Me, I don't have a beard, but
I have nothing against faces with beards.


A funny thing has happened at the mental health clinic
to which I was admitted before the coronavirus lockdown.

Now that restrictions are easing in public places,
and even in "congregate housing" such as institutions,
this particular clinic is staying vigilant,
to the point of altering suggestions in the other direction.

During lockdown, "shelter-in-place" was the order of the day at the clinic.
Staff, clinical or non-clinical, who came and went to the clinic from their homes,
were required to wear masks at the clinic.
During that time, we in-patient residences did not leave the campus
and we were allowed to shelter in place without masks.

Now we patients can remove our facemasks in the privacy of our rooms,
or when eating or bathing or doing whatever in private;
but in all common areas, even on the clinic campus
and in the interiors of the in-patient residence,
we must now wear facemasks just as everyone else has been doing.

From the governor of the state where the clinic is located:
public assembly in closed spaces is limited
to ten persons per room. Period. Not negotiable.
Up until the present,
we were getting away with twenty-five people per room,
not necessarily masked;
now it will be ten people per room, all with facemasks.

The added precautions are in order to remain protective
while the public is getting out more
and there is more danger of coronavirus being spread.

I may not like the facemask, but I wear it.
It drives some of my fellow patients nuts, but they wear them as well.