Why are so many people down right pissed off about being ASKED to wear a mask? I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this for several weeks now and I feel that I need to come up with some hypotheses in order to find some internal peace. My spouse is one of those who will not wear a mask. He’s not militant about it the way that others are, he doesn’t think any of his rights are being taken away, but I know he’s been at meetings where he, and probably no one else, is wearing a mask. However, he doesn’t go around posting anti-mask items all over social media. My sister is also resistant but not quite as much as my spouse.
I have friends on facebook however, who are posting anti-mask sentiments and it’s really bothering me. I, like many of my fellow Americans, question why this has become such an incredible sticking point with so many. It pains me to know that science, at least up to this point, has shown that wearing a mask will lessen the spread of the virus by stopping moisture and droplets from exiting our mouth and nose and “spraying” into the air. They’ve never said the virus can’t get into our systems if we’re wearing a mask, they’ve emphasized that it will assist in keeping it out of other people’s systems if we are the ones who are contagious. So if that contagious person is standing in your general area near the check-out line, if they are wearing a mask, your chances of contracting are less than if they were not wearing one. That is the science – THUS FAR!
We must remember that this is new. We operate in a world where we expect everything to be on demand and therefore we cannot figure out why this is taking so long. So let’s put this in perspective.
- It typically takes years, usually decades, to find a vaccine. The world lived with smallpox for centuries before we found a vaccine. AIDS has been in our world for 40 years with no viable vaccine.
- Scientists are human beings, not Gods. They are intelligent and dedicated in this fight but they must be diligent. Our medical history proves that we cannot be careless in applying medicine, as a wrong step can prove fatal.
- My previous note is hammered home a little more when it comes to our intense scrutiny regarding mistakes. We live in a society where collectively we simply do not allow others to make any mistakes, yet we ask for forgiveness when we screw up. Everyone screws up – EVERYONE! We must allow scientists the time to research and screw up in the lab, not within the general public. If not, the court system will be overrun with those clamoring to take down big pharma, even as we stand here today relying on them for our safety.
I believe in order to give science the time to research, we must limit the spread, which lowers the number of people checking into the hospitals all at the same time, which keeps health care workers a little more safe and helps prevent incredible burn-out in their ranks. Right now, scientists are saying wearing a mask can assist with that.
So why are so many refusing this? Here are my uneducated, unresearched OPINIONS (not facts).
- During previous epidemics such as SARS, communist countries were show on our media and their citizens were all wearing masks. We may associate this with an oppressive communist government who has limited all our rights and freedoms. It has become a personal freedom symbol, not a health measure.
- When we saw people in America (pre-pandemic) wearing masks in public (as opposed to work-related protection), it was usually being worn by someone who was in ill-health and who needed to provide an additional layer of illness protection. So then the mask becomes associated with illness and many believe illness is a sign of weakness, so then the mask is a sign of weakness.
- To expand on this we seem to have wrongly associated illness with lifestyle. When someone gets lung cancer, the first question we all ask, me included, is if they smoked. If they did, we judge them harshly and associate an “unclean” lifestyle with their disease. But what if that person never smoked, or lived with a smoker? People get sick all the time, sometimes we develop debilitating diseases later in life that rob us of our regular functions. Most of the time, these have nothing to do with the lifestyle we’ve led, it’s just the lot in life we were handed.
- I think we judge because we need a psychological safety net. We need a way for our brains to tell ourselves that we will be ok. Somehow that terrible stomach cancer a good friend has can’t happen to us because we “take better care of ourselves” than they did. In fact, this is not true most of the time. Bad things can happen to us all, regardless of how well we’ve lived. Our society has associated all kinds of things in our lives with health and illness. Most are likely wrong. Masks have been associated with illness in the past – we need them to become more of a symbol of health today.
- It’s weird. We use our whole face to express who we are. People pierce noses or lips. All kinds of us chose a lipstick color in the morning. Those are all expressions of who we want to be. We smile, we smirk, we frown, we purse our lips and stick out our tongues and none of that can be seen behind a mask. It just plain feels a little weird. We need to practice wearing them and get over the weirdness.
- It’s hot and uncomfortable. There’s not many ways to get past this. Yes, it’s harder to breathe with a mask on – but certainly not impossible for the average person and not likely to cause anyone to pass out, but it’s not the same as without one (although Covid-19 makes it VERY hard to breathe so I’ll take a mask if it helps!!). Sometimes in life we must put on our big kid pants and deal with it. So deal with it people.
- We can’t see the danger. A virus is microscopic – as in only visible with a very high-powered microscope. It’s hard to understand something that’s not visible or touchable. We may not actually know anyone who’s become sick personally and we may have a personality that just prevents us from absorbing issues unless they truly hit home. I have to believe this is a self-preservation thing. I have to believe that some people are just hard-wired that way.
- We’re Americans. We just don’t like being told what to do. We think that somehow we’ll prevail just because we’re Americans. This isn’t how it works. We will only prevail the same what that others do, by working together and working diligently to find answers. Our citizenship doesn’t protect us from illness. Coronovirus doesn’t give a shit what country we live in.
These are just a few reasons why I think others aren’t wearing a mask. I have to actually make myself some more masks because I seem to be wearing one each day for some task. If I’ve worn it one day for more than 15 minutes, I feel like I should wash it to keep it as clean as possible. I have 5 I’ve made but could use a few more to lower the washing frequency – I don’t want to do laundry that often!! I recently heard that we should treat our masks much like socks or underwear. Once we’ve worn them, we usually wash them before wearing them again.
We we’ve been asked to wear them, I’ve discovered a few advantages to wearing a mask.
- We don’t have to worry if we have bad breath and are offending anyone we’re talking to. Of course we should be maintaining a distance, but if that’s not an option, the mask helps “mask” bad breath!
- We all get stuff stuck in our teeth. Now we can cover them up, so we don’t have to worry about that lettuce stuck in there now!
- If we’re walking through the grocery store and someone farted in the aisle just before we walk down it – we’ve got just a little more of a layer of protection between us and the smell!
- Stray chin hairs? Don’t worry, they’re covered up now!
- Maybe you don’t want to be recognized at the grocery store, masks will prevent those who casually know you from noticing who you are. Sorry, if they are a well-known acquaintance, they can probably still figure it out.
I’m also very fortunate that I have a ton of fabric, thread, a sewing machine and a creative mind that allows me to research and make fabric masks. They aren’t pretty, they aren’t perfect, but they work well enough. I was even able to sew a few for family members, and hope that it helped them out.
I also love that the marketing and creative communities have finally got on the bandwagon and I’m starting to see those funny, snarky masks hit the market that I desperately wanted two months ago. I couldn’t figure out how to come up with a clever mask – but I haven’t given up yet. I’m starting to think that something with a little bling could be fun, even if that’s not my normal personality! I think a mask could be a new fashion accessory because I think that we’ll need them for a while. We won’t need them forever, but for a while.
