partial lifting of mask mandate

If I'm not mistaken, today's the day the indoor mask mandate gets partially lifted. It'll be nice to walk around with no mask inside the building where I work, but I think we're all still required to mask up for public transportation (which may or may not include taxis). Stupid.

Citizens feeling social pressure and/or superstitious fear will still mask up, of course, just as so many people continue to mask up outside for no rational reason. All in all, not much is going to change. Korea is the last OECD country to retain a mask mandate; letting go of fear has been hard for both regular citizens and politicians, each for different reasons: the politicians fear repercussions should infection rates increase; citizens, meanwhile, are dealing with the aforementioned social pressure and/or fear of the invisible killer, which hasn't been much of a killer given a less-than-1% mortality rate.

I've never worn a mask when distance walking, and as Charles pointed out, I've technically never had to, despite loudspeaker warnings along the riverside parks telling people to mask up. Korea was confused, for a very long time, about how to handle masking outside, and that doubtless contributed to the current mess, turbulence, and unwillingness to let go of masks. All in all, I'd say we still have a few years of nonsense ahead of us.

Do I feel thankful that the mandate has been at least partially lifted? Not really. My feeling, for at least two years, has been that there never should have been a mandate in the first place. Nor should there have been lockdowns (more a problem for other countries than for South Korea, but still), and there should never have been a "vaccine" mandate. I'm more resentful than thankful. And I seriously doubt that I'm alone.