Quick take (and some Friday jazz): Masks and social signaling

 The CDC's new guidelines state that those who are fully vaccinated have no need to wear masks, except in rare circumstances.  Even indoors, you do not need to wear a mask if you are fully vaccinated.  To quote John Maynard Keynes, "when the facts change, I change my mind.  What do you do, sir?"  To be precise, facts don't change, but new data become available, and as new data become available, I update my assessments.  What do you do, sir?

Masks were never intended to be social signaling devices.  They became so because of Donald Trump, a few others, and the unfortunate decision to turn mask-wearing into a marker of social group identification.  According to the CDC's current assessment, only those not fully vaccinated have a need to wear masks.

Before yesterday, a mask was an imperfect signal of membership in Tribe Science.  There was plenty of noise in that signal, of course.  Membership in Tribe Science was imperfectly associated with political leanings, although as I keep writing, the far left ditches science on a regular basis, and the postmodern left is explicitly anti-science, so as I said, "noise."  However, the mask sent a social signal, with noise in the interpretation.

Now, what does a lack of mask say?  It could signal "full vaccination and acknowledgement of CDC guidelines."  Or, it could signal full-on Trumpist COVID-denialist.

What does the continuation of masking indicate?  Compromised immune system?  Still waiting on a shot?  COVID anxiety?  Desire to not be seen as "full-on Trumpist COVID-denialist?"

We are accustomed to a world in which masks sent social signals that they should not have sent.  We enter a world in which the signal is muddied, yet the signal never should have existed.  And now the ambiguity of lack-of-mask as a signal presents its own social complications in a world where there never should have been any signals.

Stuff to do, so here's some groovy jazz.  The Wide Hive Players, "Stained Glass Tribal Mask," from Turnstyle.