Rules and guidelines on masking in the US

The hotel in which I stayed in the United States is a part of a large chain. The official wording on its clean policy is that for guests staying at its US hotels, you do not need to wear a mask at the hotel if you are fully vaccinated. Staff are required to wear face masks.

As a cautious Canadian, I threw that guest policy out the window. I am fully vaccinated. I got my booster shot on Thursday. All is well. I have a sore arm. That's it. I'm boring that way. I'll take boring any day!

Whether I was heading downstairs to the kitchen area to fetch breakfast to take up to my room or doing laundry, I wore a mask. Heading to and from my room? I had a mask on.

As for staff, housekeeping never had masks on. When I headed to my room to check in back in late November of last year, I had to walk by two housekeeping staff without their masks. Luckily, I had mine on.

I'd say that 50% of the time, staff at this hotel had face masks on. The front desk was much better at it.

What I am trying to get at is that there are rules and guidelines on wearing masks, but they aren't enforced. We are still in a pandemic. Not wearing a mask in a public area is ridiculous these days, vaccinated or not.

The moral of this story is to mask up, to protect yourself and others from the various COVID-19 variants that are out there.