tvp – you want a simple answer when the whole issue is extremely complex. You hope people make decisions based on what they believe is the best info they have.
The answers to your questions are obvious, but because the issues are complex you will have no shortage of responses. So I will offer an answer, but don’t expect me to spend days arguing it back and forth.
Your question:
“Being that the vaccine is B”H very effective, why should someone who’s not vaccinated have to wear a mask?”
1. it is a definite that people unvaccinated can spread this virus easily. With the Delta variant they can spread it to vaccinated people as well. Maybe they should wear a mask to not spread it.
2. unvaccinated people are more likely to get very sick from getting the virus so they should wear a mask to hopefully reduce the risk of them both getting it and spreading it to other unvaccinated people, so as to minimize the cost to society of hospitalizing people.
3. From a societal standpoint reducing transmission of the virus until everyone can get vaccinated, including kids, might be a good idea as it may help reduce further mutations.
So I have given some simple answers. Naturally, you can respond that vaccinated people spread the virus as well. Perhaps this is true, but I think it makes more sense that the virus is found in higher numbers in the throat and chest of unvaccinated people which makes them much more likely to spread it than vaccinated people. But let’s say that vaccinated people and unvaccinated people spread it the same, then you would be correct that for that reason there is perhaps little to argue only one group should wear masks.
There is plenty more to be said on both sides here, but you can be realistic and realize that knowledge of these things is not perfect so we have people that spend their lives studying this stuff and we hope they can provide guidance based on their best knowledge. For an Orthodox person this is not unlike when we deal in our lives with difficult questions in halacha, where there are serious disputes and real-world consequences. What most of us do is try to seek out the best experts in that area of Halacha and when we get an answer we accept that whether it is the answer we wanted it is the answer we will live by.
Feel free to respond, but like I said, I have little interest in pointless debate. You asked a simple question you got some reasons. They are not perfect but you will never find perfect answers. Ultimately societies have to have a way of making decisions that may or may not be popular with various individuals or groups. Perhaps politics plays some role in influencing decisions, but that goes both ways. People can scream that it is 1984 or whatever, it does not change that governments have a role to perform and decisions need to be made. I would think in another year or two this will pretty much all be over. At worst perhaps a vaccine mandate. I for one, support vaccine mandates. I see plenty here see vaccine mandates as government infringement on their rights or worse. If that makes me a fascist, communist, who wants to murder babies in the eyes of those who are opposed to vaccines, oh well… as a Jew I am used to many people having an irrational hatred of me already.