To mask or not to mask?

To mask or not to mask?

This one is quite the flash point.  I wear a mask when I go out.  I wear one when I answer the front door.  I wear one everywhere except our home and driving in the car.  If I go through the drive through, I put the mask on.  I believe the science that wearing one can help slow the spread of the virus and save lives.  In this context have a problem understanding the motivations behind not wearing one.  Yes, some people may not be able to wear them and masks are not an absolute deterrent to virus spread.  I am also in a higher risk category due to some heart issues.  I am currently undergoing tests to determine the nature and severity of this issue.  This has made me hypersensitive to this issue.  I must admit that in public I am very leery of people that do not wear a mask.  However, I do not believe that not wearing a mask means that you do not care about me.  I am even willing to accept that people not wearing a mask are doing it for the greater good (namely protecting our freedoms).

So why the avid protests regarding masks.  An entire county commission meeting in Utah was postponed because the room was stormed by unmasked attendees.  These attendees did not maintain any kind of social distancing.  One argument is that it is an attack on our civil liberties.  The counter to that is that we currently accept without questions several regulations that have been in place for years, decades and even centuries.  We are required to clothed in public; this rarely is questioned.  There is a segment of the population that does not accept this, and they live in private areas and get dressed appropriately when venturing off those areas.  Seatbelts are mandatory in most areas of the country. 

One could argue that these 2 regulations are based on different societal norms.  Wearing clothes is good manners.  We believe that It is a something a civilized society does.  I have never given much thought about this until now.  I am not a lawyer or a scholar on legislation.  I assume that the main goal of a regulation or law would be created to protect me or society.  I guess that it protects me and others from having to view something that we would rather not view.  If I do not want to be protected from this law, I am free to live privately with others who share this belief.

Seatbelt usage is meant to protect the individual in the vehicle.  Most of us would agree that the goal of this is to mitigate the injuries one receives in an accident.  It does nothing to directly protect me as a pedestrian that happened to see a car go by with an unbelted driver.  An indirect affect is that an unbelted driver may sustain more serious injuries in an accident.  This would require more health care resources to treat thus denying me and others access to those resources.  A very secondary affect.  Any driver can remove his or her seatbelt and not directly affect me.  The unbelted driver does risk getting a fine from the police.  However according to the National Highway Safety Transportation board seatbelt usage runs around 90 percent.  That is a high adoption rate.  Is this high adoption rate entirely due to people avoiding fines?

Wearing a mask adopts elements of both laws.  First it is meant to protect society and the individuals within it.  In that respect it is like regulations requiring clothing.  The idea of wearing a mask is to arrest the spread of the virus from the mask wearer to others.  Wearing a mask may provide some protection to the person wearing it.  The goal however is to slow the spread from the wearer to others.  As the seatbelt law it is extremely easy to slip the mask off.  The only thing that compels one to where the mask is belief in the law and the risk of receiving a fine.

Another idea put forward is that wearing a mask is not “manly”.  First off if this is the case, I think the definition of “Manly” needs to be reviewed.  Also, I am looking at the picture of the Utah community meeting that was stormed by people opposed to masks.  With just a quick look I can see that many attendees are female.  There is also the notion that the mask acts a muzzle and represents the limiting of free speech.  There are many more reasons put forth by people that are too bizarre to even consider,

I believe in the law and the benefit to society and I have made the decision to wear a mask.