COVID Shaming is Shameful
There is a popular but untruthful narrative running through the media which goes something like this: “COVID-19 numbers are getting worse because people aren’t wearing masks.”
While this may have some truth in certain states, especially those where there are no mask mandates (or mask mandates have been sheepishly introduced and enforced), it’s not true across the United States. States that had mask mandates in place for months are still seeing an uptick in COVID-19 infections. Yes, it is a smaller uptick but a “surge” nonetheless.
Spineless governors, pundits, and Twitter fanatics have largely blamed people for this nation-wide increase in COVID infections. But this act of cowardice is designed to obfuscate government failure at an economic, institutional, and informational level.
The prevailing and most common-sense theory about COVID-19 is that transmission within a household act as daily “super spreader” events that see whole families fall ill.
Why are these vector events occurring so frequently now? Because PEOPLE NEED TO WORK IN ORDER TO FEED THEMSELVES AND THEIR FAMILIES.
I loathe using capital letters, but the lockdown lunatics that are at the head of many health, political, and media institutions seem to forget this. They seem to forget that America is essentially a country comprised of many small countries that, by design, have a great deal of autonomy in how they govern within their borders. And they seem to forget that the first effort to “flatten the curve” was due large in part because of stimulus checks and enhanced unemployment benefits.
Those benefits and stimulus checks are, for many, long-gone. This means people needed to go back to work. While most workplaces require a mask — which is an overall good policy to adopt — employers are in no way ensuring that the masks being worn checked for fit, durability, and freshness throughout employee shifts.
What the “experts” won’t tell you is that masks offer a finite level of protection. This is due to a combination of mask quality and human error.
The only mask that offers any chance of good, long-term protection and can be reused and cleaned are NIOSH approved N95s. And, to a far lesser degree, some of the KN95s that are starting to make their way to consumer markets. And, of course, these masks only work well when they fit adequately. Variables like facial size, facial hair, and facial structure all impact mask quality.
Surgical masks (level one through three) provide some protection but are usually poor fitting and get nasty much faster. Surgical masks were primarily designed to keep large fluids in and, as in the case of surgeries, large fluids out.
Facial coverings like bandanas, neck gators, and other cloth coverings provide even less protection.
And all masks — no matter who tells you what — were not designed to wear all day, all-the-time with respect to protection. Faces sweat. People’s mouths move. Seals break.
On the human error end, most of us are trying to get the best masks we can afford. But the best mask has to fit reasonably well and stay in place. But if you walk into a grocery store, you’ll see people yanking, tugging, and pulling at their mask as it shoots up into their eyes or begins to droop down the bridge of the nose. And every time this happens, the individual is at risk for exposure both physically (touching a contaminated surface) and respiration wise (breathing in and/or out without the mask providing filtration).
Of course, in a grocery store this is a quick fix. And even if the store setting has a crazy COVID saturation level, a fix of the mask here and there likely isn’t enough to expose an individual to enough COVID both with respect to load and load over time.
But when you need to work a full-time job because our awesome congress can’t agree on a stimulus package for Americans, the game changes. You aren’t fixing your mask a few times, you’re fixing it hundreds of times per day. If you work in a warehouse, you’re shoulder-to-shoulder with people in a poorly ventilated area. The same goes with restaurants (indoor eating), hair salons, fitness centers, mechanic shops, packing rooms, and other jobs that require a multitude of coordinated people to perform work.
If you’re a school teacher, even wearing an N95 correctly all day doesn’t take into account time exposure and exposure over time — two critical variables that are sorely missing from our mask conversation.
And while we’re at it: the idea that schools could’ve ever re-opened safely with the sore lack of funding for the pandemic in general, let alone education, was laughable. Yes, children may possess very little risk at dying or getting ill from COVID-19, but they can STILL SPREAD THE DISEASE throughout the household. May I remind you, again: households are a leading cause of vector transmission.
Every economy that has opened up has experienced a surge in COVID-19 case numbers. It’s really that simple. This is true even in areas where people are mask compliant regardless of country. This is only amplified in a place like America where there are NO OTHER OPTIONS except to work.
Next time, before you put your fingers on your keyboard and complain at how selfish everyone is, maybe you can take a moment to a reflect on why this is happening in every state and what it coincides with. When you blame people directly — even though some are, of course, are blame-worthy — you’re doing the bidding of a government apparatus that is too lazy, too bought, and too corrupt to put its people first.
People need to work because they need money. And when you need to eat or buy formula for your children, all work is essential, even if it kills you or others. We can keep up with the misguided mask narrative as long as we want, but that makes us just as lazy, corrupt, and out of touch with reality as the politicians who want a monument dedicated to them because they gave families a one-time $1,200 check.
The uptick of COVID-19 cases coincides with schools reopening, people NEEDING to go back to work, and people needing to live with a roof over their heads even if a family member works a job that puts them at higher risk for COVID exposure.
The only thing that can change this is rejecting the status quo and demanding more from your elected leaders. But, hey, Trump is playing golf today and Joe Biden needs money, so let’s all point and laugh at the working poor risking their lives so we have enough food to eat over a Zoomed Thanksgiving.
Happy holidays, everyone.
