I think I’ve figured out why mask mandates grate so. It isn’t that people are unconscientious objectors, refusing to do what’s right for society out of mere petulance. We are required to wear protective gear that we have little confidence protects anyone. The surgical-style cloth or paper masks that most of us wear when and where we’re obliged to may provide some measure of safety in a pandemic, but not the sort of protection you would want for a visit to a biosafety level four laboratory.
But let’s stipulate that masks are indeed an essential prophylactic: Why, then, have state and federal health authorities done so little to make and distribute face-coverings that actually protect against airborne pathogens?
In 1938 and 1939, when Brits expected Nazi bombers at any moment to start dropping poison gas, the government issued some 38 million gas masks. There were “respirators” not only for adults but children-sized ones painted with Mickey Mouse faces. Let’s say that N95 masks were vaccinelike in their anti-COVID-19 efficacy. Surely, we could have by now distributed a sufficient supply of them to every household in the nation. Is it that the task is too great or that our health bureaucrats don’t really believe that masks do that much?
If wearing masks is important enough to be mandated by states, shouldn’t we put effective masks in everyone’s hands and over everyone’s faces?
If you want serious protective gear, don’t hold your breath waiting for the government to provide it for you. Instead, follow the lead of those self-sufficient sorts who wouldn’t dream of relying on the government when it’s a matter of life and death. I have in mind those who prepare for surviving one or another post-apocalyptic dystopia. Call them “survivalists” or “preppers” (not to be confused with “preppies”); their motto is to be ready for when SHTF. (HTF stands for “Hits The Fan.” You can figure out what the S stands for.) Preppers have the sort of gear you would wear if you were dead serious about putting a barrier between your face and someone else’s sneeze-born viral particles.
Go to the delightfully named Doomsdayprep.com, and you will find a robust selection of high-tech masks, including a “tactical respirator” that looks like a piece of Darth Vader’s headgear. It’s only $225, but the promotional copy reminds us COVID-19 is out and about.
Masks, of course, are also meant to serve as an in-your-face, or rather, an on-your-face reminder of pandemic peril. Thus, the more sinister the mask, the better. One might consider a goggle-eyed mask of the sort Chris Pratt wears as “Star-Lord” in Guardians of the Galaxy, a face-covering with echoes of those worn in the trenches at the Marne. For example, PrepperStop.com carries U.S. military surplus M40 gas masks. It may be a measure of the preppers’ preparedness that those masks are sold out. So, too, is PrepperStop’s stock of Israeli gas masks. Perhaps they could interest you instead in Russian GP-5 gas masks available in various adult and child sizes? A bargain at $20 apiece! Then again, the fact that the shelves of these Cold War-era masks are full may say something about how desirable they are.
Industrial supply companies such as Grainger have wide varieties of full-face respirators and gas masks that will help you withstand CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear) hazards. Or at the very least, the sight of you rigged up for radioactive Ebola should encourage passersby to maintain the recommended 6-foot social distancing.
If you’ve been vaccinated, there’s very little reason for you to have to wear a mask. But so long as they’re mandated, why not out-comply those who insist on compliance? While you’re at it, don a pair of Haz-Mat coveralls. I recommend the DuPont yellow Tychem 2000 polyethylene-coated Tyvek bib pants/overalls. It looks particularly alarming.
Eric Felten is the James Beard Award-winning author of How’s Your Drink?
