groups of fewer than fifty people. I suspect that this figure was chosen not for any epidemiological reason, but for reasons of political and social control—that is, it is meant to discourage protests—although that could just be my cynicism and mistrust talking. Whatever the case, I don’t intend on being in an outdoor gathering of fifty people or more any time soon, so for all intents and purposes this means that we don’t have to wear masks outside anymore.

I saw, along the trail while walking home tonight, that most people were still masking in public. This has been insane to me almost from the beginning. The chance of catching the virus while outside is almost zero thanks to wide spaces and moving air currents, among other factors. Masks themselves serve almost no protective function against the virus because, as I've noted before, the virus can get in through your eyes (although a mask can arguably help you protect others from your own coughing and sneezing). I never mask up when distance walking, and I can't understand it whenever I encounter a lone walker, while outside, who insists on masking up. These people live in a demon-haunted world.

Charles was a bit late to the game re: going maskless while outside; by his own reckoning, he started maybe a couple weeks ago. But he's out there flaunting his face, now, and as he says, the new shift in mask policy doesn't change anything for him, nor does it change anything for me. As I wrote earlier, though, as COVID restrictions begin to fall away, I suspect the last thing to fall will be the mask policy; politicians will cling desperately to that as long as they can.

And so will the people.

UPDATE: here's the Korea Times on the lifting of the mask mandate.