I’m in an area that is only back to an early October 2021 rate of new cases. My gut says it seems a couple/few weeks early to go completely mask-optional (and it’s not like we did in November 2021...), but there is actually quite a bit different now—a much higher share of non-susceptibles (thanks Omicron! and the booster), milder illness (thanks Omicron! and the booster), kids are getting vaccinated, better treatments are available. It’s also annoying that these decisions are really just made ad hoc (“does the current CDC map give us cover?” never getting close to defining victory conditions before they’re reached).
On the academia side, I think the “continuity” benefit is more about administration support of the faculty (who had been charged with enforcing the mandates after all) - faculty members have preferences, too, and some universities threatened to persecute them throughout this (and States intervened in local rule sometimes); thankfully the CDC made its exception so “that which is not mandatory is not forbidden” this time, and sadly some faculty members would ban masks if given the chance, so this is nice to the students who have their own preferences, too (most prefer maskless, but not all, and some may have made choices for specific instructional terms based on delivery formats and expected mitigation policies).
But all that said, “no quibble is going to change the answer.” Being annoyed is standard fare as an adult. It’s basically time.
I’m in an area that is only back to an early October 2021 rate of new cases. My gut says it seems a couple/few weeks early to go completely mask-optional (and it’s not like we did in November 2021...), but there is actually quite a bit different now—a much higher share of non-susceptibles (thanks Omicron! and the booster), milder illness (thanks Omicron! and the booster), kids are getting vaccinated, better treatments are available. It’s also annoying that these decisions are really just made ad hoc (“does the current CDC map give us cover?” never getting close to defining victory conditions before they’re reached).
On the academia side, I think the “continuity” benefit is more about administration support of the faculty (who had been charged with enforcing the mandates after all) - faculty members have preferences, too, and some universities threatened to persecute them throughout this (and States intervened in local rule sometimes); thankfully the CDC made its exception so “that which is not mandatory is not forbidden” this time, and sadly some faculty members would ban masks if given the chance, so this is nice to the students who have their own preferences, too (most prefer maskless, but not all, and some may have made choices for specific instructional terms based on delivery formats and expected mitigation policies).
But all that said, “no quibble is going to change the answer.” Being annoyed is standard fare as an adult. It’s basically time.
Yeah, I’d be mostly fine with ‘professors agreed to teach knowing there would be masks so it’s professors’ choice’ if that was the logic.
For your own decision, it’s your call but number of cases is a pretty bad metric and forward risk is a lot lower than that, as you know, so...