Why won’t you wear a mask – what are you afraid of?

Photo from Pixabay - by leo2014

On March 2, Gov. Greg Abbot of Texas. Issued an executive order, lifting mask mandates and rolling back many Covid restrictions, declaring, "People and businesses don't need the state telling them how to operate."

That freed up the 29 million people of Texas to go more freely about their business; entertain with less restrictions and generally put the whole Covid-19 issue in the rearview mirror where it belongs.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, in unison, also issued a directive saying he was ending their statewide mask mandate.

"Our hospitalizations and case numbers have plummeted, and the vaccine is being rapidly distributed," Reeves tweeted. "It is time!"

Gov. Noem, of South Dakota, another defender of the no mask doctrine, never issued a statewide mask mandate, saying it was an individual decision. She also had opinions about the overall effectiveness of masks and other mandates throughout the US and voiced them during the recent CPAC conference. “Covid didn’t crush the economy,” she said. “Government crushed the economy.”

So, why are masks the first thing to go? What do these masks represent, that makes so many people throughout the US, want to get rid of them ahead of everything else.

A vaccination or two – absolutely. Smaller crowds in bar and restaurant – okay, if we must. But hell no, no more masks.

It’s as if these innocuous medical masks have taken on a life of their own. A symbol throughout these United States, that wearing one is a deprivation of our constitutional rights and anyone who puts one on, is in effect, bending to the will of those in charge, and knowingly keeping the economy from going back up.

But what about the science? Masks themselves were invented over as 100 years ago to keep airborne bacteria and viruses from spreading in hospitals, during operations or even in simple procedures – like dentistry. You sneeze, you spread the common cold or flu. So, why is keeping a mask on and not spreading something far more sinister so hard to agree with?

Google even provided us with a Google Doodle on March 10, celebrating the surgical face mask’s inventor – Dr. Wu Lien-teh, who used it to great and beneficial effect during the Manchurian Plague (China) of 1910.

Why is a simple mask being given so much power?

And today, with these mandates being lifted when Covid-19 is still very much a threat, what exact methodologies are these Governors using to determine which direction the people of Texas, Mississippi and South Dakota should go in, in regards to health and safety? Tarot Cards, a coin toss or a divining rod used by someone’s great-great grandfather back in the oil boom days.

The CDC is still offering words of caution and consideration when dealing with these mandates. They and other agencies have been urging caution since March 2020. They have been urging Americans to wear a mask, social distance at all times, wash your hands (our mothers told us this years ago) and don’t violate these rules when isolation begins to close in on you.

And yet, bars and restaurants over the past year have been closed; then reopened with reduced capacity. Closed again and reopened again – all in an effort to get economics back into play.

Weddings and church events have been held via Zoom or in person or outside under tents or in secret with varying results. Some of them turning into super-spreader events.

And yet when science and economics pair off against each other, the mask is upfront as a defining issue on what we should do as a nation. Becoming as politically divisive as Trump, taxes or the origin of the virus itself.

As the Covid Relief Bill gets signed into law with a large majority of Americans agreeing with it, the GOP and most of its members voted against it. Sen. Roger Wicker, praised the $28.6 billion going to ailing restaurants and their workers – but voted against the bill itself. They applaud the principle of it, but not the math.

They approve of the billions being spent for more vaccinations, further research, and streamlining the process to get every American vaccinated soon and yet – in their own states, they agree that masks are no longer needed and people should make their own decisions about their lives and their livelihoods.

It’s as if, by getting rid of these masks, setting them aside and allowing us to face the future unencumbered, we are in effect making it safer for the economy to rev back up to where it was in 2019. That the masks covering our faces may have kept the virus from spreading and that would be a good thing – but at the same time also somehow kept us from returning to normal.

It redefined us as followers and not leaders. As a people who are afraid of something so small, we can’t even see it and yet is capable of killing over 500,000 of us. By covering our faces, we are somehow in hiding and not facing this problem head on.

The mask is no longer just a slip of paper or piece of fabric but an act of surrender. We might as well hold up the white ones and wave it about and state to everyone: We give up. We are not who we thought we were.

And yet, it is just a mask.

A welder wears a mask to save his sight. A painter wears a mask so she don’t inhale toxic chemicals. None of them believe that by wearing one, they are lesser people. Operating in fear instead of owning their profession.

There is nothing symbolic about wearing a mask. Nothing more than wearing gloves or boots. You do it because it makes sense. It makes the job easier. In this case – it makes fighting a deadly disease more effective.

Masks are not keeping the economy down. A virus did this along with all the ineffective actions taken by our leaders to preserve their status and not their constituents. Effective measures were named and offered up months before Covid-19 started cutting through America like the Grim Reaper. We simply did not take heed. We were more afraid of what we would lose if this thing won and thought that wearing a mask would mean IT was here to stay.

Okay, it was wrong-headed, we made mistakes, let’s move on.

Masks, plus social-distancing, plus vaccinations and a large dose of common sense is what will get us through to the other side. No one thing does it all – it was never intended that way.

A surgeon washing her hands before entering the operating theater is no guarantee that the patient will not get an infection – it just significantly reduces the chances.

That’s all that a mask does. It’s not a social statement or a fight for freedom. It’s a simple, albeit annoying at times, solution to keep up the fight until we actually win it.