I'm with Happy36. I actually feel like some of the "Why wouldn't I?"-style responses show a bit of a lack of empathy. As Mare says, Pandemic + current weight of scientific advice seem like fair enough reasons to acknowledge this perspective. I'm going to be brave and go against the grain (as a relatively new poster, too!) to explain why... I hope I don't get too hectory - if I do, sorry...
The arguments for not retaining the mask mandate in certain contexts, like public transport, do sometimes seem to be a bit disingenuous or straw-mannish. "We can't wear masks for ever"? Well, no one's suggesting we do (er, OK, no one apart from the 2222 typo above!) "You didn't worry about other bugs before"? Nope, as it's fairly widely accepted there was rather less to worry about back then! "I've been vaccinated / am regularly tested etc."? Great, that makes your personal risk and, to a lesser degree, the risk you present to others, very low indeed. But it doesn't remove it entirely.
Because all this thinking in statistical terms ignores the individual lives making up those statistics, and shies away from an unpleasant truth. It's an absolute certainty that, with the lifting of the mask mandate, SOME of us who choose not to wear one simply because it's a bit uncomfortable WILL kill, or change the life of, someone else. We'll probably never know we did, but we will. That's just how this works.
Which leads me to the "We need to get on with our lives!" argument. I totally agree - but in most cases a mask doesn't stop you from doing that. And what it DOES do, is just make it that bit more likely that we'll all STILL be being able to get on with our lives in the future (by reducing the risk of variants), and that other people, equally desperate to live their lives, feel able to get on with theirs, too!
Because I really do feel that it's entirely understandable that some people are still worried or scared. The elderly, the clinically vulnerable, those on the anxiety spectrum, the bereaved who've already seen their life transformed once this year and are terrified of a repeat... They make up a significant proportion of the population, and I don't think we should judge them and I do think, if there's something simple we can do to help them, we should.
So, slipping a bit of fabric over my nose on public transport (and I say this as a teacher who's spent a good portion of them summer so far fully masked in a 35-degree classroom in a far warmer climate than the UK) feels like a small price to pay to let, say, a little 80-year-old feel able to go shopping for herself, or a clinically vulnerable teen to feel able to venture out in the evenings.
Whereas the smallest possibility, HOWEVER remote it may be, of ending someone's life feels like a hell of a price to pay for a bit of extra comfort during a 30-minute train journey.
I know that there's a whole raft of good counter-arguments to this eg. speed limits - would I have them all brought down to 10 in urban areas, then? (FWIW, no, I wouldn't, but I'd really have to think to explain why), so maybe I'll change my mind over time reading replies etc. But for now, that's how I feel - and maybe, that I'll change someone's mind myself!
PS Lengthy post a product of quarantine boredom & consequently too much time to reflect on my journey to said quarantine just yesterday - multiple (unavoidable) long plane and train journeys, and literally hundreds of encounters with maskless faces and exposed noses from all over the place. Above all, though, a quite dramatically noticeable shift on entering the UK, from maybe 1 in 10 without masks elsewhere, to 1 in 10 WITH masks here. It just made me think... Clearly! :)