Masks Weaponized

Wearing a face mask is not a weapon

Not wearing one is

My wife and I are in our late 70s with health conditions making us high-risk to have a bad, if not fatal, reaction should we catch the COVID-19 virus. We have been self-isolating since early March and wearing masks and gloves if we had to leave home. We had groceries delivered, stopped seeing friends and family, stopped going to the Y, only did curbside or take out from our favorite restaurants and waited to see what would happen.

We felt reasonably comfortable with Governor Evers’ stay-at-home orders and his Badger Bounce Back plan to reopen. Then the conservative majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of the GOP legislative leadership who sued challenging Evers’ orders. Not having a plan of their own, the GOP leadership refused to work with Evers to craft new rules to help keep us safe. They just told Wisconsin counties and municipalities that you are on your own when it came to public safety during the pandemic even as the numbers of dead and infected continued to rise. It is no surprise that Washington County is now seeing a significant increase of positive COVID tests and deaths.

The predictable result is the wild, wild Midwest where there are no uniform rules, just suggestions that come from the Centers from Disease Control and other experts on how we should act in public passed on through suggestions from local leaders to follow some of them or just those you like or find convenient.

Recently, we have started to venture out of our home to see how the new normal looks and to try and measure how safe we feel being around our neighbors. I have to say, it is really scary out there. We still wear our masks when we go places. The businesses we have gone into in Kewaskum and West Bend have adopted some stay safe practices, but they are far from uniform. Here’s a sample of what we’ve experienced.

 Our Kewaskum Piggly Wiggly grocery store is the best of the bunch. They have Plexiglas barriers between customer and cashier, 6-foot distances marked on the floor in lanes leading to the checkouts, and all staff are masked. The store offers same- or next-day curbside pickup of online orders and limited delivery.

Some West Bend grocery stores present a different picture. One offers all of the same precautions and adds sanitizing carts after each use. Another has some of the same precautions, but staff masks are spotty and often worn below the nose.

One local hardware store is a hot mess. They have barriers between cashier and customer, but the lane up to checkout is right in the middle of the path customers must use to enter the store. There are 6-foot marks on the floor around the checkout. None of the staff wears masks.

The most significant problem we experienced in all of these businesses was with other customers. Many more came in without any face coverings than those with masks. Physical distancing, except in check-out lanes, was pretty much nonexistent. There were no limits on the numbers allowed inside. Unmasked staff came right up to unmasked customers and carried on conversations before moving on to help others.

While we have not had a personal experience with mask shaming, some of our friends have been challenged in public places for wearing face coverings. The choice to ridicule or shame someone for wearing a mask boggles my mind.

We wear masks because the sound science tells us that it is the best way, short of staying home, to prevent the spread of the virus by an asymptomatic or infected carrier. Even though I have taken more-than-reasonable precautions to keep myself safe, I may be a carrier who shows no symptoms. My mask helps you by keeping the droplets in my breath from reaching you should we interact. Why on earth would any rational or sane person take issue with efforts I make to keep them safe?

It appears that mask shaming is part of our larger political divide where those who care about others and the safety of our family and neighbors are thought to be inferior because we subscribe to a work for the greater good philosophy. Our rugged individualistic neighbors are feeling invincible because our president tells them they are on the right path and are better than us. After all, he refuses to wear a mask, so why should they?

Those who refuse to mask up, fearing a governmental obliteration of their liberties, put not only themselves at risk, but their elderly family members and friends as well. Even if they don’t get sick, they are more likely to become a virus carrier by not wearing one.

As we top 100,000 dead nationwide from the virus, it is time to listen to those who actually know what they are talking about because they have studied the science and learned from experience and history.

Stop weaponizing masks and put one on in public while keeping your distance. It may just save a life.