Does being “pro-mask” mean you have to wear one 100% of the time?

Yesterday, I posted this handy little reminder on social media, because some of us are tired of wearing masks and it’s important to remember why we’re doing it in the first place.

A mask is to protect others, and we should still be striving to protect each other.

Someone called me a hypocrite because I’m very pro-mask even when vaccinated, and yet I go to bars and restaurants where you don’t need a mask if you show your vaccine information.

So let me clarify!

I wear a mask on the subway, in grocery stores, picking up food at the deli, at the post office, in the gym etc.

I don’t wear a mask when I’m socializing in a bar or a restaurant. And that’s because I feel like those are two different social contracts.

I wear a mask so that if I have a breakthrough asymptomatic case of COVID, I’m not spreading it to other people who did not sign up for the risk. The post office, the subway, the grocery store — these are essential services that everyone has to participate in, vaxxed or not. I don’t know who around me on the subway is immunocompromised or can’t get the vaccine or lives with someone who can’t get vaxxed, etc. They are just trying to go about their day and I’m trying to do my part.

In a bar, everybody assumes the same risk. You know someone COULD have COVID, even though everyone is vaxxed, but that’s the contract you all signed to socialize. If some of those people get grandma sick, that’s their irresponsible action, not mine. I am not at risk of transmitting COVID to anyone because I wear a mask when I’m around people outside of the social contract, and nobody that I’m maskless around is vulnerable. If *you* live with Grandma then *you* should not be in a bar.

This is how I feel about COVID: it’s here forever. There is no point when we go back to pre-COVID where it is “safe” to go to a bar or restaurant. We have to change how we think about interaction and exposure. Social settings are consensual exposure. Everyone there signed up for the same risks. Essential services are nonconsensual exposure. Everyone *has* to participate in them, so we collectively do what we can to minimize risk and protect each other.

I don’t think that’s hypocritical.