Unmasking

As of today (Saturday) about 15+ states have significantly lowered their Wuflu restrictions or eliminated them altogether. One CNBC story I found had as part of its headline “…despite warnings” and in the opening graf noted that the Biden administration had asked those states to slow down. I giggled at that. It’s not going to happen. We have reached the one-year anniversary of “two weeks to flatten the curve.” In my purely anecdotal scanning of Facebook, I noticed that the “wear your mask!” scolds had died out. BUT…as soon as the news started coming out that states were lifting mask mandates, the wailing and gnashing of teeth began anew.

Some states lifted mandates and returned to full capacity in restaurants, gyms, etc. with little to no fanfare and thus were not commented on, at least not immediately. Or they are states, like Mississippi, which our political elites and those who follow them, believe deserve anything bad that happens to them. Cue my eyeroll. The arrogance and condescension that has been laid bare this past year is astounding.

I saw the meme below on FB and just groaned and rolled my eyes (again). The mind-twisting propaganda is strong in this one. Clearly, if you do not wear a mask in public, you are not humble, kind, nor do you care about your community. This has NOTHING to do with any science of any sort. Oh, there’s an attempt in the “Humility” point…I might be asymptomatic but a super spreader, therefore I owe it to you to be humble about my killing ability.

Bullshit. There are numerous studies that demonstrate that asymptomatic spread is most definitely NOT a thing. The numbers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship are among the most clear on that. If asymptomatic spread was a thing, everybody on that ship should have been infected, and they weren’t. Fear of asymptomatic spread has been used to control a perfectly healthy population via mask mandates. Even the head of WHO’s emerging disease unit stated that asymptomatic spread is “very rare”. So, there’s no need to have “humility” and wear a mask.

If you or a loved one are so vulnerable, perhaps you shouldn’t be out in public? Yes, you absolutely have a right to be out in public if you wish. However, you do not have a right to restrict me based on the fact that YOU ARE TAKING THAT RISK. It’s a risk that you and your loved one decided to take. Your risk is NOT my problem.

What makes you think I will agree to restricting my own freedoms to lower your risk…which you are voluntarily taking? If you decide to go bungee jumping, I’m not standing at the bottom to catch you in case the cord breaks. Why must I wear a mask so that you can take the risk of going into public with a mask that studies have shown does nothing to prevent any transmission of anything (except perhaps oxygen)? You’re at risk and want to go out in public around other people? Get yourself and N95 mask or other respirator and head on out.

The second point was “Kindness” because you don’t know if the person you’re interacting with has a loved one at home who’s vulnerable. Why must I worry about that? If I’m caring for somebody, I’m taking on the responsibility of ensuring I don’t bring home anything life-threatening. I have zero expectations that the wider world will fall in line with what I want. Why do others expect the world to bend to their will? (Don’t answer that, I know why.)

There are those who will say I’m callous and uncaring. No. I’m not. If you’re vulnerable due to age and/or a compromised immune system, or a vulnerable loved one at home, I want you to stay safe. I want you to avoid contact with the public. Stay home. Believe it or not, there are a myriad of things, in addition to Wuflu, that will pile on to your compromised immune system and take you out in a heartbeat.

As far as caring about my community…that’s why we need to fully open and repeal the mask mandates. The community is dying! Economic transactions are necessary for the community to thrive. We need to be out and about with no restrictions. If you care about your community you will support reopening and no mandates. That shows that you care about your neighbors who have a small business, or had a job at one of those businesses. Support for removing the mask mandate means you care about those who have asthma and can’t breathe well with a mask. You care about those (like me) who get claustrophobic when wearing a mask for an extended period of time.

I always go outside unmasked and I will always do so. If I have to go into a business, I will wear a mask because I don’t want to bring problems for the business. I have noticed that there are more unmasked people out and about than previously. Don’t get me wrong, the masked and fearful still outnumber the unmasked, but there are more unmasked.

Yesterday while we were out walking I felt like we were in “The Sting”…I wanted to tap my finger against my nose as we passed others who were unmasked. Instead, we all exchanged small knowing smiles that were both greeting and acknowledgement of unmasking.

You know how all the self-help gurus say that you must take care of yourself before you can take care of others? This is the same thing. Quit worrying about how others feel about you, quit trying to take care of the rest of the world by wearing a mask. Remove your own stress and then and only then, worry about the people near and dear to you. You are not obligated to worry and stress over the health and well-being of the rest of the world. If we all constrain our worry to our own little corner, then all the corners of the world will fare better.

Go out and breathe free! Take off the face diaper!

Unmask yourself! Enjoy normal life again!

Image by 坤 张 from Pixabay

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15 Replies to “Unmasking”

  1. Basic self-evaluation should have made the meme maker/poster think twice.

    Because if it was, indeed, due to humility– then why did they grant themselves the awesome power which God Himself does not take, of forcing others to do what they think is right?

    1. “why did they grant themselves the awesome power which God Himself does not take, of forcing others to do what they think is right?”

      Good question.

      Maybe because some many of them think they are god?

    2. The original meme maker was a health clinic. I saw it on the page of a friend in the health field. And, I agree, the idea of forcing others to comply with your wishes went totally over the heads of everybody concerned. And I also know that any response to me would consist of “I’m not *telling* you to do anything, I’m just saying…”

      Whatever.

      1. One of the biggest things the past year has shown me is that many of our scientists and medical professionals have completely abandoned the scientific method for temporary wealth and notoriety.

        1. I’m a registered nurse and in 100% agreement with you. The hardest reality I have had to wrap my brain around this year is the near total collapse of the STEM fields, but particularly medicine/epidemiology. I love the people I work with and have seen doctors and nurses do so much for people over the years. But something changed this year. I have seen doctors debate whether it is safe to give a patient Tylenol given a particular patient’s health history but the vaccines? They are 100% safe for 100% of the population and there is no discussion about it. Or the silence about the masking. Masks DO reduce the risk of infection limited circumstances. But the vast majority of the medical community went radio silent and allowed the media to whip the public into believing that wearing a mask was the equivalent of possessing a sliver of wood from the cross of Christ – instant protection (and virtue!) forever.

          I could go on and on about this but there is no point. The mask is off. With few exceptions these people who swear they put science first folded at the slightest pressure. Very little was asked of them. They simply had to reiterate over and over: this is what we know; this is what we suspect; we don’t know enough to enforce or recommend X; and this over here is simply not true and this is why we know that. If some medical / public health people had just come out and said, “We have conflicting information about the efficacy of masks in this situation. As a medical professional, I personally am choosing to wear a mask until we get more clarifying data but we do not have so much certainty about this issue to justify closing a business down or arresting someone who refuses to wear one.” If that would have happened, things would have been different

  2. Off topic joke.

    “Well, time to take off the mask”.

    “What mask. I’m not wearing a mask.” 👿

  3. As a sort of addendum, I met up with a friend today, for the first time since last March, and I was dismayed but not surprised to find that she was wearing a mask while we were outside. At her suggestion we went for a walk (it was a beautiful day, so that was a great idea). But she wore her mask the entire time, and at one point when we encountered a group of people who were celebrating a birthday, and my friend actually backed off when we were about to pass them in a narrower area of the path we were on. “No, I don’t want to go that way, there’s no way to get around them and they’re not masked. I didn’t mask up and stay away from people for a year to get infected now.” I responded, “Well, sunshine and fresh air will kill anything…” She still balked. I mean it was as if we were approaching a group of bears or something.

    It makes me sad to see how frightened she is. But, there’s nothing that I can say or do that will change her mind. It makes me more determined than ever to stop this craziness.

    1. This is the biggest thing out of the last year, IMO – the fear. So many people are afraid of anything and everything. Some ‘expert’ used the word “deadly” and all of a sudden it’s something to be feared in the extreme. We saw this developing with the flu over the last couple of decades. And with everything else that might represent the smallest risk to health or life or even lifestyle. Ugh.

      1. Fear is the biggest factor, I believe. I’ve written about it previously on this blog. I saw somewhere that it’s not fear of the virus that’s driving the Karens, it’s fear of the fact that you are “disobeying” the masking orders. Because if you and I are disobeying without consequences, then their decision to mask up was a poor one, and people have a tendency to lash out when their decisions are publicly shown to be poor.

  4. I have not worn a mask at all, except to fly one time in December, since mid April 2020. Like you said, the Diamond Princess (and Theodore Roosevelt) data show they are unneccessary. I will walk into a business unmasked like I own the place and if told I have to wear a mask, I loudly tell them I will not and why. If they insist, I turn around and leave, again loudly telling them I will not spend my money on their premises ever again until they stop requiring a face diaper. I left a full shopping cart full of groceries at the local Jewel in January for that very reason.

    If you can breathe easily through the mask, it is NOT filtering very well. A mask that can effectively filter 95% of a 0.3 micron virus will have a high differential pressure across it and will require extra work to breathe through it. A N95 (or P95) mask also has to be fitted properly to work effectively and guys who have a beard will have to shave closely for it also. Even having whiskers a few hours old will not result in a proper fit. I ahd one guy with a full beaver wearing a cloth mask berate me for not wearing one, until I embarrassed him by telling him if her were infected, the virus would be escaping with every breath he tsakes around the edges of the mask held open by his beard. If he REALLY cared about others, he would shave off his beard and shave every time before he went out in public. I was not very polite in telling him off.

    I REFUSE TO COMPLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  5. If you decide to go bungee jumping, I’m not standing at the bottom to catch you in case the cord breaks.
    Oh, but in today’s Zero-Risk world, you will be made to do so, at least financially and metaphorically. Or we’ll ban the practice. (Note that banning practices that indulge people’s own egos [hedonism] is not likely to happen – risky sexual practices, self-glorifying stunts like bungee-jumping, etc. But merry-go-rounds? Un-pasteurized, non-homogenized milk? Oh yeah, those must go.)

    Economic transactions are necessary for the community to thrive.
    Loads of folks don’t realize how broad “economic transactions” is in this case. And how much more they do than just swap paper (or electronic) for toilet paper and milk.

    Unmask yourself!
    Yep. Very soon I will no longer even care about the businesses or anyone else.

  6. If you wear a black hood and red gloves as you give a lockdown advocate a ride on Air Pinochet, you can help prevent the plague of pointless destruction from becoming endemic.

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