Opinions

Refusing to wear a mask shows you’re committed to selfishness, not liberty

It had to happen eventually, I suppose. Finally, somebody only a few degrees of separation from me, the daughter of a friend, reported possibly being exposed to the COVID-19 bug. That revelation was followed by questions, plenty of them, and more than a dab of angst.

Turns out, thank goodness, it likely was nothing. Tests showed no positive exposure to the virus — this time — but it was a wake-up call to continue doing all the easy stuff to avoid being infected, particularly donning a mask when around others — and for very good reason.

There were more than 15 million COVID-19 cases reported in the United States as of last week, with more than 286,000 deaths. That is more than eight times the number of Americans who died in the Korean War or five times the number killed in Vietnam. This nation is losing about 2,500 people each and every day to the virus. Worse, the number of cases and deaths are surging dramatically and hospital intensive care units are bursting with new patients. Alaska’s share of the misery? About 38,000 reported cases and 154 deaths so far.

Why would anyone balk at doing anything and everything possible to halt the spread of the virus? Why is there even a question about run-of-the-mill, low-tech preventative measures, such as wearing a mask?

Despite the plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face evidence, despite the numbers, despite the carnage, there is a surprisingly vocal, foil cap-wearing legion of nincompoops waging a bitter battle against efforts to control spread of the virus. For them, masks delineate the battlefield in their fight with authority. If you wear one, you are a government-loving, liberal pinko. Period.

You can find these warriors expounding and fulminating in comments sections across the internet day and night. They huff and puff COVID-19 is a sinister government plot, a byzantine, leftist conspiracy aimed at enslaving us all. All that coordinated trickery, they would have us believe, is being quietly orchestrated by state and federal governments unable on most days to find their patoots with both hands and a mirror.

Masks cause everything from brain cooties, to dementia, to lung disease, toxic poisoning, scabies, exploding eyeballs and, yes, uncontrollable itching, they adamantly warn. Yet, across the nation, many studies find they work. Each and every day, nurses, doctors, technicians and hordes of others don them without problems.

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Some of the most vocal warriors against masks come as a surprise. A case in point? Alaska Sen. Lora Reinbold, whose biography says she studied nursing in college and graduated with a degree in business administration, with an emphasis in health care. She is an ardent anti-masker and opponent of mandates to wear them. She says they abridge her rights, blah-blah-blah. The Eagle River Republican claims masks do diddly-squat; that Dunleavy is leaning toward socialism and muffing his handling of the virus. In her world, her right to sally forth without a mask trumps your right to live.

In a recent snit, she went so far as to advise travelers to Alaska from Outside to sneak past mandatory COVID-19 tests at airports. Who does things like that? Unfortunately, she did not fall down the rabbit hole all by herself. Far from it. She has plenty of company.

Do not get me wrong, it is easy to chafe at government orders and mandates, no matter the reason or reasoning. They get my back up, too, but how about a fight that makes sense? Masks? There is more than enough scientific evidence to suggest they work, so how about a little personal responsibility, if not to protect you, to protect me and others? How about doing what probably is right, something not likely to cost you anything, without waiting for some government entity to order you to do so? How much trouble is it, for crying out loud, to put on a mask when you go in to a store or anyplace else where people congregate?

Anchorage, Cordova, Dillingham, Kotzebue, Seward, Unalaska and Valdez require masks for public indoor spaces. Many small communities do not require them, and the state has no mask mandate, but urges their use. Gov. Mike Dunleavy says it is a rights issue, something that must be addressed by local government. Who cares? We should be doing it for each other anyway.

Luckily for all of us, there is hope on the horizon in the form of a vaccine to ward off this killer virus. All we have to do is hold on and be smart for a few more months. For most of us, that means wearing a mask to help keep us — and others — alive and healthy until then.

Time to decide. You can bitch or do what is right.

You choose.

Paul Jenkins is editor of the AnchorageDailyPlanet.com, a division of Porcaro Communications.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.

Paul Jenkins

Paul Jenkins is a former Associated Press reporter, managing editor of the Anchorage Times, an editor of the Voice of the Times and former editor of the Anchorage Daily Planet.

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