New mask rules, more transition

As the big date arrived, June 15, there was still a lot of confusion on wearing masks indoors. I’m pretty certain it boils down to this: On Tuesday, June 15, businesses could ask patrons to wear masks, rely on the honor system and say those vaccinated don’t have to wear masks; or require proof of vaccination. On Thursday, June 17, after Cal/OSHA voted, employers could require everyone wear masks, rely on the honor system and say vaccinated workers didn’t need to wear masks; or require proof of vaccination.

So it took us a few days to get it together. I’m going to go ahead and guess that most businesses will go with the second option, relying on the honor system. Part of that is there is no longer a local ordinance to point to and say, “look, these are the county rules.” Now, the rules will be on the individual business owner and, if any patron or worker feels uncomfortable, they can still wear a mask to protect themselves.

I’m also going to guess that some businesses will continue to require masks inside because they simply haven’t gotten around to taking down the sign in the window or they are just erring on the side of caution. I’m also guessing there won’t be that many times when someone who doesn’t wear a mask gets told to put one on.

I for one will continue to wear a mask indoors if there is a sign that says it’s required. No need to cause a scene. But we are in that transition point when there is a bit of confusion, and we will likely have to rely on courtesy — once again.

But how we got here was a bit much. Gov. Newsom made his big announcement that California was reopening June 15 a while back and that gave us a month to transition to the new Centers for Disease Control guidelines that said if you are vaccinated, you don’t have to wear a mask indoors or outdoors. Yet we still need more time. And Cal/OSHA’s hand-wringing waffle job last week didn’t help the murky mess. This week, a new vote will put in new rules, and Newsom said they will be enacted right away rather than the end of the month. But there is something lingering within me that says they could have timed this all a bit better. After all, what was the difference between June 14 and June 15? Conditions didn’t radically change, it was just an arbitrary date for which to aim. So we could have had Cal/OSHA along for the same ride and have the new rules for employers align for Tuesday rather than Thursday.

Then we have this discussion of an electronic form of vaccine verification, but I can’t imagine that’s going to popular for many businesses because of the cost, training and privacy concerns for something that looks to be extremely temporary. It reminds me of the idea of contact tracing. We were supposed to have an intricate form of contact tracing and there were ideas of having apps to help with that on our phone. But it never quite got off the ground since we moved from testing to vaccinating. Seems like having a vaccine passport may not get off the ground too, but that largely depends on how well this reopening goes and how soon the virus is extinguished. All data show that we here in San Mateo County have essentially reached the definition of herd immunity, though health officials warn against that because of the transitory nature of our community. But cases, hospitalizations and deaths are way down while vaccination rates are sky high. It gets to the point when we have to wonder, “What are we doing here again?” It is becoming time for us to let go of fear and learn to live again.

I suppose none of this will matter in the long run, however, as we have already been subjected to a long string of arbitrary rules and regulations for these past long months, all for the right reasons yet applied in the oh so California way of being steeped in confusion.

And it seems many are getting pretty blasé about being in a state of emergency. Let’s aim for July 4 to be our independence day from arbitrary rules and regulations. That might give California enough time to get it together.

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A separate and final thought: Juneteenth is now a federal holiday. Hear, hear!

Jon Mays is the editor in chief of the Daily Journal. He can be reached at jon@smdailyjournal.com. Follow Jon on Twitter @jonmays.