Only in America can wearing a face mask during a pandemic when going out be a divisive and political issue. Everyone else in the civilized world realizes the importance of not exhaling germs though breath. We see them in South Korea to Italy and Spain. It’s a necessity that prevents the spread of the most vicious virus in a century. The Chinese are doing it, perhaps because they tend to follow directions better. Around the world, as the infection spreads, we all need to take precautions. Not in America. Here we storm state houses with assault weapons to protect the right to not protect ourselves. Ministers are ranting and raving about reopening their churches, even though they know full well it could cost lives. One pastor this morning on the news was screaming that church is “essential”. I’d like to have been on a communication wave that allowed me to respond, “Not if you’ve done your job properly in the past. Then your flock will know what to do.” Yes, indeed. Apparently “pro-life” can be flexible or selective.
In one tweet reported this week, a solid citizen wrote in response to a reopening plan, that she needn’t wear a face mask because, as she put it, she had a constitutional right to control her own body. First, it’s not her body we’re worried about – it’s the unlucky souls that happen to venture into her sphere of contamination. And second, she was probably waving signs protesting at a Planned Parenthood facility some time back because she feels that other women don’t or shouldn’t have that same right of control.
Why is it that some Americans have a poor grasp of safety precautions or even recommendations? We pat ourselves on the back for a job well done, while the virus is spreading out-of-control in more than two dozen states. The experts tell us we’re not even close to containment, while other countries, including China, the epicenter, are controlling the spread and seriously reducing the numbers of infected people and deaths. But we’ll follow our fearless leader, out on the golf course this weekend. There’s the image of Nero and his fiddle. Some of us, not a majority but enough to keep the ball rolling, persist in our general lack of common sense. When told that cruise ships are having serious issues and are unsafe, there they are, bounding up the gangplank. They’re also the ones not long after sobbing into the computer screen where they’re confined, asking why they can’t be allowed to go home. Just today, two news items about new clusters of disease. One was a teenage pool party attended by 100 young people, and boom, up goes another mushroom cloud of COVID-19. In a related article, two hairdressers had symptoms yet still felt compelled to go in to work, and infected 150 of their customers that could be tracked, so there may well more. They’re the ones in the grocery story without masks, heading up the aisles the wrong way, or pile into the person ahead of them in line and start unloading their groceries without regard to safe distancing. I heard a lady in the store the other day and, although she had mask, talking on her cell phone all the way around the store. Her voice was quite raspy and thus distinctive, and she’s a better than even odds a carrier. Fortunately for me, she was in a cashier aisle a distance from me, but I noticed that once she put the phone away, she started an animated conversation with those around her.
A recent survey showed that 8% will refuse to wear a mask at any time or place. It’s that bold, as my grandfather used to say, “My mind is made up – don’t confuse me with facts.” mentality that will continue to cause surges in the coronavirus in certain parts of the country. The medical experts are coming up with more and more useful information. We now know that the virus travels not just on surfaces we touch, but in the air we breathe and the droplets of moisture we exhale. Disease doesn’t particularly care if you are conservative, liberal, or moderate. It’s not curtailing your personal freedom to keep others around you safe.
We’d all like life to return to “normal”, or what it was before the pandemic. Yes, I’d like to be popping over to the hardware store for a quart of deck stain, rather than ordering it online, paying a $35 delivery fee, and hoping it matches the old stain. Yes, this is the time of year that I’m zipping to the nursery for plants and gardens I’ve been dreaming about and planning all winter. But whatever comes up from previous years will just have to do for now. Everything is rather stark, but, oh well. When you look at the staggering numbers of obituaries in the newspapers every day, it’s a sobering reminder that the risk is just too great to be going out all the time. Home is just safer.
Be well, my faithful readers.
I'm Thinking...No! 