In Utah’s Salt Lake County, Tom Cook has continued to mask up fully, even though the state no longer has a mask mandate. “I wear it everywhere I go to acknowledge what’s going on in the world around me. Trying to show I’m part of a community and care about others.”
Mr. Cook, 38, said he recently entered a business and realized he was the only person wearing a mask. “I felt self-conscious. A year ago, you’d look at someone who wasn’t wearing a mask and judge them, and that’s the reverse now.” In Utah, he now feels “it’s more acceptable to not wear a mask than wear a mask.”
Amber Briggle, who lives in Denton, Texas, and owns a massage studio, implemented a mask requirement when her state reopened last May, often to the dismay of many of her clients. “It was painful. I was watching hundreds of dollars walking out the door, but I knew it was the right thing to do.” (Two months later, Gov. Greg Abbott put in place a statewide mask mandate.)
A year later, having just returned from a weekend at a resort where she said she saw many guests unmasked, Ms. Briggle, 43, continues to adhere to masking. “You don’t know who’s vaccinated and who’s not,” she said. “Can you just do your duty as an American to get us out of this pandemic?”
For some communities, there are more complicated decisions at play. Ms. Hall, who is of Asian descent, said, “I’ve been in many supports groups, and there are many people who are not taking off the masks because they don’t want to be identifiably Asian.”
Even if masking rates are high in New York, its residents are not necessarily feeling judgmental. When Ms. Raymond, 45, sees someone barefaced in her Fort Greene neighborhood, she does not conclude the worst. “I assume they need a mask break,” she said. “I don’t actually think they’re trying to infect the rest of us.”
