A crowd of food and beverage workers is scheduled to demonstrate outside the State Capitol in Austin Monday to reclassify people in their industry as essential workers for easier access to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Many also want to keep the statewide mask mandate in place, set to expire Wednesday, March 10, per Gov. Greg Abbott's executive order.

Under the latest order, businesses can still require employees and customers to use masks, but a state requirement will not back their mask policies.

Over the weekend, anti-mask protestors gathered at the Old Belton Courthouse in opposition to local school districts choosing to keep their mask requirements in place.

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Meanwhile, Houston officials condemn a "mask off" party scheduled to take place Wednesday at a club in the city.

I used to be an essential worker before I got back into radio. I worked for Delta Global Service, which is partially owned by Delta Airlines. I started as a cabin cleaning agent and moved up to a trainer before I took a leave of absence, you can say.

I feel like it's been well over a year since flights pretty much stopped operating. Time moves slow during a pandemic, it seems.

Our cleaning procedure definitely changed, and along with that came a company-wide mandate to wear a mask at all times while in the airport.

Even though wearing a mask may not offer 100% protection from catching COVID-19, I believe it reduces your chances of contracting it or spreading it to others, and when other people wear their mask as well, you protect one-another. (See the video below.)

As an essential worker, I felt some sense of safety knowing everyone was doing their part to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

I feel like restaurant and bar workers will be at risk with the lift of the mask mandate and establishments operating at 100%. While many will exercise their right to take that risk, others will continue to ask that customers wear a mask when possible in order to help slow the spread of the virus as we try to get more people vaccinated and get ahead of this thing.

Even if you don't agree with a store's mask policy, try to be respectful and thoughtful. That's what will get us through this - people thinking of others during a time of crisis.

LOOK: Answers to 30 common COVID-19 vaccine questions

While much is still unknown about the coronavirus and the future, what is known is that the currently available vaccines have gone through all three trial phases and are safe and effective. It will be necessary for as many Americans as possible to be vaccinated in order to finally return to some level of pre-pandemic normalcy, and hopefully these 30 answers provided here will help readers get vaccinated as soon they are able.

READ ON: See the States Where People Live the Longest

Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.

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