#mask slackers

An obit for the late Mr. David W. Nagy of Jefferson, Texas who died last month of COVID-19. R.I.P.

His survivors blame his death on Donald Trump, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, and “the many ignorant, self centered and selfish people” who refused to wear face masks or to observe other aspects of pandemic hygiene. 

A number like 155,500 can sound disembodied and impersonal when talking about US deaths from COVID-19. Mr. Nagy’s obit helps to personalize our pandemic losses.

The US is the only major developed country where wearing face masks during a pandemic has created political controversy.

It’s controversial because right wingers have decided to make it such. It has nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with the anti-science Republican Party trying to excite its poorly educated, racist, and religious fundamentalist base.

Even anti-science dullards would find it difficult to dismiss strong anecdotal evidence in favor of masks.

For example, two hairstylists in Missouri interacted with more than 100 customers while infected with Covid-19 but did not pass the virus on to anyone — perhaps because everyone wore masks. And protests against police violence in American cities do not appear to have caused an uptick in cases, even though they were attended by thousands of people, perhaps in part because most protesters wore masks.

The conclusions of my own survey:

People in crowded big cities in particular who don’t wear face masks are morons. Their lofty sense of entitlement makes them feel that they are somehow exempt from the laws of nature. The only good thing about such behavior is that the folks who practice it probably won’t be around as long as they think they will.

During the 1918-1919 Spanish flu pandemic, people who didn’t wear face masks were referred to as mask slackers. In San Francisco and other cities you could be fined or sent to prison for not wearing a mask in public.