{"id":3943,"date":"2020-05-03T21:13:37","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T02:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/?p=3943"},"modified":"2020-05-03T21:13:40","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T02:13:40","slug":"the-mask-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/03\/the-mask-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"The mask thing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A friend of ours called our attention to this unsettling story<\/a>, which reports that Stillwater, Oklahoma, a college town, withdrew its re-opening rule requiring that customers entering stores and such wear face coverings because “Store employees have been threatened with physical violence and showered with verbal abuse.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s get it straight up front: If you threaten or abuse or are just rude to some store employee who is doing their job and enforcing a governmental requirement, even if you think that requirement is dumb, you are a bag of douche. At best. And, yes, you are un-American, because you are not supporting the war effort, so to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During World War II, we had air raid drills in Iowa<\/em>, and air raid wardens to enforce them, “because national solidarity,” as we might say today. Man In The High Castle<\/em> notwithstanding, there was simply no other purpose for them. So if your grandparents were willing to hole up in the dark purely as a gesture of support to the national challenge, you can wear a goddamn bandanna when you walk in to a store or other indoor space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do, however, try to be cool when you do. Your Editor favors this look:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
May you do so well.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And if supporting the national effort isn’t your cuppa, then FFS be nice and respectful to the kid in the shop or the restaurant who is just trying to follow policy. That Stillwater’s mayor felt he had to repeal the rule because people were being mean to the employees actually saddens me, and not only because it is the sort of thing that would be more likely in Norman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That out of the way, the “mask thing” has become weirdly tribal and partisan for a combination of truly silly reasons. The “experts,” including the CDC, told us not to wear a mask<\/a>, only to reverse <\/a>themselves six weeks later. This was no doubt confusing especially for Team “listen-to-the-science,” but President Trump put them all in the mask camp<\/a> by declaring that he wasn’t planning on wearing one, even as he allowed he might change his mind. Instantly, the committed progressives here in Old West Austin and all over political Twitter started wearing masks even when alone in their own cars, and certain supporters of the president immediately declared their refusal ever to wear one. Among our most politically engaged, the mask became another political marker, a tribal totem. That is an actual damned shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our guess is that the CDC and others initially told us not to wear masks because (i) there probably aren’t actually a lot of mask scientists roaming the halls down in Atlanta who really know what they are talking about so it took them a while to develop their position, and (ii) they told us a white lie because they were legitimately worried that panicked citizenry would suck all the masks out of the supply chain leaving our healthcare system exposed. (Like or not, deceiving the Great Unwashed has been a go-to for public health types for a long time, but that’s not the main point of this post.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nut of the issue is that there are really two different things with very different purposes that both pass as “masks” in the common man’s argot, even while they have profoundly different purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The now famous N95 masks, often referred to by Covid-19 sophisticates as “respirators,” protect the wearer<\/em> from infection when worn properly in combination with other personal protective equipment. The cheapo surgical masks, homespun stylin’ masks, and our bandannas required<\/s> recommended for, say, customers in stores in Stillwater, protect other people from<\/em> the wearer if the wearer is infectious and coughs, sneezes, talks, or even breathes too emphatically in close proximity to his victim<\/s> interlocutor. This piece<\/a> in The Atlantic<\/em> walks you through the differences if you choose not to believe us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, you may believe you are not infectious, and you may well be correct in that opinion. You may have been very careful over the last six weeks, completely symptom free, and quite certain that you have not exposed yourself. You may therefore assert that there is no need for you<\/em> to wear a mask in public when in close proximity to others (such as in a store).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You would be wrong, and there are two reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The obvious reason is that you might be infectious and not know it. One of the insidious things about Covid-19 is that you can spread that shit without feeling in the least bit unhealthy. But, as you say, you’ve been very careful. If you live in Oklahoma or Texas or many other states with exceedingly low confirmed case or mortality rates, you can be confident to a 98% chance or better that you are not carrying the disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here’s the thing. How does the other person, the kid working in the store, know that? The fact is, he doesn’t. He has no idea<\/em> whether you are religious in your social distancing or a conspiracy theorist who believes the whole thing is a fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You wear the mask to reassure people who do not<\/em> know you, to reduce the anxiety in their<\/em> lives, as they do their jobs helping you<\/em>. The “cloth covering” is, in addition to a symbol of solidarity and, unfortunately, partisan identity, a gesture of respect<\/em> to hard working people trying to do their jobs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That should be reason enough to put on your bandanna when you walk in to a store, or “speak” to a police officer<\/a>. You really need no other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend of ours called our attention to this unsettling story, which reports that Stillwater, Oklahoma, a college town, withdrew its re-opening rule requiring that customers entering stores and such wear face coverings because “Store employees have been threatened with physical violence and showered with verbal abuse.” Let’s get it straight up front: If you threaten or abuse or are just rude to some store employee who is doing their job and enforcing a governmental requirement, even if you think that requirement is dumb, you are a bag of douche. At best. And, yes, you are un-American, because you are not supporting the war effort, so to speak. During World War II, we had air raid drills in Iowa, and air raid wardens to enforce them, “because national solidarity,” as we might say today. Man In The High Castle notwithstanding, there was simply no other purpose for them. So if your grandparents were willing to hole up in the dark purely as a gesture of support to the national challenge, you can wear a goddamn bandanna when you walk in to a store or other indoor space. Do, however, try to be cool when you do. Your Editor favors this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coronavirus","category-freedom-aint-free"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7t3qc-11B","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3943"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3953,"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3943\/revisions\/3953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueberrytown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}