"Retailers have asked and requested that you wear masks," said Willy Solis, a Denton, Texas shipping app buyer who works at stores like Target, Kroger and CVS. "A vast majority of people were still doing the right thing and wearing them."
Since the C.D.C. Announcement, however, "it was a complete shift," said Mr Solis. Like Yorktown, Denton is located in a district that supported former President Donald J. Trump by a single-digit margin in the November election.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in a March poll, 97 percent of Democrats said they wear a mask "at least most of the time" when they could be in contact with people outside their homes, and a similar segment of Democrats said that they believed masks were limiting the spread of the coronavirus.
By comparison, only 71 percent of Republicans said they wore a mask outside of the home at least most of the time, and only half said they thought the masks were effective.
That suggests a significant number of Republicans wore masks only to obey rules, not because they thought it was important, said Ashley Kirzinger, deputy director of the Kaiser Foundation for Public Opinion and Polling Research. She cited polls that showed Republicans are also less likely to be vaccinated.
Matt Kennon, a room service server at the Beau Rivage Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Miss., Said that prior to the C.D.C. Relaxed its recommendations, the resort's policy was that all guests must wear masks in public areas unless they eat, drink, or smoke, and this was strictly enforced.
"There were several security checkpoints nearby where we let someone from security say, 'Please put a mask on,'" said Mr. Kennon, shop steward for his union UNITE HERE. "There were wards with disposable masks that guests could wear if they didn't have one."
