Regardless of the merits of mask wearing, or otherwise, I am still trying to obtain a definitive statement from Airbnb so that no host or guest is under any misunderstanding of their situation.
For reservations made prior to November 20th 2020, there is no requirement in the contract that exists between host and guest for either party to wear a mask. Airbnb is not party to that contract and therefore Airbnb is not at liberty to impose additional terms on the host nor guest.
For reservations made on or after November 20th 2020, Airbnb is attempting to impose the mask wearing requirement on the host and guest, this may or may not form part of the host and guest booking contract, I assume that would be the job of the courts to decide if Airbnb were able to make it such.
However, my bigger conern is that, should a guest make a reservation on or after 20th November 2020 for a stay many months in the future and at the point of check-in, the mask wearing requirement has receded because of vaccine etc, the actual contractual requirement may still exist.
So, now we have a situation where the host doesn't wear a mask because there is no reason to, the guest decides they want a refund and they use the issue of non mask wearing as the means to cancel the contract.
This whole thing is a minefield, Airbnb keeps dancing around the question, I am sure there will be some guests wise enough to be aware of it and clever enough to invoke the requirement when it suits, and all this could be 6 or more months away when, hopefully, this whole pandemic thing is subsiding.
One thing is for sure, should a guest instigate a credit card chargeback, the host will struggle to fight it on the basis of their contractual terms since I am sure no host has any reference to mask wearing in the house rules and it won't be appearing anywhere in the booking confirmation etc.
Worrying times.