SAN JOSE — As the Bay Area snaps back to life with almost all pandemic restrictions now in the rearview mirror, residents can’t seem to shake off the mask-wearing habit.
When the state fully reopened last Tuesday, allowing vaccinated people to go out to restaurants, gyms, movie theaters and bowling alleys without face coverings for the first time in more than a year, many who viewed masks as a necessary evil greeted the news with a welcome sigh of relief.
But for others, masks have become a social norm and habit that will be hard to kick, as evidenced inside Bay Area grocery stores teeming with shoppers who continue to hide their noses and mouths behind face coverings while pushing their sanitized carts down the aisles.
Mask use continues to decline rapidly and mobility is nearly back to pre-COVID-19 baseline levels. 6/8 pic.twitter.com/EMBnylI72X
— Ali H. Mokdad (@AliHMokdad) June 20, 2021
Walking with a couple of shopping bags in her hand at Santana Row just a couple of days after the mask orders were lifted, 43-year-old Stephanie Fischer, of San Jose, said she still wears a mask “if everyone else does,” a common refrain among others who are keeping their face coverings on.
At Santana Row, there’s a mix of stores still bearing old signage mandating masks while others have switched to “masks recommended” notices.
Fischer has two children too young to be vaccinated, so she wants to make sure they are protected. While she shopped alone Thursday, Fischer didn’t don her mask until going into stores, explaining “it feels weird” to not wear one inside.
“People are still fearful even though so many of us are vaccinated,” she said. “Everyone has been working together, that’s how we got our numbers down. Now people are vaccinated, and we should get the reward of taking them off. But I think people are still very scared.”
That fear may be reflected in research from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle, which found that mask use has been declining across the country except in California, where more than 60% of people still wore theirs as of early last week when leaving the house.
The science says people don’t have to wear masks outside anymore and in most situations indoors, but for many who spoke to the Bay Area News Group, peer pressure to keep them on or a wait-and-see attitude appears to have taken sway, even though this region has a higher percentage of vaccinated residents than most.
It’s not surprising to Michel Courtoy, of Saratoga, that people are still being careful. Courtoy walked around Santana Row without a mask because he now feels he has “the freedom to make my own decisions and act in a way I feel appropriate.”
Still, Courtoy wears his mask inside stores and when a majority of people around him are wearing one. It’s not out of “social pressure.” It’s a sign of “respect for other people.”
“I think if a majority of people in a confined space indoors stop wearing them, I feel I’ll follow the group,” Courtoy said. “But it’s like a snake biting its tail: You’re waiting for other people to give you the signal, and they’re waiting for your signals. It’s a difficult situation.”
UCSF epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford said Monday he’s surprised how many people are still wearing masks inside stores or even walking around outside near his home in Oakland’s Montclair district.
Rutherford said he has stopped wearing them outside but carries one in his pocket when he goes inside stores in case he wants to put it on to make other masked customers feel comfortable.
“I don’t think there is anything wrong with wearing masks, but it’s also unnecessary if you’re fully vaccinated,” he said.
As for concerns about variants or not knowing if another person you pass in a store or on the street is vaccinated, Rutherford said those who are fully vaccinated should be protected in most cases.
“If there was going to be one residual of this pandemic, I would encourage hand washing. That’s going to prevent much more diseases than wearing masks, because it prevents gastrointestinal diseases and diseases as well,” he said.
Well before the coronavirus pandemic shut down the world last year, many East Asians already had a custom of wearing masks outside to prevent the spread of disease. Courtoy, who works extensively in East Asia, said the U.S. will likely look more like China, South Korea, Japan and other places where people wear masks when they’re under the weather or a flu is going around.
Johanna Moultrie, 70, of Alameda, said Monday she still wears a mask in part because she believes doing so helped her avoid other illnesses besides COVID-19.
“In the fall and winter, there’s people hacking and wheezing, and I noticed I’m not getting sick,” she said. “I washed my hands, I put on the hand sanitizer, I wore my mask. And I was out every day. I did everything I was supposed to, and I didn’t get sick,” she said.
But Moultrie, who was wearing a mask at the Grocery Outlet parking lot in Alameda, said she still is wary of COVID-19.
“I don’t mind wearing my mask because I don’t know who’s walking around with COVID,” she said. “So, until everybody is vaccinated, I’m wearing mine.”
As she emerged from a crowded Trader Joe’s in Walnut Creek last week, Bonnie Dankberg said she wasn’t yet ready to go shopping without a mask either.
“You get used to it,” she said. “It’s going to be a gradual process, just like it took a while to get used to wearing the masks.”
She added that it will likely feel “weird” to finally shed the mask in public spaces. “I read somewhere that it feels like your face is naked, and that sounds right.”
For now, Dankberg plans to be cautious. “Let’s wait and see,” she said. “There’s COVID around the world still, and maybe it could start up again with one of these variants. Who knows?”
