When the mayor of Washington, D.C., announced changes to the city’s mask mandate last week, spit hit the fan. As of March 1, District residents will need to cover up in order to attend school, go to a library, or ride in a taxi. But gyms, sports arenas, concert venues, and houses of worship—you know, all the places where people like to breathe hard or sing and shout in close proximity—will be facial free-for-alls.
If the goal of mask policies is to reduce transmission of the coronavirus as much as possible, then D.C.’s new rules are difficult to reason out. Why should children, who are generally at low risk of severe disease, have to mask while sitting quietly in class when their more vulnerable elders can sing, unmasked, in church? It seems arbitrary, inconsistent, absurd.
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