May 22, 2020 -Friday - SIP Dispatches- Mutterings about Masks

There has been much chatter about "control" when people discuss the issue of wearing masks in public - the government wants to control us, I'm in control of what I do, this is a free country. To me this whirlwind about "who's in control" is the result of the weak leadership from the top, the sense that no one really is in control of the situation, and we all have to fight our own way through it. There is no sure hand, no good brain guiding us through, with all our best interests at heart.

Although, who ever is in control of a pandemic?

But true leadership can steer us through the morass. Look at Angela Merkel in Germany, Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, leaders who were re-assuring, who made hard, thoughtful,  science-supported decisions and and pulled their country together, rather than splitting it apart. The virus was treated in those countires as a public health issue, not a political issue, as the current resident in the White House has done.

I sure don't see that wearing a mask as bowing down to a fascist government, as I have seen folks state on social media - that's viewing mask-wearing as a political issue. Wearing a mask is a health concern issue; it gives me a way to control not spreading the virus to others. It is a way I can assume some responsibility for not letting the virus travel beyond my sad sack of bones and flab, out into the environment and onto others. And I welcome the opportunity to do something about this. It's an act of compassion, a gesture of altruism for the good of all that I can easily and willingly do. 

Rebecca Solnit saw our willingness to shelter in place as acts of altruism for the larger society,  writing about  "the great withdrawal – the empty schools, shops, streets and offices. And that withdrawal is itself altruism in action – a withdrawal carried out by billions for the benefit of their communities, as well as their own safety. In the initial phase, we withdrew from the spaces we share out of solidarity: we moved apart to come together. We intentionally produced, in the form of business and school shutdowns and staying home, an unprecedented economic calamity as an alternative to accepting mass death."Way We get Through This" The Guardian

In the same way, wearing a mask when in public, protects others more than it protects ourselves. Anyone can be an aymptomatic carrier, never succumbing ot the disease but capable of transmitting it. Most folks can transmit Covid-19 for days before they even show symptoms. An it seems, for a long time after. IT only makes sense to kind of assume that we might be carrying the disease on any given day and  do whatever we can to avoid transmitting it to somewhere else.

So as we begin to open up some of our business and services, we have to consider the likely incidence of transmission. Church services are in the business of getting folks close together. So how will they make it work? Seating at every other pew?  Several services? Masks at all times? No  more Communion?

Napa is allowing some sit-down restaurants. - They do have a lot of outdoor seating available. I still won't go there. I'm not interested enough.

Hairdressers? Haircuts? Not for me, thanks!