Since the pandemic began this year, we’ve received a dizzying number of conflicting opinions on wearing masks and their effectiveness in preventing the spread of the coronavirus. At first, we were told not to bother — they didn’t work. This was later revealed to be a “noble lie” to prevent a run on masks. Later, we were told that wearing masks did work. Then, it really depended on the kind of mask. Then, it was uncertain whether there were actually any benefits.
I welcome the mask. I would be quite put out if its benefit was decisively debunked. Where I live, the mask has allowed us to get out of the earlier lockdown situation and return to some semblance of normal life. Thanks to the mask, businesses can responsibly reopen. We are able to take reasonable, prudential measures against the pandemic, not the ridiculously burdensome ones never taken in any previous pandemic and unproven as far as their effectiveness.
Masks might really be protecting those vulnerable to complications. Who knows? I’m willing to give it a go despite the minor inconvenience and discomfort if it means no more sheltering in place. Wearing a mask is not at all an unreasonable condition for being able to get out and live life in an environment where so many people are afraid beyond reason.
Then again, for some, the mask is an object of religious fervor, not so much a tool that possibly prevents disease. And here is a story — by no means the only one of its kind — illustrating that point.
No one has argued convincingly that masks are required in outdoor settings where people can easily distance. And indeed, most jurisdictions that mandate masks do so only where social distancing is impossible. The mask acolyte in this disgraceful story would literally rather spit on people to spread COVID-19 than let them go maskless and unscolded:
The man angrily approached the women as they hiked along the Hudson Overlook on the Midstate Trail in Ashburnham on Nov. 15, police said.
He was caught on video spitting at the woman who was filming the encounter.
“I have COVID,” the man can be heard saying. “I’ve been tested positive.”
The man then spits a second time at the woman.
“Are you OK?” she asks.
“No!” the man replies.
The COVID-19 era has introduced us to so many stories similar to this one — stories of busybodies whose coronavirus awareness is really a sort of gnostic religious fervor. It is not born of any practical concern for preventing the spread of the virus, nor from any authentic conception of science or medicine. Rather, the whole thing is a means of scolding lesser humans who lack the knowledge or proper conception of what “science” is supposed to mean.
