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Masks will no longer be required in state courts starting Wednesday

The Supreme Judicial Court today ordered the end of indoor masking requirements in Massachusetts courthouses effective Wednesday, although the justices add:

The order continues to encourage the wearing of masks inside courthouses to protect against the transmission of COVID-19, especially by those who are at increased risk for severe disease or are not up to date on COVID-19 vaccinations. Masks are no longer required, however, except under certain identified circumstances.

The order also continues to prohibit entry into courthouses by persons who have tested positive for COVID-19 within the previous 5 days, have symptoms consistent with COVID-19, are not up to date on vaccinations and have been in close contact with someone with COVID-19 within the last 5 days, are awaiting test results after experiencing symptoms, or should be in isolation or quarantine.

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Comments

You can get out of Jury duty? :)

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about showing proof of vaccination. In fact, it clearly states you can enter a courthouse if you are not vaccinated, but are encouraged to wear a mask voluntarily if this applies to you.

If you are not up to date on COVID-19 vaccinations AND have been exposed within 5 days, you should be in quarantine regardless of whether or not you are scheduled to serve jury duty. It wouldn't be any different if you were exposed to measles and ordered to quarantine.

I'm no lawyer, but you may be taking certain legal risks if you lie to an officer of the courts so do so at your own risk if you feel this is a viable option to forsake your civic obligation as a citizen of the United States of America and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

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Lighten Up .

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Suffolk Superior Court downtown, was never asked about vaccination status. They were doing temperature checks and asking about symptoms/exposure.

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...at the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse. Needless to say, THAT didn't happen. So far, haven't heard anything about being rescheduled, but glad to hear things might be getting back to normal.

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I had jury duty in Roxbury a month ago. They didn't really have enough space to allow social distancing but at least everyone was wearing a mask and they took temps at the entrance.

I definitely would not want to spend a day stuck in a cramped waiting room full of unmasked strangers while the next Omicron variant is starting to spread.

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I had jury duty in Roxbury two weeks ago. They let us wait in an empty courtroom for most of the morning, which had more space than the jury pool room. It was really cramped in the jury pool room.

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I'm wearing my mask everywhere from now on. No more eating road salt, sneezing from allergies or even catching a cold; As an added bonus it keeps my lower face warm in the winter. Surgical masks available to the public are the greatest thing since video players.

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The Trouble with surgical masks is that they, alone, will not offer any protection, because they gap, they leak, and they're made of such thin, flimsy material.

Imho, the KN95's, the N95's, and/or the Korean version KN94's offer far better protection than surgical masks or cloth masks.

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It was a humongous mistake for Baker to remove the mask mandate. Disaster will strike sooner or later. I wear a mask everywhere I go, except when I'm in my apartment, or in my car. I even wear masks when I'm just out for a walk.

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I want to be clear from the get go. I am not criticizing your choice.

That said, you represent one end of the spectrum, and I definitely prefer "Covid will kill us all" over "Covid is no different from the cold" (the other end of the spectrum) any day, but somewhere in the middle, the rest of us have been told by medical experts that we should be okay being indoors without masks at this time (science has shown that being unmasked outdoors was okay all along, but that's another story.)

This move isn't really dangerous. It would be dangerous if there is a sharp rise in Covid infections and no one is willing to take precautions such as wearing a mask (and yes, wearing a cloth mask does help prevent infections.) That's called living with the threat.

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That's called living with the threat.

What's "living with the threat"? Getting rid of the mandates (which is what I suspect you mean), or refusing to go back to them if there's a sharp rise in infections (which is what many mean when they use that phrase)?

Some people are pointing out that the US has followed Europe in every wave so far, and that lately infections are sharply up in Europe, and that we might be looking at the same thing in April or May. If that happens, I predict that politicians will lack the spine to call for reinstating mask mandates, and those who are not at risk themselves will happily do what they want while putting others at risk.

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Sorry, Waquiot, but I can't and won't accept either of your quoted ideas of:

"Covid-19 will kill us all.", or the "Covid-19 is no different from the common cold or the flu." ends of this spectrum.

The removal of mask mandates will put everybody in danger, and infections could very well start to go up again. This, along with the anti-vaccination people and the conspiracy theorists, is screwing everybody. They may nonet be the majority, but they're enough to present a problem.

The fact is that when Donald Trump was in office, he not only got rid of the anti-pandemic coalitions both here in the United States and in China, but laughed Covid-19 off as a hoax, and refused to do a goddamned thing about it until it was too late to contain and control it, which was bad enough, but the anti-vaccine people and the conspiracy theorists have manipulated an awful lot of people into believing that the vaccines are worse than the Covid-19 virus itself, and are making an already-bad situation worse. I'm for free speech, but what the anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists are doing is NOT free speech, by any stretch of the imagination, since it endangers everybody.

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And again, that's okay, but be true to yourself. You are deathly afraid of Covid, and you are more than welcome to be like that.

That said, removing mask mandates at courts will not in of itself cause danger. Not responding to a possible next wave will do that. There is a very wide gulf between those two concepts.

As for blaming Trump (which gets old), was Trump also to blame for the effects of the pandemic in Spain? Italy? England? Czechia? India? South Africa? Brazil? Iran? You get the point.

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Sorry, Waquiot, but I can't and won't accept either of your quoted ideas of:

"Covid-19 will kill us all.", or the "Covid-19 is no different from the common cold or the flu." ends of this spectrum.

The removal of mask mandates will put everybody in danger, and infections could very well start to go up again. This, along with the anti-vaccination people and the conspiracy theorists, is screwing everybody. They may nonet be the majority, but they're enough to present a problem.

The fact is that when Donald Trump was in office, he not only got rid of the anti-pandemic coalitions both here in the United States and in China, but laughed Covid-19 off as a hoax, and refused to do a goddamned thing about it until it was too late to contain and control it, which was bad enough, but the anti-vaccine people and the conspiracy theorists are manipulating people into believing that the vaccines are worse than the Covid-19 virus itself, and are making an already-bad situation worse. I'm for free speech, but what the anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists are doing is NOT free speech, by any stretch of the imagination, since it endangers everybody.

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I have a date with Suffolk probate court in a few weeks and while, I wear masks, I hate them. My anxiety gets ramped up and I know it is not logical but it is what it is. I am fully vaxed. I got covid in January, even though I barely left. (A family member brought it in.) I have been a bit of a hermit but my extraverted side, is ready to break free of the house.

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