A Case For Face Masks
Recently, we’ve been officially told to drop face masks and resume living because with vaccines and boosters we are safe. If the announcement can be taken at face value, what a welcome relief!!! But can it?
Experts say that Covid-19 virus is here to stay. A new strain of Covid-19, BA.2, a subvariant of Omicron is spreading in Europe and China. Here in the U.S. deaths due to Covid-19 are still reported, daily. The pandemic is still on, correct me if my wrong but is pandemic a normal state of being? The pandemic is NOT contained, yet. This is not “normal”, leave alone “safe”. (Just on today’s news – 03/24/22 – I heard that the treatment of Covid-19 will no longer be free for the uninsured.)
I understand that the economy has to go on. I’m not an anti-vaxxer. To me, life takes precedence over death: any measure that can protect us from Covid-19 is a good measure. Still, there are two facts that confuse me.
1/ Fully vaccinated and boosted people get infected by the virus which suggests that the vaccines prevent severe illness and death (which is great), but don’t prevent the infection itself (which means that the threat of becoming infected continues, regardless).
2/ The original SARS virus outbreak of 2003 (Covid-19 is a variant of the SARS virus and is officially classified as SARS-CoV-2) affected mainly Asian countries. There were no vaccines, booster shots or a specific treatment developed to deal with the epidemic of SARS. Yet, the spread of the virus was successfully contained. How? With a universal mask mandate.
What I’m trying to say is this: it’s wonderful that it is now possible to prevent severe Coronavirus infection, hospitalization and death. It’s great that there are better and better treatments for Covid-19 available. But the pandemic is still on. Coronavirus continues mutating.
I don’t understand why the powers that be don’t declare a TEMPORARY state of emergency which would allow for the enforcement of a universal mask mandate which could actually stop the spread of Coronavirus.
Oh, you hate face masks? You have no idea how much I hate them! We all suffer from the pandemic fatigue. Nevertheless, wouldn’t it be better if we all wore face masks for a specific period of time as opposed to living under the threat of Covid-19, forever?………
To those opposing face mask mandate: circumstances make a difference! Were face masks mandated for no reason, it would be a violation of our rights. Were they mandated to prevent the spread of a deadly virus, it would be to protect our right to live.
Good quality face masks worn consistently do prevent the spread of airborne viruses. This was the case in 2003 (SARS) and in 1918 (Spanish flu pandemic), not to mention the tuberculosis epidemic. Neither SARS of 2003 nor Spanish flu pose a threat to us today because they were successfully CONTAINED.
From where I’m standing, the lack of containment of Covid-19 is the real problem now.
Whether you opted to be vaccinated and boosted (I hope so!) or not, continue wearing a face mask while in public. Let’s get rid of Covid-19 virus already!!!
Photo by Ani Kolleshi on Unsplash
