No aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic has polarized the American people quite like masks. And nothing better demonstrates the intensity of this polarization than the wildly different ways that America’s two most populous states, California and Texas, have responded to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s sudden May 13 announcement that fully vaccinated Americans no longer need to cover their faces in most indoor situations.
In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom deliberated over the weekend, then dispatched his health and human services secretary, Mark Ghaly, on Monday to tell the public he would not be lifting the state’s existing mask mandate until June 15, the date when California businesses