The Last Time Ever I Saw Your Face . . .

. . . it was in April 2020. 

But get ready to rejoice, my friends!  Face coverings (FCs) appear to be on the way out, at least for a good long time before we have to deal with COVID again, in its current strain or in a future one.

With the seven-day average of new COVID cases having dropped to below 70,000 for the first time since October, and with hospitalizations down significantly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says we don't have to wear FCs in areas where hospitalization rates are low or medium - about 70 percent of counties, districts (Alaska) and parishes (Louisiana) in the United States.  Most of the 30 percent of the counties, districts and parishes with high hospitalization rates are in - you guessed it - the South and West.

Where  I live, a nearby town that happens to be one of these suburbs reinventing itself as a destination town - it has an art museum - is repealing its FC mandate ahead of schedule.  The art museum is resuming its free admission on the first Thursday night of the month this week for the first time in two years.  I'm probably going to hold off, though, and not go to a free first Thursday night until April or May just to be on the safe side.

Oh, yeah, don't expect the FCs to come off at President Biden's State Of the Union address tonight, even though the District of Columbia has a low hospitalization rate, because, as I understand it, FCs are still required on federal property.  And, the last time I checked, the U.S .Capitol is federal property (at least until the next insurrection).  On this, Biden ain't budging, thanks largely to his COVID paranoia after FC restrictions were lifted in June 2021, and FCs were being taken off just as the delta corona was taking off.  Thus, FCs and COVID tests will be required for those who attend the speech in person. 

And so, let history record that the only two times that two women - Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi - were sitting behind the President in a joint session of Congress, they were wearing face coverings both times. The pandemic will likely be over completely in 2023, but Kevin McCarthy will likely be sitting in Nancy Pelosi's place. 

At least both people behind President Biden will still both be Californians.

However, it will be appropriate if all of Congress is masked up like armed bandits tonight, if only to remind us what Mark Twain once said about Congress being America's only criminal class. 

About Face (Coverings)

The Governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, has announced that, effective tomorrow, vaccinated New Jerseyans don't have to wear face coverings, or "FCs" as I call them here, in indoor public spaces.  Murphy says we've made enough progress against COVID that folks in this state who have gotten the vaccine can breathe easily, since the vaccine protects them quite well from this airborne virus.  Obviously, there are exceptions, such as public transit venues (railway stations, airports), because the federal mandate requiring FCs for mass transit stays in effect through September 13, and medical facilities - hospitals, clinics, office buildings with doctors' practices.  But you'll be able to literally show your face in public in other indoor public spaces.

 

Except where you can't. It's quite possible and even likely that many local FC mandates will remain in place.  Needless to say, several counties - like Essex County, where Newark, a COVID hot spot, is located - could keep its FC mandate, and some towns might do the same.  And of course, some businesses - especially supermarkets, where cleanliness is important - might keep them as well.  It will be like when New Jersey passed a law allowing a right turn on a red light, which began in 1977, to cut down on idling.  Pretty soon you saw more intersections where no right turn on red was allowed than intersections where it was, or so it seemed.  My point here is that the exceptions to the repeal of the dreaded Executive Order 122 will, for awhile, be more the rule.

Other states in the Northeast have already dropped their FC mandates - including New York.  But people who still feel uncomfortable doffing their FCs may continue wearing them.  It's inevitable that in overcrowded New York City, many people, like in New Jersey, will probably wear their FCs even when they don't have to.

Especially when their job requires it. 😆   

Whiplash

Back around Easter time, Dr. Rochelle Walensky (below), director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was afraid we were on the cusp of another COVID surge.  Then she was criticized for keeping numerous COVID restrictions in place when a surge did not happen.  Now she's gone completely in the opposite direction and announced that people who are fully vaccinated against VOCID can now go anywhere, including public indoor spaces, without wearing a face covering, which I will henceforth refer to in this post as an FC.  (I stopped wearing mine outside long before the CDC said I could, because not needing an FC outside was already common knowledge.)  

At first hearing, Dr. Walensky's announcement was greeted with enthusiasm.  The, almost immediately, we had to curb that enthusiasm.  Too many questions that no one can sufficiently answer ensued.  How can businesses like stores and bars know which customers have been vaccinated?  How do customers prove it?  Also, the new guideline was expected to encourage more unvaccinated people to get the COVID vaccine.  But what about people who lie about getting vaccinated just so they don't have to wear an FC when thy go in the supermarket?  Even Dr. Leana Wen, who had problems with the CDC being too strict with its guidelines after the rate of COVID infections dropped over the early spring, now says that the CDC is now being too lenient, an that the new guidelines could cause that very fourth COVID surge Dr. Walensky feared in early April.

Thanks to decisions made in the private sector and by state and local governments, though, none of the CDC's new guidelines and recommendations matter.  Many chain stores, such as Target and Home Depot, still require FCs at their locations, and while several states are lifting FC mandates, New Jersey is not one of them.  Governor Phil Murphy said that the FC mandate in the state, will continue for several more weeks, despite the fact that the rate of full vaccination in New Jersey is higher than the country at large.  )New York and California are keeping their FC mandates in place as well.)  And in the U.S. House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that the FC rule on the House floor will continue because too many Republican House members haven't gotten vaccinated yet.  She'll gladly lift  the rule when enough of them do.  But, of course, even if they do so privately despite all the anti-vaccine rhetoric in the GOP and tell Speaker Pelosi in full confidence, it will become apparent that GOP House members will have gotten vaccinated simply because the FC rule has been lifted.  The Republicans have a large minority caucus in the House, five seats away from taking control, and so a lot of them have to get a COVID shot before the FC rule in the House floor is lifted.  A fully vaccinated Democratic House caucus won't be enough to have the rule lifted.  If House Republicans are seen as having gotten vaccinated against COVID and going against the view of constituents who don't trust the vaccine, they'll get voted out of office for "selling out."  So even if some House Republicans get vaccinated against COVID in private, they will not tell Speaker Pelosi, who, in turn, will not lift the FC rule.  (The rule has been dropped in the Senate, as most Republican senators, more confident in their standings with voters statewide, have been vaccinated, Kentucky's Rand Paul and Wisconsin's Ron Johnson - both having had COVID - being exceptions.) 

Perversely, the joint session of Congress President Biden addressed in April should have been an FC-free zone.  Only vaccinated lawmakers and lawmakers who tested negative within 24 hours of the speech were allowed on the House floor, yet they still had to wear FCs despite it being a COVID-free environment.  (The entire Congress was not in attendance, of course.)  Thus, when we saw two women - Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris - sit behind the President on the House dais for the first time, we couldn't see their faces.  It became an historic moment for all the wrong reasons. Dr. Wen thought that enforcing the FC mandate in the House even for President Biden's speech sent the wrong message when it was already proven that everyone in the room did not have COVID and they could have gone without FCs to show that vaccines work.  Now she thinks the CDC is sending the wrong message by saying that anyone fully vaccinated from COVID can stop wearing FCs everywhere - when the Speaker of the House, many state governors, and a whole bunch of national chains have made it clear that we most certainly can not.

The CDC has gone from downplaying the virus under Trump to being overcautious, then inconsistent, under Biden.  My biggest fear is that the more the CDC tries to clarify its directives on COVID, the more confusion it will cause.

And I'll have to keep writing very long blog posts on the subject.

One more wrinkle: Despite having been fully vaccinated against COVID, several people, including comedian Bill Maher and several members of the New York Yankees baseball team, have tested positive for the disease. At a time of vaccine hesitancy, how is Dr. Walensky going to handle that?

Mask Paranoia - Year Two

It was a year ago today in New Jersey that Governor Phil Murphy issued the dreaded Executive Order 122 requiring the wearing of masks, or face coverings, in public indoor spaces to stop the spread of COVID until the pandemic is over.  One year on, we're still walking through our supermarkets and what few dry-goods stores are still in business looking like bank robbers or ninja warriors.  Other states - mostly Democratic states - have had mandates requiring them at one time or another.  And even though the euphemism "face covering" has been attempted to make them sound less sinister, scary or just plain weird, most people still call them masks.  I prefer to call them face coverings, or FCs (my mother has tried to stop me from calling them FCs, because she thinks it sounds dumb), but no, as far as most Americans are concerned, they're masks.  And while they might wear face coverings, they won't wear masks.  (And of course, gloves aren't called "hand coverings.")

I don't like it.  As I've said, I freak out at the sight of people wearing masks of any sort, which is why I don't accept invitations to Halloween parties and why street mimes (their masks are painted on!) make me nervous.  But I have an FC (as I'll call it from here on, because I know that pisses off my mother), and I wear it when I have to, however much I don't like to, and I'll keep wearing it whenever and wherever I have to just to help get this damn pandemic over with.

For the most part, though, I've been trying to avoid any place where an FC is required.  I can't avoid the supermarket, of course, and I can't avoid hardware stores either, thanks to spring gardening (hardware stores do sell grass seed and fertilizer).  But I've learned how to avoid banks and drug stores simply by using the drive-thru windows.  I hate drive-thru windows (all that idling), but I hate FCs even more.  And when it becomes apparent to you that the last place you want to be where everyone looks like they're about to rob a bank is a bank, the drive-thru window is essential.  And other places that require FCs?  If I don't have to go to them, like museums or book stores, I don't go. That includes the local library.  I have plenty of reading material at home.

Such places also include county parks.  I understand FCs, accompanied by social distancing, in indoor public spaces because of ventilation issues and recirculating air and all that, but Essex County, New Jersey, where I live, requires FCs and six-foot distancing even in parks despite the fact that they're outdoor spaces where keeping six feet or more away from others should be enough.  The result?  I haven't been in a county park since October 2019. I just go cycling on public streets.  

Again: I'll wear an FC when I have to, but to the extent that I can avoid it, I will. And again, when I do have to wear it, I'll be happy to, if only to help end the pandemic - a pandemic that knocked me off my feet just as I was getting my life back together after a rough time, which has been followed by an even rougher time thanks to COVID.  And, when I'm fully vaccinated, I'll restrict my social gatherings to fellow vaccinated people.  But I hope FCs don't become a thing after the pandemic ends, because I don't think anyone wants to live in a world where are we see are eyes without a face, like in that Billy Idol song (and he got the song's title from a French horror movie from the early sixties).  After all, our faces are our identities. If we have to wear FCs from now until the end of time, we'll be concealing and hiding our identities and our individuality from each other.

And we'd hate for that to happen.