The C.D.C. said fully vaccinated people could safely go most places without a mask. Not everyone was sure, or ready.

By Mitch Smith

CHICAGO — For Americans whose bare faces had scarcely been seen in public for a year, there were suddenly options. Would they leave the mask behind for a jog? What about the coffee shop? What about the neighbor’s house? The office?

A sudden loosening this week of federal health guidance on masks has handed Americans a new calculation to make. And it isn’t just one calculation, but a maze of many. As people walked through their days, hour by hour, errand by errand, some wondered at every new doorway: Mask or no mask?

In interviews this weekend with dozens of residents from Los Angeles to Atlanta, people said they were mostly encouraged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s finding that masks were no longer needed for fully vaccinated people in most indoor and outdoor situations.

But the details, many said, were perplexing, and had stirred new questions about science, but also about trust, social norms and even politics. How can one be certain that people no longer wearing masks have actually gotten a vaccine? What will the neighbors think if you take yours off? (And what will they think if you don’t?) And what if, some asked, you just feel more comfortable in a mask?

Since the start of the pandemic, many conservatives bristled at being told they should wear face coverings, while liberals often took pride in masking, making mask mandates a constant source of debate and division. But now, as something close to the opposite of a mandate was arriving, that, too, was creating tumult within shops, neighborhoods and even families in the parts of the country where masks had remained common.

“At first, as a citizen, I was like, ‘Wow, these are so great, I haven’t been out to eat in a year,’” Angela Garbacz, 34, a pastry shop owner in Lincoln, Neb., said of the new recommendations, which have begun filtering out to states and cities and stores. “But as a private business owner, it has been like panic and, ‘What do we do?’ Are people just going to think they can come in without masks? Do I get rid of my mask requirement? It’s just so much uncertainty with the one thing that’s helped us feel safe in a really scary time.”

Masking, a rare practice in the United States just 14 months ago, has become a normal part of American life. Some people questioned the C.D.C.’s abrupt shift in guidance — noting that the agency’s position on masks has shifted before — and wondered aloud whether the latest turn was really safe.

Gerry Corn, 56, who was picking up food to-go on Friday night in Los Angeles, said he had concerns about how long vaccine protection would last. “I’m thinking that until we really know more about it from empirical scientific evidence, that we should keep the mask in place, especially in public,” he said.

Others seemed willing to accept the science behind the masking guidance, at least in theory. Practice was another matter.

“It freaked me out,” Mary Beagan, 77, said of riding the elevator in her Minneapolis apartment building on Friday and seeing a woman step on with no mask. Yes, Ms. Beagan had heard about the C.D.C’s announcement. And yes, she has had her Covid-19 vaccines. Still, after all these months, it felt kind of scary.

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