Mask Mandates Are Hurting Public Officials’ Credibility

People are now making their own decisions. Let them.

This weekend, Athens, Georgia, the town I have lived in for nine years, a charming, active, very pleasant place that I am delighted to have as my home, reinstated its mask mandate for public places and “private entities that choose to opt into the requirement.” I was out of town this weekend and didn’t learn this until I returned to town, and even then, I learned it not from the local news or from being an idiot who walked into a place of business without a mask on, but instead from someone on social media who was making fun of the mandate. This is the only time I see mask mandates show up anymore: When someone’s mocking them.

And here’s the fun part: It wasn’t until I’d seen the mockery that I learned that the mandate had in fact already been in place since June 18. The new mask mandate wasn’t new at all; it was just a renewal of the previous mandate. A mandate that I — despite living in Athens and visiting many of its fine establishments, both private and public — had no idea existed.

I am empathetic to both Athens officials and officials nationwide: This has been an impossible time, and they’re all just doing their best — they’re just trying to help. But we have reached the point of this pandemic in which it…