[nate_meurer]

In every public place I visited during the pandemic, the official rules stated you could leave your mask down if you were eating or drinking. This included two of the largest hospitals in Colorado. In bars and restaurants you only had to wear a mask if you were standing up, and at all other times you were allowed to eat, drink, laugh and talk unmasked. On airplanes everyone unmasked while eating meals.

If masking was truly primarily about stopping the spread of a highly contagious airborne virus, why were the rules designed and applied to allow people to spend so much time in confined spaces unmasked?

[leptons]

The original comment claimed that the suggestion to wear a mask was "all theater" during a pandemic, because masks don't actually protect people.

The proposition was "wearing a mask is all theater", but your comment is explaining how not wearing a mask in particular situations was theater.

Wearing the mask is not theater, it's an effective mitigation.

Taking the mask off in an enclosed space and pretending you're safe is the theater part, but that isn't what OP was talking about.

[nate_meurer]

Like the OP, I'm just pointing out that the masking requirements set out by governments and institutions at all levels were highly theatrical in nature, and I gave some concrete examples. Do you disagree? For example, the requirement by local governments to wear masks in restaurants only while standing... Do you think that had any practical "non-theatric" value?