Mask Policy Lifting in Santa Clara County March 2

Santa Clara County, California, the seat of Silicon Valley, has trailed most of the rest of state in lifting its requirement that everyone wear masks in indoors public spaces. That policy will now be lifted effective March 2. Example news coverage: KRON 4 news article (24 Feb 2022), San Jose Mercury News article (updated 25 Feb 2022).

County health officer Dr. Sara Cody has gotten a lot of flack over the past 23 months for hewing a more careful line on Coronavirus public health policy than some would like. The thing is, she's not just making policy because it's what she wants; she's data-driven. Yes, I'm not the only one still doing the Tier Tuesday thing! Dr. Cody identified 4 key statistics she was monitoring, and once solid data was available and showed good improvements earlier this week she decided to loosen the masking policy.

"Woohoo, no more masks!" a lot of people will say. Except that's not true. Masks are no longer required, but are strongly recommended, for fully vaccinated people. The unvaccinated still must wear masks in indoors public settings. Of course, most business find it too cumbersome to check vaxx status— the Covid denier political bloc saw to that.

On the other hand, even fully vaccinated people may still choose to wear masks; and I believe many will. When mask wearing requirements were briefly relaxed last summer (prior to the Delta surge) voluntary mask-wearing in my town remained at 80%.+ in places like supermarkets. This past weekend  when we were traveling in other Bay Area counties where mask rules have already been relaxed we saw a similar pattern. We visited a bunch of retail stores (still shopping for new plates!) and saw voluntary masking remain high.

Finishing Strong. Flowers for my Spouse.

Friday capped a week of ups and downs.

 » Wednesday I had a strong start with a customer-facing project in the morning, but then from late afternoon on to 9:30pm— yes, it was a long workday— I hit a series or brick walls that left me feeling like I was stuck at Square Negative Six.

 » Thursday morning started out similarly rough; it took hours before I could even get to the start line. But I did get there— to the start line, aka Square One— with the help of two colleagues who came through for me (after several who didn't). I had to postpone working with my customer on Thursday because I was so far behind, but by 7pm Thursday I was all caught up.

 » Then this morning stuff broke on me. I spent two hours troubleshooting it with no success. Then it was time to get online with my customer. Despite this morning's setback in my sandbox I was able to guide the customer to success in his environment. We wrapped up our working session today mutually satisfied with the progress.

To reward myself for pulling through in the clutch I took a long-ish lunch and did some grocery shopping. While I was at the store I figured it'd make my partner's day— mine was already made at that point— by buying her some flowers.



The flowers turned out to be a great choice, especially in her favorite color, purple, because her day was not as good as mine. Not until she came home and saw the flowers, anyway. Then her day finished strong, too. 😊