 After two years of masking, UC Berkeley has decided to lift its mandate, which of course has caused some debate within the students and faculty. At this point, you sort of have to weigh the costs and benefits. You're talking about like thousands of people who are like having their social interactions inhibited, and you may see that's like a, that's a slow cost to pay for everyone wearing masks, but I mean, at some point it's got to add up. Personally, I think that anyone that doesn't want to wear their mask and like protect their fellow students in class is just doing it for, so that they can help have other people see their face, which is like completely narcissistic. While some students felt comfortable with Berkeley's decision to switch to a recommendation rather than a requirement of masks. Honestly, pretty safe, I would say, just because I know like everyone or like almost everyone here is vaccinated and boosted just because that's their requirement. So I'm not too worried about it, I don't think. Others fear for their classmates and their own safety. Yeah, I think that like the lives of immunocompromised people and disabled people should come first. Because like, sure, if I get COVID, I might live. But what if you get COVID? I want you to be alive to graduation just as much, right? Following the mandate's lift, it does seem as though many students are split, with some continuing to wear masks inside the classroom and others feeling comfortable to go without. But will the lack of masking actually have a serious impact on UC Berkeley's COVID cases? Although masking is important, Professor of Medicine at UCSF Dr. Mark Hellerstein believes vaccines to be far more vital in lowering the spread than masking. I think it's relatively minor. I think there's more important things than masking. Although masking does help, it's not that I'm not going to be the most important thing by a long shot. And especially now with the Omicron kind of having been huge and then waiting. I think we can talk about masking, but there's probably more important things. Dr. Hellerstein recognizes that masks are important. However, when it comes to lifting or keeping the mask mandate, he believes it depends on what one's priority is in these COVID cases. The mask isn't perfect. And they get infected. They won't get very sick. But I think that's the lesson. So I think it depends on what you want to prioritize. You want to prioritize the number of cases or the number of people who are really sick. Ultimately, it's a personal choice whether students keep their masks on. Still, though COVID won't be going away anytime soon, it doesn't seem as though the lifting of the mandate is going to bring COVID back to Berkeley full force. Reporting for RootCalTV, I'm Kimia Debe.