Wear a Mask for Protection.....But Not Against COVID-19

Gun control activist David Hogg wears a mask to signal that he's not a conservative:

I feel the need to continue wearing my mask outside even though I’m fully vaccinated because the inconvenience of having to wear a mask is more than worth it to have people not think I’m a conservative 😬

— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) May 14, 2021

Dr. Susan Philip (Chron photo)

There's another, more important reason to wear a mask, despite the CDC guidance that fully vaccinated people don't have to wear a mask outdoors: to protect oneself from being yelled at or worse by people who want everyone to keep covering their face.

Dr. Susan Philip, San Francisco health officer: [bold added]

she has a message for city residents: Nobody needs to play the Mask Cop.

“They’re getting dirty looks. They’re getting yelled at, and they’re feeling very uncomfortable in their neighborhoods following our recommendations,” she said. “We want to make sure that everyone understands that this is permitted. We want people in the city to feel comfortable removing their masks.”

The Department of Public Health shared a particularly eye-popping email from a Glen Park resident who insisted on anonymity in this column “because of how irrational people can be about this particular topic.”

His email described going on two short walks without masks after the CDC said that was fine. On one walk, a woman screamed, “COVID is real, and people die!” On the other, somebody flipped him off and said, “Why don’t you move?” even though he’s lived in the city for more than 15 years.

“People are unhinged. ... My neighbors are scared to take their mask off outside because of other people — not the risk of COVID,” he wrote. “I would think such an educated city would understand science and trust the experts.”

The SF resident made several mistakes in his previous sentence: that San Francisco is an "educated" city ("indoctrinated" is more accurate), that residents understand "science" (but only if science agrees with their preconceptions), and that they trust the experts (but only if the experts support their politics).

David Hogg wears a mask to signal he's not a conservative. Conservatives wear masks in Cambridge--where he goes to school--and in San Francisco for protection against David Hogg's people.