WBUR reports the state will end its outdoor mask requirements starting April 30, "except for situations where it is not possible to maintain social distance and when required by business-specific guidelines." Indoor mask use will still be required, however. Various indoor and gathering limits will start to be relaxed over the coming month.
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Comments
So French Fries Will Still Be The Best Defense Indoors?
By John Costello
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 12:33pm
The kabuki is getting weirder.
The state will never say "All Clear" but this is an admission of common sense over paranoia.
It amazes me people walking outside in windy, sunny conditions by themselves on a residential side street in Milton will wear a mask but it is ok not to wear one because there is some guac between them and the table 6 feet away indoors at the local restaurant.
We are in the final stretches here folks. Thank Christ, actually thank Pfizer.
By Christ you mean Moderna or
By Kinopio
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 9:19pm
By Christ you mean Moderna or other scientists I’m guessing
My son started wearing masks long ago
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 10:34pm
He does it to protect himself from respiratory viruses during the height of their season (February-March), and continues through the spring to filter out pollen.
We made it through last spring because he had a stash and shared them with the family.
After wearing a mask in flight and not winding up with horribly dried out throat and airways, I'm going to keep doing so after the pandemic is over.
@SwirlyGrrl
By Don't Panic
Wed, 04/28/2021 - 12:03am
Good point on the filtering out pollen use. I'm allergic to something that pollenates in the late spring early summer and last year was the first time I had no problems with it. It can only be because I was wearing a mask. No Claritin for me last year.
Kabuki?
By jon_
Wed, 04/28/2021 - 1:17am
Really? I had hoped we were done with that stereotype.
Really?
By John Costello
Thu, 04/29/2021 - 1:49pm
You mean when men dress up as women put on lots of makeup and act things out loudly on stage?
When things return to normal, you best get yourself to a Ryan Landry show.
Yes, Kabuki is still a thing. Relax guy.
People still wear masks outside?
By Rozzieguy
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 1:02pm
LOL
This is what happens when we politicize everything. We get a big announcement about ending a rule that never had an effect and wasn't followed by half the population.
They do in Somerville and Cambridge
By Ron Newman
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 1:06pm
Not consistently and not all the time, but yes. (I expect less so soon, because of today's announcements by both the CDC and Gov. Baker.)
And it is and has been totally obnoxious
By jorf
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 3:53pm
Short of being in a dense crowd, there's never been any scientific basis for masks outdoors just briefly passing someone on the street or sidewalk. Just another notch in a long year of nobody actually understanding how the disease works vs. getting off on their side-eye culture war posturing.
If you make a bunch of rules that don't make sense, people will reject them when it does make sense (indoors, with poor circulation like on a bus). As if the disease sits patiently on the curb, held at bay by a mysterious force field away from those eating and drinking on the sidewalks and streets. Ridiculous, the people at the table are a bigger risk than the people just walking by!
(and yet, outdoor dining was well worth any risk for having some outlet of sanity).
It's time for people to vaccinate and get EXCITED to return to some sense of normalcy, and whether we need booster shots for the next decade… we'll simply move on to dealing with COVID if it becomes seasonal like the actual flu.
Some fake sense of perfect safety is not worth missing everything joyous in life for much longer. It would simply be time to adapt (and particularly, speed up the FDA approval process so we don't have to wait a year for a vaccine developed in a weekend now that we have manufacturing capacity). Now let's get on to vaccinating the rest of the country and planet.
Oops... replied to wrong comment
By Keiko
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 4:51pm
Pls see below.
Why do you care?
By lbb
Wed, 04/28/2021 - 9:19am
If other people wear masks, what skin is it off your nose?
Maybe over in Roslindale
By Miaow
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 1:55pm
They don't mask, but I live right near the Prudential and everyone I see is masked
Rozzieguy is one of the local tough dudes ...
By adamg
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 2:09pm
Who isn't convinced these "virus" things are real, because he can't see them.
The rest of us Roslindale residents, though, have still been wearing masks outside.
So far, still rare to see the non-masked
By Gary C
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 2:17pm
Riding to work all the bikers and joggers and dog walkers are almost universally masked. Even though it's not really needed at this point, I do appreciate the solidarity in the now-dated cliche, "We're all in this together."
If being tough means understanding
By Rozzieguy
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 3:02pm
If being a toughguy means being able to read and understand physics, then yup.
So where'd you move? Scituate? Chelmsford?
By Parkwayne
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 3:54pm
Pretty much everyone in Roslindale wears masks because it's not hard. Glad you left, I hope it was gentrification that got you out.
Moved?
By Rozzieguy
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 4:24pm
Move out of the city? No chance.
Adam's comment says it all. Not wearing a mask = toughguy who isn't convinced a virus is real. Wearing a mask = virtue signalling that you believe the virus is real. I feel sorry for people like him who wear a mask outside to signal their "belief" in the virus in an inane attempt to protect themselves or others.
Do you also get this mad
By fungwah
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 5:13pm
about businesses mandating that people wear shirts? After all, the likelihood of someone spreading disease from their bare torso is pretty low. I propose you avoid all businesses that won't let you go around topless until this inane policy is changed.
This isn't entirely physics
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 10:36pm
And real scientists understand how uncertainty affects risk estimates.
And wearing a mask will not fucking kill you, like ever.
To be fair to him
By Waquiot
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 3:17pm
A certain alumnus of Regis High School and College of the Holy Cross is kind of agreeing with him.
Poor guy can’t even keep a
By BannedFromTheRoxy
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 9:08pm
Poor guy can’t even keep a straight face these days
Can confirm. Got 2nd shot at Hynes today
By Keiko
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 4:50pm
When walking down Bolyston from the bus stop, quickly noticed that everyone was properly masked. Realized that I wasn't in Kansas anymore.
Going home on the 36 bus, some people had their masks completely under their noses and one guy had it completely under his chin.
(To be fair to my fair neighborhood, most of us pull up/put on our masks when we approach or pass someone. )
no thank you
By anon
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 1:40pm
I'll be wearing mine for the foreseeable future. heck, I'll be wearing it even after covid is over. not breathing in people's random crud when they refuse to cover their mouths? not having random men tell me to smile while I'm just out and about? #masks4lyfe
Good for you!
By BostonDog
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 4:46pm
Plenty of people routinely wore masks before the pandemic, after all. In much of Asia people are respectful enough to wear masks when they are sick. I hope that attitude comes to the US.
I won't be wearing a mask when one isn't strictly needed. I rarely got sick in the past and I'm willing to take the risk I get a cold due to a stranger vs wearing a mask and being generally uncomfortable and hampered by an effective mask. (And why wear an ineffective mask?)
But I'm not going to give anyone masked the stink-eye. You do you, let me do me.
why are we *still* doing this?
By berkleealum
Wed, 04/28/2021 - 11:59am
if personal responsibility is your mantra, then you *should* be wearing a mask when social distancing isn’t possible. the official guidelines change over time, but no one has ever been given a citation for lowering their mask when alone. so guess what, if you’ve been wearing your mask in public - YOU’VE BEEN FINE THIS ENTIRE TIME. when you keep pushing this “you do you” thing, sorry but it’s hard not to assume you’re one of the mask over mouth only assholes.
just crying about nothing at all.
I have read articles written
By redheadedjen
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 2:57pm
I have read articles written by epidemiologists lately. They have said almost all people get covid from being indoors, with people who have it. Transmission is rare by being outside. Most transmission is from people face to face, close together. I keep a mask with me while hiking and walking and put it on when I see people.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article...
Rare is an understatement
By merlinmurph
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 5:48pm
If it were only rare, then it would still make sense to wear masks outside. But, according to what these guys said last week:
“Transmissions do not take place between solitary individuals going for a walk, transiently passing each other on the street, a hiking trail, or a jogging track. That biker who whizzes by without a mask poses no danger to us, at least from a respiratory virus perspective,” he said in the blog item, which was framed as an imaginary dialogue with his dog, Louie, on their morning walks."
- Dr. Paul Sax, clinical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
“You’re talking about a probability of getting hit by a car, and being struck by lightning.”
— Zain Chagla, an infectious diseases physician
Those aren't exactly vague statements. There's no wiggle room there.
From the beginning, we've said "follow the science". According to the science, there is no need for a mask outside unless you're in a crowded situation.
Right
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 10:38pm
So that substantial percentage of an entire county that got COVID from a church holding outdoor services is just a collective figment? So is the estimate of spread from activities (mostly outdoor) at Sturgis as well as the superspreader Rose Garden fiasco?
Do tell.
Totally different, right?
By merlinmurph
Wed, 04/28/2021 - 8:10am
Those are totally different circumstances. Nobody has said you can pack Fenway or Foxboro safely - nobody. (OK, nobody with any science cred, anyway). Those are large crowds packed tightly, and the Rose garden superspreader had an inside component, if I remember correctly. Sturgis has huge crowds all packed together. That's not what Sax is talking about.
Like Sax said, two ships passing in the night are not at risk.
Please, if you have other science to present to us, I'd love to see it. There's enough whacko doctors out there that will say anything for Fox or Lindell and we need to filter them out.
To be clear
By Waquiot
Wed, 04/28/2021 - 4:01pm
Sturgis also had an indoor component. The bars were open and full of people underestimating Covid. Thanks Gov. Noem!
A more useful is a ban on
By Notfromboston
Tue, 04/27/2021 - 3:52pm
A more useful is a ban on alcohol consumption indoors. No reason why we can't allow drinks only outside.