Reasons to Wear a Mask

I understand people worry about their rights being trampled on by a heavy-handed government and don’t want to be forced to wear masks.  You ought to have a choice about whether you want to wear one, and not be forced.

Before you decide to wear a mask or not - here are some things to think about:

When a surgeon wears a mask, they are wearing it to protect the patient, not themselves.  The same is true for people who choose to wear a mask,  they are doing it as an act of kindness to protect everyone they come into contact with on the street. .If you choose not to wear a mask, you run the risk of infecting every stranger you may meet while you are out of your home, not just if you cough or sneeze, but just by talking and breathing,  that is the nature of the airborne disease.

It’s hard to tell if you have the CoronaVirus. If you contract the Coronavirus, it can take weeks before you show any symptoms. And when you start to feel sick, you may think you have something else, like a simple cold or fever.   It can also lie dormant, and you might be a carrier, infecting friends and strangers for weeks before you know you are really sick.

 IF your local hospital has room for 9 beds in their intensive care unit and has 9  patients, they have an urgent problem, if they have 10 people needing intensive care, they have a crisis. If fifty percent wore a mask, then it would slow the spread of the disease  in half, giving hospitals the time and space they need to deal with patients

The economy is in pretty rough shape due to so many people losing their jobs due to the shutdown.  if eighty percent of the population wears a mask, then COVID 19 would cease as a problem.  Viruses can become extinct if they are unable to find new hosts.

What if you think the virus is a hoax? This is a risk/reward question.  If the virus is not really much to worry about, there really is no risk, and a mask can be uncomfortable and inconvenient. But if you are wrong and the virus is actually a problem, then the risk is high, and is wearing a mask really any different than slowing your car down in a school zone?

If this virus was a fire, then some people are dry grass, and some of us are not. Those of us who are not dry grass is in a position to at least delay the fire until the rain comes to put out the flames.

Wearing a mask shows that you care about other people,  that you care about the economy, you are doing whatever you can to save people's lives,  wearing a mask shows that you are a good, decent, responsible person.  When you choose your personal freedom to not wear a mask, you are publicly telling everyone you are none of those things.