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The CDC has determined that vaccinated people needn’t wear masks to protect themselves from acquiring the disease or to protect unvaccinated people from acquiring the disease from them. It is, therefore, safe for vaccinated people to go maskless at all times, whether or not those around them have been vaccinated.
It is not safe, however, for unvaccinated people to go maskless indoors with other unvaccinated people. Thus, it really, really matters to unvaccinated people whether those around them who are maskless really are vaccinated. Believe it or not, some unvaccinated people will pretend to be vaccinated if that will enable them to go maskless. As a result, no unvaccinated person is really safe in a room full of maskless people whose vaccination status is not reliably known.
Also, wearing a mask does not provide complete protection from unmasked, unvaccinated people. A mask helps its wearer avoid contracting the disease, but masks are best at preventing transmission from a mask wearer to a mask wearer. The possibility of acquiring the disease from a maskless unvaccinated person makes unvaccinated people rightly afraid to go, even masked, into a closed space with people who may be not be vaccinated. A business will want its location to be a place…