The country has been at war over mask-wearing since the COVID-19 outbreak. Well okay, mask wearing has been among the ongoing culture wars dividing the country, including “F*ck your feelings!” Trumpism, and “Stop the Steal,” and “I’m not a racist. You’re the racist!”
Even as death rates drop, mask-wearing has become habit many will continue even outdoors. I haven’t been sick in over a year. Not even a cold. Isolation and masks will do that. And now?
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist and professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, tells Yahoo Life that it’s important to be “sensible” about outdoor masking. “If you’re outside walking separate from other people and either by yourself or with someone with whom you live, then you can take off your mask,” he says. “But if you’re walking outside in the city when you’re passing others all the time, it’s a good idea to wear a mask.”
Many will. But people who always rejected mask-wearing as a betrayal of Trump — the mask-shunning science-denier and quack-remedy promoter — are seeing death rates decline and getting even nastier to people who continue wearing them even after vaccination. There is a new outbreak: rudeness.
My friend Hanna Raskin is a food writer in Charleston, S.C. She spoke to servers and restaurant owners exposed to an outbreak of incivility:
Hospitality professionals on the receiving end of rudeness, insensitivity and disrespect peg the escalation to roughly the first week in March, when Gov. Henry McMaster lifted the statewide mask mandate and the nation’s fully vaccinated population surpassed 1 million people.
“It is so different” from the first year of the pandemic, Kwei Fei owner Tina Schuttenberg said of prevailing customer attitudes. “It is just the complete opposite.”
Boorish behavior began spiking as soon as venues re-opened for on-site dining. Incidents that required an email to Schuttenberg’s management team about once a month shot up to two a week since March. As a resident of another tourist town, I could have predicted a lot of the rudeness comes from tourists who want a vacation from any responsibility for others. Not that they were any better at home. But how dare you spoil their vacation by flaunting your responsibility in public?
It’s not just restaurant workers who stand to suffer if discourtesy keeps up. Scholars Matteo Bonotti and Steven Zech of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, contend that society could corrode if people continue to act out in restaurants.
“Consequences of impoliteness can be far-reaching,” the authors of “Recovering Civility during COVID-19” wrote in an email. “Restaurants are important sites for fostering social cooperation and a sense of community.”
In short, they say, an inability to regain some grasp of restaurant manners could inhibit “the opportunity to build a more inclusive and cohesive society” in the wake of COVID-19. When diners accept that a restaurant doesn’t stock their favorite salad dressing or say “please” when asking for another glass of merlot, they’re practicing for more momentous exchanges in the world beyond restaurant walls.
“You live with it,” Schuttenberg said of the meanness. Her business is making people happy. Hard to do when her people are just trying to make a living and stay alive doing it.