Thanks for Masking

[JRT]

​

I’m Fine, Thanks for Masking by John Pavlovitz


The first time I came across an article about anti-maskers, I thought it had to be satire."There’s no way that’s real." I responded almost involuntarily, all but certain that it was fake news. "No reasonable person would be that way, right?"


The very idea that an educated, responsible adult human being could be living through the greatest public health crisis in our lifetime, witnessing the swift and terrifying loss of life—and come up with a ideological stance that made protecting themselves and others, through perhaps one of the simplest and least invasive methods some sort of personal oppression—seemed patently ludicrous.


Now 12 months and 500,000 lives into this tragedy, watching people having massive house parties and cramming themselves into restaurant booths and vowing not to get a vaccine and essentially pretending everything is normal, it’s easy to find reasons to be disheartened at the callousness and ignorance we seem to afflicted with; to lament how little so many people care about their neighbors and how selfishly they see the world.


I’ve watched them armed on capitol steps insisting that making small concessions in a pandemic is some leftist conspiracy that infringes on their rights .I’ve seen them screaming at exhausted, underpaid store clerks trying to do a job they never imagined would have placed them on the front lines of a life and death culture war. I’ve witnessed them peddle harmful, baseless conspiracy videos on social media, that any child with Internet access and a shred of critical thinking could have refuted in thirty seconds. I’ve watched them parade around without masks in the name of God and country, seen them stop traffic and berate nurses and spit at strangers in coffeeshops when asked to provide a very base level of humanity—and it has been an absolute tragedy in the middle of an already tragic season. This week I witnessed a group of parents with children in tow, burning masks and celebrating as if they had defeated some oppressive, malevolent adversary, and I once more realized how broken our nation is and how starved for humanity we are becoming.


But today, I’m choosing not to dwell on those people. Today I’m fixing my gaze on those who rose to the moment, those who became a better version of themselves, those whose humanity would not be denied. Today I want to sit with my gratitude for you. Thank you.


Thank you for wearing a mask.
Thank you for keeping your distance at the grocery store.
Thank you for staying home, as difficult as it has been.
Thank you for cancelling your long-awaited birthday party.
Thank you for only buying the toilet paper you needed.
Thank you for showing kindness to doctors and nurses.
Thank you for sharing factual news about the virus.
Thank you for not saying "Only older people are affected."
Thank you for not ridiculing experts and worshipping ex-presidents.
Thank you for teaching your children about the greater good.
Thank you for remembering that this life isn’t just about you.
Thank you for being a human.


Thank you for making so many small and great sacrifices on behalf of people you may never know or meet but whose lives you may have saved. They will still be able to see their grandchildren and attend their daughter’s wedding and create their masterpiece and launch a business and be there for the people who love them—or simply breathe easily in this day which they have gotten to see, all because you chose to remember that we are all here together, that we depend on one another and are responsible to one another.


Your goodness saved them.
It saved my mom.
It saved my favorite college professor.
It saved my neighbor.
And in a real way, it saved me, too.


In a year that showed me the cavernous depths of the cruelty and ugliness and stupidity human beings are capable of, you reminded me that decent, compassionate human beings still inhabit this place, which at times has been difficult to remember—and on many days that assurance has been the thing that saved me from sinking beneath the surface of the sorrow or crumbling beneath the the weight of the grief.


As I watch so many cram themselves into restaurants and shun vaccines and burn masks, and now over a year into this madness still choose not to show an elemental level of regard for the human beings they live alongside—I hold the deepest gratitude for you: the maskers, caregivers, science-lovers, damn-givers, helpers, healers, and empathetic souls who have quite literally kept people alive when so many others could simply not be bothered.


If we run into one another out there, you won’t see it beneath my mask but I will be smiling because I know there are still good humans here.


Thank you.

 

[tango]

If only it were all that simple. Life must be easy when seen in black and white.

 

[JRT]

If only it were all that simple. Life must be easy when seen in black and white.

It actually is that simple --- do what is right to protect yourself and everyone around you. Would that all our problems were that simple.

 

[Stravinsk]

What can I say? Read it and weep. If you don't believe it, look it up for yourself, it's public information:

If this creates cognitive dissonance, it's only does so in people we call "lemmings". Those who think they have a "free" press, and do not realize that large financial interests control the corporate media that shapes their thinking.

 

[tango]

It actually is that simple --- do what is right to protect yourself and everyone around you. Would that all our problems were that simple.

Of course "do what is right" is simple. It's just that it's nowhere near as simple as "wear a mask" despite what the talking heads on TV like to say.

But, you know, acting like anyone who disagrees must be worshipping a former president turns a complex matter into something that looks like little more than another round of orangemanbad.

 

[Lamb]

It actually is that simple --- do what is right to protect yourself and everyone around you. Would that all our problems were that simple.

Will you continue for the remainder of your life to wear your mask? I mean, there is always going to be a virus around. That virus is GOING to kill SOMEONE. It could be someone's grandmother. Or someone's infant. The flu killed more children yearly than covid, are you prepared to save the children and continue to wear your mask?

 

[Bluezone777]

“And if you stop breathing altogether, you’ll become immune, experts found.”

^ that's a comment that's pinned to the top of the comments in that video.

I can imagine the type of people who write the kind of articles as found in the op are the same type of people who give a person who parks in a disabled space hell even though they have the proper credentials that allow them to do so all because they don't look disabled to them.

 

[tango]

Will you continue for the remainder of your life to wear your mask? I mean, there is always going to be a virus around. That virus is GOING to kill SOMEONE. It could be someone's grandmother. Or someone's infant. The flu killed more children yearly than covid, are you prepared to save the children and continue to wear your mask?

If one mask is good then two masks are better. It's common sense. Obviously. It makes just as much sense that three masks are even better, four masks are better still, and so on.

I really get annoyed by those inconsiderate people who only wear 837 masks. If only they cared enough to wear a few more masks we could feel safer. Of course the best way to completely stop respiratory droplets and aerosol particles from reaching others would be to wear a plastic bag over our heads, tied tightly around the neck.

 

[tango]

Curiously, it appears that wearing surgical masks in an operating theater makes no significant difference to the rate of post-operative infections.

Postoperative wound infections and surgical face masks: A controlled study - World Journal of Surgery

It has never been shown that wearing surgical face masks decreases postoperative wound infections. On the contrary, a 50% decrease has been reported after omitting face masks. The present study was designed to reveal any 30% or greater difference in general surgery wound infection rates by using...

link.springer.com

Unmasking the surgeons: the evidence base behind the use of facemasks in surgery - PMC

The use of surgical facemasks is ubiquitous in surgical practice. Facemasks have long been thought to confer protection to the patient from wound infection and contamination from the operating surgeon and other members of the surgical staff. More ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Stravinsk]

I'm just going to tack this on to this thread hoping someone may read it and remember.

At the beginning of the "pandemic" people were speculating that 5G (5th Generation Wireless) could be the causative factor in people getting ill. Mind you - 5G was largely rolled out in 2020, while most everyone was under lock down - so it would not be suspect if there were any increase in deaths (in my area - my whole state actually had less overall deaths than previous years - proving the "deaths reporting" to be a complete scare mongering farce.)

That said, 5G operates at the 60Ghz frequency. This frequency interferes with the oxygen molecule, causing the electrons on it to spin. At a given (?) amplitude (power), it can give a person exactly one of the "hallmark" symptoms of "covid-19" - shortness of breath, as spinning electrons on this molecule make oxygen uptake more difficult.

Think of your microwave - it operates on a frequency that shakes water to heat it. 60Ghz messes with oxygen.

The next pandemic might very well be real. The infrastructure, rolled out in 2020, is now in place for exactly this kind of scenario to happen.

 

[Lamb]

I still don't see why, after a year, they haven't focused on making masks that PROTECT someone from an infection. Any infection! That way we wouldn't have to rely on someone else, we just protect our own self and know we're good to go out and do things. No more politics getting into play too with an effective mask?

 

[tango]

I still don't see why, after a year, they haven't focused on making masks that PROTECT someone from an infection. Any infection! That way we wouldn't have to rely on someone else, we just protect our own self and know we're good to go out and do things. No more politics getting into play too with an effective mask?

That's part of the reason I struggle to believe the official narrative.

If we had a mask that would protect us we could decide for ourselves whether to wear it or not. We could see who was concerned and maybe give them a little more space. The idea that we have to assume we are all infected (an utterly stupid way of phrasing it - far better to say we should assume we all may be infected) and therefore everybody has to put a sock on their head to protect others shifts the narrative to make it easy to paint anyone who doesn't comply as not caring about their fellow man. From there things devolved to the kind of howling that suggests going into Wally World without a sock on your head is morally equivalent to spraying gunfire.

In an ideal world we could figure that adults can cope with nuance, with shades of gray. Sadly in the real world it seems everything is turned into black and white and many people struggle to cope with actually thinking for themselves. I remember thinking about the guideline of maintaining six feet of distance when it first came out and figuring that wind direction would make a difference. But then came the notion that 73 inches was good and if you stood within 71 inches of someone you might as well shoot them. And then came the people who thought they had an absolute claim to the space within a six-foot radius of wherever they were standing, so if they wanted to stand at a shelf in the grocery store and take their sweet time nobody else was allowed to get anything within six feet of where they were standing.

You can get respirators that offer a high degree of protection. I use a P100 respirator when I'm grinding concrete. It works really well, and has a valve in it so I don't end up struggling to breathe. On a hot day I'm doing well to get 15 minutes of use out of an unvalved N95 mask before I can't breathe in it. I've been known to work for 2-3 hours with my respirator and still been able to breathe just fine, although every once in a while I give the filters a quick squirt of compressed air to blow the concrete dust off.

 

[Member4592]

I still don't see why, after a year, they haven't focused on making masks that PROTECT someone from an infection. Any infection! That way we wouldn't have to rely on someone else, we just protect our own self and know we're good to go out and do things. No more politics getting into play too with an effective mask?

The mask is a band aid and hasn't really stopped this thing. If someone wants to debate by telling me to mask up. I'm going to argue using the word vaccine. There's volumes of evidence on why vaccine is the best answer and a better tool than wearing a mask.

The only way out of this one is to get vaccinated. Does anyone remember what vaccinations did against Polio? Measles?

It basically wiped them off the face of the earth.

14 Diseases You Almost Forgot About (Thanks to Vaccines)

Routine vaccinations protect against these 14 diseases.

www.cdc.gov

 

[Lamb]

The mask is a band aid and hasn't really stopped this thing. If someone wants to debate by telling me to mask up. I'm going to argue using the word vaccine. There's volumes of evidence on why vaccine is the best answer and a better tool than wearing a mask.

The only way out of this one is to get vaccinated. Does anyone remember what vaccinations did against Polio? Measles?

It basically wiped them off the face of the earth.

14 Diseases You Almost Forgot About (Thanks to Vaccines)

Routine vaccinations protect against these 14 diseases.

www.cdc.gov

The vaccines for Covid aren't supposed to prevent the virus from being caught but will lessen the symptoms. At least that's the info I've read. Isn't that a little different from the Polio and Measles ones?

 

[Member4592]

The vaccines for Covid aren't supposed to prevent the virus from being caught but will lessen the symptoms. At least that's the info I've read. Isn't that a little different from the Polio and Measles ones?

Most vaccines don't keep you from getting a sickness. They just make it to where you don't show any symptoms. Some you can still get it, but the symptoms won't be severe. Basically, a vaccine keeps the virus from outright killing you. The covid vaccine isn't a cure, it's a bullet proof vest and yes, you still need to get the shot. Better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it.

 

[Lamb]

Most vaccines don't keep you from getting a sickness. They just make it to where you don't show any symptoms. Some you can still get it, but the symptoms won't be severe. Basically, a vaccine keeps the virus from outright killing you. The covid vaccine isn't a cure, it's a bullet proof vest and yes, you still need to get the shot. Better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it.

The commercials for the Shingles vaccine specifically states that it prevents shingles. I wish that they could come up with a different term for each type of "vaccine"; one that prevents and one that lessens symptoms.

 

[Member4592]

The commercials for the Shingles vaccine specifically states that it prevents shingles. I wish that they could come up with a different term for each type of "vaccine"; one that prevents and one that lessens symptoms.

My ex wife was 28 when she got shingles and was working nights at the ER. But it was because she was sick with the flu and didn't know it, which caused her to have a weakened immune system. She started getting itchy sores and really bad aches and pains on one side of her body and she didn't know what was going on. She had an ER doctor take a look at her. So he diagnosed it and sent her home for 3 weeks with anti-virals for it. She looked horrible.

 

[Lamb]

My ex wife was 28 when she got shingles and was working nights at the ER. But it was because she was sick with the flu and didn't know it, which caused her to have a weakened immune system. She started getting itchy sores and really bad aches and pains on one side of her body and she didn't know what was going on. She had an ER doctor take a look at her. So he diagnosed it and sent her home for 3 weeks with anti-virals for it. She looked horrible.

That's awful!! Usually people don't get shingles until they're much older.

I used to be a substitute teacher and one of my longest runs in one class was subbing for a teacher who got shingles and she was in so much pain! It was a great class to sub for so I didn't really mind and the kids would help me out in controlling the trouble makers since the older students loved me and wanted to keep me around

Because that teacher got shingles so bad is why I really want to get the vaccine some day. I was asking about it prior to covid hitting the country and wanted to wait because I was taking care of other medical things at the time.

 

[Member4592]

That's awful!! Usually people don't get shingles until they're much older.

I know. I was surprised and shocked. She was the last person I ever thought would get sick with it. But she did get better.

She had a flare up a few times down the road. She mostly got it on one of her hands and she'd sit there and scratch it. The doctor says it never fully goes away. You can get it multiple times.