TLDR: I describe my own mask wearing experience, as well as address US politics surrounding mask wearing and make a few related political statements.
Why I Started Wearing a Mask
I’ve lived in Central Florida for about 20 years. Before that, I lived in Maryland, and before that I was in Missouri. I spent a lot of time outside when I lived in Missouri, and never got any sinus infections. Something happened after I moved to Maryland, where I started getting sinus infections with every change of season. That trend continued after I moved to Florida.
In 2019, a few months before any signs of a pandemic, I started wearing a mask whenever I took walks around our community. When the pandemic hit and politicians were fighting over whether masks should be mandated for everyone, I’d been wearing mine for half a year, and hadn’t had another sinus infection during that time. The mandates for wearing masks had no impact on me, since I was already wearing a mask by my choice.
Why I Continue to Wear a Mask
For nearly five years running now, I’ve been wearing my mask whenever I venture outside. During that time, I’ve only succumbed to one sinus infection. Normally, I would have had almost twenty sinus infections. The one infection was due to a heavier than usual degree of pollen in the air, during which time we had our doors open to enjoy the warm weather, and I didn’t think to wear my mask while inside.
Admittedly, it’s not the most convenient for me to keep a mask at hand all the time, ready for me to grab up and put on when needed. But I don’t find wearing it uncomfortable in the slightest, and I feel naked when I do forget to put it on when going out for a walk.
When I go to the store or a restaurant, I’ll wear the mask while walking to the establishment. Once I’m inside, I often remove the mask, but if anyone inside appears ill, I keep it on. I’m a part-time tutor, and I typically keep my mask on when tutoring, being around a number of school-age children.
Children have more contact with others, and they have less developed immune systems to fight off infections. This means they are more likely to catch an illness that can spread from person to person.
CDC
A Little Respect
Back in 1994, I went on a business trip to South Korea, and noticed a lot of people wearing masks. When I asked about it, I was told that people who felt sick would wear masks if they went out and about. They didn’t wear the masks to prevent themselves from getting sicker, but to help reduce the risk of making someone else sick. They had respect for other people.
Few people in the US would freely choose to do what those South Koreans did. Many of us don’t have much respect for others, to be frank. When I worked in an office, coworkers would often come to work sick. Sometimes they would be sent home, but often they’d be allowed to stay and work. Others in the office would get sick. Anytime I got sick, it always evolved into a sinus infection, and it would make me too sick to work. I’d be out of commission for ten to fourteen days at a time. Before I started wearing a mask on a regular basis, I was sick forty to fifty days every year. That always chewed up most of my vacation time, which is the main reason why I’ve never taken a vacation trip outside the US, and very few vacation trips inside the US, none of which lasted more than a few days.
Looks
I would get looks from people when I first started wearing my mask in 2019. After the pandemic hit, I’d get a different kind of look from some people, and no looks at all from others. Everyone assumed I wore my mask for reasons to do with COVID 19, and they were partly correct. But now that most everyone, at least in the part of the world where I live, have stopped wearing their masks, I still wear mine. And I get different kinds of looks from people I meet while I’m wearing my mask. Most people don’t seem to be bothered by it. But there are some people from whom I get this bad vibe, like they think I’m trying to make some political statement they don’t agree with and despise me for it. It’s because of them I chose to write this post.
Mandates to Wear Masks
A role of government is to protect its citizens, not only from other countries, but from each other. That’s why we have laws that forbid citizens to shoot one another, or that forbid texting or the drinking of alcohol while driving, or that forbid smokers from smoking inside public buildings. These are all laws that restrict the freedoms of some in favor of protecting society at large.
Mandates to wear masks, put in place by some of our political leaders during the pandemic, restricted freedom in favor of protection. Arguments were had about what types of masks were necessary to provide some degree of protection that would make a difference. But here’s the thing: Firing a weapon at someone sometimes misses. Texting while driving doesn’t always result in accidents. I know people (not myself) who drove drunk and made it home safely. Not everyone subjected to second hand smoke will die or even get sick from it (I do get sick from it). But the laws don’t quibble about these things. If you drive drunk and you’re caught, you get arrested whether you caused an accident or not. The restriction on driving drunk is for the protection of all citizens, so that an accident won’t happen to take someone’s life.
The mandates to wear masks had the same intent: To protect people as much as possible from the negligence or bad behavior of others. But the laws couldn’t stop people from acting irresponsibly, and they couldn’t make people believe that wearing a mask was helpful to anyone. Some people will drive drunk, or drive after a few drinks, believing they’re not that drunk. Individuals sometimes believe they know better than the government, and sometimes that’s indeed true for that individual. Because we live in a country with a large population, not every law will be beneficial or amenable to every citizen.
Weaponizing Politics
Some politicians weaponize politics. They pass laws to retaliate against people or businesses who don’t support them. Some laws aimed specifically against Disney or the LGBTQ+ community in Florida are prime examples, despite the excuses the Florida lawmakers gave for the laws enacted. When our elected leaders weaponize politics, those who are most negatively impacted by them will like them the least, but many if not most citizens will recognize how unfair these laws are, whether or not they openly admit it. While some people won’t like certain elected officials anyway, weaponizing politics foments a deeper distrust of the entire political system. It doesn’t help when those politicians who weaponize politics deny doing so. Their constituents still know the truth, but a politician’s denial makes it easier for their supporters to deny it, too.
Was the mandate to wear masks a weaponizing of politics? I’d argue that it wasn’t. One aims a weapon at a specific target, a small segment of the population. The mandate to wear masks included everyone. It was an attempt to protect all people, even if many people felt it wasn’t necessary. Some politicians tried to paint the mandate as weaponized politics, by trying to make certain people believe the law was aimed specifically at them, to reduce their freedom. What can be said about the people who bought into such political rhetoric? I know what I think, but I won’t say it.
Emotions in Politics
So much is happening now in politics that reasonable people will find ridiculous, but many politicians don’t care about reasonable people. They care about people whose emotions they can manipulate. Protection of the citizens of the country isn’t a priority for many politicians these days. They care about money and power, and they are willing to sacrifice the health and well-being of every citizen to keep what power they have.
Only a few politicians truly care about every citizen in the country. Or maybe it’s only Bernie Sanders, but he’s been painted as a socialist, and we’ve been told socialism is just a step away from communism. Few people in the US recognize whether Bernie really is a socialist, just as relatively few US citizens understand either socialism or communism. They’re simply afraid of the words, and politicians feed on this fear, the same way they feed on other emotions. Don’t be persuaded by political arguments attempting to sway you emotionally.
In Closing
This post came to be written simply because of how some people look at me when I’m wearing my mask. Maybe I’m reading something into their looks. Maybe they’re reading something into my decision to wear a mask. Whatever the truth may be, US politicians leverage and continually deepen the divisions between US citizens, and I don’t believe that’s why the founding fathers created the US government.