Letters to the Editor: Vaccination doesn’t feel very beneficial in L.A. County right now

To the editor: It would have been nice to win a cash prize in the vaccine lottery, but honestly, I would be delighted with the reward of being able to flash my vaccine card and then go about my business unmasked. In reality, no one has asked to see my card once, so being vaccinated has conferred little in the way of rights and privileges in the public sphere. (“L.A. County will require masks indoors amid alarming rise in coronavirus cases,” July 15)

I was happy to wear a mask to protect those unable to be vaccinated, but the current surge is primarily driven by the unwilling, with whom my patience is wearing thin. That goes double for Los Angeles County officials who have told everyone to once again wear masks indoors, contrary to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation.

I’ve done my part. Where’s my reward?

LJ Williamson, Granada Hills

..

To the editor: What good does it do to require people who are already protected by vaccination to wear masks?

The rise in cases due to the Delta variant is scary. But this isn’t December. We have three highly effective vaccines, even against these variants. Last week, it was reported that not a single person with COVID-19 in hospitals run by Los Angeles County was vaccinated.

But forcing everyone to mask up, even those who have a layer of protection stronger than a piece of cloth, defeats the purpose of vaccination. People who already were skeptical of vaccination may now believe it doesn’t do any good.

I got my first dose on May 14, the day after it became available in my age group, and the day after the CDC said it was safe for vaccinated people to go mask-free in most indoor settings. My peers are angered enough that we won’t be able to go mask-free in school this August, but this is another level of absurdity.

I’m left of left politically, but this is no longer a political issue. This mandate makes no one happy and everyone confused.

Alec GeoSimonian, Van Nuys

..

To the editor: I didn’t suffer through the side effects of two vaccine doses after already having contracted COVID-19 in the winter just to still be required to wear a mask everywhere.

It is the job of bureaucrats at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to limit disease transmission, and of course everyone wearing a mask and locking themselves inside would improve that one metric. But society has other interests.

We should not become the only county in California to reinstate the mask mandate over an uptick in cases among the unvaccinated. Vaccines are too freely and widely available for the mask mandate to be anything other than punishing good citizens for the benefit of irresponsible ones.

Taylor Bazley, Los Angeles