I'd like to point out to anyone who thinks that "you do you" public health is sustainable that it's illegal to wear a mask in many public places in the US. This has only been on hold because of the emergency declaration and that's about to end.

For example, let me introduce you to my local law in Florida. Florida State statute 876.12:

Wearing mask, hood, or other device on public way.—No person or persons over 16 years of age shall, while wearing any mask, hood, or device whereby any portion of the face is so hidden, concealed, or covered as to conceal the identity of the wearer, enter upon, or be or appear upon any lane, walk, alley, street, road, highway, or other public way in this state.

This law was pointed out to my wife by a law enforcement officer who really wanted to arrest her for wearing a mask in a grocery store last year.

If you think you're going to be able to avoid COVID after the end of the emergency declaration you'd better be a full on hermit who never has to venture out.

Sorry for how poorly this thread is laid out. I didn't really know what I was doing on Mastodon in early 2023.

Let's go ahead and add North Carolina's House Bill 237 to the discussion. Here's the current state codes:

https://www.anapsid.org/cnd/mcs/maskcodes.html

What HB237 would be amending is:

https://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_14/GS_14-12.7.html

and

https://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_14/GS_14-12.8.html

with "Unmasking Mobs and Criminals"

https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2023/H237

According to the latest edition of the bill, it would specifically remove this sentence, which makes it currently allowed, from the current law:

"Any person wearing a mask for the purpose of ensuring the physical health or safety of the wearer or others."

I think it's worthy of noting here that Virginia, for example, has a similar law to North Carolina, but, the health exemption requires carrying around a doctor's note. Democrats in the North Carolina senate reportedly offered this solution to Republicans who rejected it.

There's been some wishy-washy discussion around this about how they're "not really" trying to ban masks for health, it's just being caught up in the bill. Don't buy that. They are very specifically rejecting masks for health related reasons.