COVID-19 and the great mask crisis

Earlier in the year it was the fact that there weren’t enough masks to go around, now is more the issue that people won’t wear them.  In my former career, as a safety and health advisor, we always trained people to accept things like masks, gloves and goggles — barriers against hazards — as the very last line of defence; when you had to rely on PPE your plight was pretty desperate and it was best that you wore it diligently.

Why is it that humanity is so vigilantly negligent to reject the last barrier to sickness and possible death?  Some cite their freedom.  I certainly understand others having a problem because it may trigger them.  That’s a hard one.  But it really seems such an easy thing for everyone who can to wear a mask, for their own safety and health, and for the health and safety of others.

If only we knew just how vital it was to wear a mask, especially when it is literally a piece of material between the coronavirus and infection.  The last line of defence.  The only barrier against the hazard, especially where we are at close quarters with others, especially when the virus is still rampant, and governments are scrambling to get economies back up and running.  It could well be a false economy!  Imagine now that we don’t know the full impact of illness to this virus.  We don’t know what the medium and long-term effects of it are, especially on our young people.

I believe that our human divisiveness is going to be the death knell of these times. When you have national leaders of entire countries downplaying the medical crisis because the economic crisis is overwhelming, it truly is a case that you’re damned if you do and your damned if you don’t; but at least leaders should take the medical impacts of COVID seriously.  They should wear masks and lead by example.

The great mass crisis has gone from non-availability to non-acceptability.  When it is the only thing that could protect us from the smallest particle of the infectious material, it is the only thing we can count on; that and the distance we can afford.  So now they are available, they need to be accepted and worn.  It is our personal and civic duty.