A student who works at UCI’s Amazon Hub Locker+ at the University Town Center kept a field diary during the quarter to document important events and his work experience during the pandemic. One of his entries described how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had announced that in most public spaces, vaccinated people no longer needed a face covering.

I feel like today may be a monumental moment in this ongoing pandemic battle. The CDC has seemed to release the restriction of social distancing and masks for people who have been vaccinated. Now in this entry I feel like I should talk about what I think and feel about it, and to be honest, I am really excited. The thought that regular day life seems to be already getting closer gets me super excited. I feel like it has been forever since I have been outside without a mask and now that I’m vaccinated it makes me think about how I technically am allowed to not wear a mask. However, with even all of the things I listed I know that there is a grain of salt that comes with that. Almost all businesses seem to still say masks are mandatory and it seems that Governor Gavin Newsome still has not said much about it in the first place so I don’t know where California stands in this. Even at my job at Amazon the guidelines are still in place and won’t be actually lifted till June. This makes me think when did the CDC decide it was the right time to get rid of masks. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical advisor to the president, stated that those with vaccines were good to go. This also makes me question how they plan to know what people have vaccines for. Who is stopping people from just saying that they got the vaccine and never wearing a mask. This can only lead to more issues down the road as this new lifting of restrictions creates this “honor” system that I feel like most people will not follow. How will we even know who has the vaccine in the future as even when this whole thing blows over what will be the point where most people have the vaccine. It still feels like most people today have negative conceptions on the vaccine and are unwilling to take it. While I am excited by this new news of no longer being needed to wear a mask in public I feel I will still find myself wearing out of respect for others and the fear of people who still have not gotten it.

Anonymous, May 14th, 2021, “The CDC and Masks”