California's mask mandates are lifting Wednesday, leaving many unsure as to how to keep themselves feeling safe and comfortable, even if some protocols are no longer required.
While some might be comfortable no longer wearing their masks indoors, others may not be, and it’s unclear how best to handle this new normal.
"It comes down to your risk tolerance," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security on KCBS Radio's "Ask an Expert" with Holly Quan and Dan Mitchinson on Tuesday. "We know if you're someone that’s fully vaccinated, and if you're high-risk you're boosted, you're going to be protected against what matters."
These people aren't likely to get seriously ill, need hospitalization, or die, he said. "COVID-19 is going to be with us, forever, so you’re always going to have some baseline level of risk."
For those that really don’t want to get COVID-19 at all, masks can stay on, but many people will stop wearing them if they aren’t required any more.
"And I think that's fine as well, because each person is going to have to figure out how they navigate a world with COVID-19 and pursue their values," he said. "I don't think it's going to be one-size-fits-all."
One-way masking does offer some protection for those that still want to wear them, said Adalja. Each individual is going to need to feel out their comfort level.
The new standard will also necessitate an end to "mask-shaming," where people shamed each other for either wearing one or not wearing one, he said. "People just have to be okay with other people’s decisions."
This hasn't been the mindset so far in this pandemic because the focus has been "abstinence-only in trying to get the risk down to zero, that people didn’t understand how to risk calculate," said Adalja.
Which has in some ways prevented, or "stunted" some parts of the population from getting back to normal, he said. "They've been told something for some long, they've internalized it."
No matter what, infections rates are going to continue to fluctuate, because COVID-19 is becoming an endemic respiratory virus. Now, post-vaccination and with the influx of more treatment options, it's more important to just focus on severe disease.
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