WHY MUST I WEAR A MASK?

 

          On Friday, the Department of Health reported that Philly has had a total of 35,582 confirmed COVID cases.  In a city of 1.5 million people, this means that about 2% of Philadelphians are known to have caught it.  For some, the only evidence was a positive test.  For others, the virus was fatal.

 

          The 2% rate is common throughout the northern US---New York is 2%, Illinois is 2.2%, South Dakota is 2%.  (Most European countries are 1% or below.)  Of course, these are just the “confirmed” cases.  Undoubtedly, there were people with very mild bouts, who perhaps woke up in the middle of the night with a fever but were fine by morning, so they never went to a doctor or got tested.  How many?  We cannot know, but let’s say the number of real cases was actually ten times the number of confirmed cases.  That would mean 20% of the Philly population caught the virus in some fashion.  It seems like a large estimate, but let’s use 20% as our figure for the maximum number of residents who were touched.

 

          I like 20% as the maximum infection rate because it has other evidence to support it.  Remember the Diamond Princess?  This was the cruise ship locked down in Yokohama back in February.  It took weeks to get everyone tested and moved ashore and repatriated.  There had been no mask-wearing or distancing prior to its quarantine, and there is little chance to escape the close quarters of a cruise ship.  All 3711 passengers and crew, in other words, were exposed to the virus on board, yet only 712, or 19.2%, caught the bug.  There were many other “accidental quarantine” situations involving cruise ships and dormitories and military barracks (including a very recent one at the University of Wisconsin), and the infection rate in these types of petri dishes is generally somewhere in the 20% range.   

 

          That leaves 80% of us who never caught the disease.  Why not?

 

          Well, it’s not like we didn’t get the chance to.  Here in Philly, back in April and May, there were often a thousand COVID patients in Philly hospitals.  Average deaths in the city were thirty per day for those two months.  It seemed there was no escape from the virus.

 

          But then the deaths and the serious cases just dropped off the table.  On June 19, the Department of Public Health, which had given daily reports on hospitalizations, announced that “Hospitals are not under strain and are returning to normal operations, so going forward we will no longer include these figures in the weekly press releases.”

 

          And that’s what happened everywhere, at least in northern climes like the upper U.S. and all of Europe.  (The pattern in warmer places is slightly different.)  The curve shows a rapid rise and a peak that lasts for two to four weeks, and then a fairly swift decline in serious outcomes.  The numbers will vary from place to place but the curve looks the same, regardless of whether or when there were lockdowns, mask edicts, school closings, etc.  New York looks like Sweden which looks like Italy which looks like Germany which looks like South Dakota.

 

          Why?

 

          When deaths and hospitalizations go from hundreds a day to one a day, it is because the virus cannot “find” vulnerable people.  It happens because there are almost no potential victims left.  Almost everyone had either caught the damn thing or they were never going to catch it because they were immune.  That’s why in June and July, the serious cases and the deaths almost disappeared.  It’s why the ventilators went into storage closets.  The virus did not leave Philadelphia.  It just couldn’t find victims even though there were still at least 80% of us untouched by it. 

 

          We’re immune.  At least four out of five of us have been immune from the beginning.  There is no other explanation.

 

          There is certainly no other explanation for why I personally remain in the pink of health.  While there may be a few people in this city who completely isolated themselves from any contact with the bug (though I don’t personally know any), I am not one of them.

 

          I have worked continuously at my extremely busy big-box store through this entire year.  Though there are signs all over the sales floor and frequent announcements, social distancing is all but impossible.  Every day, I pass within inches of dozens of customers and fellow workers.  Masks were not required until April, and most people wear them, but they are frequently pulled down to the mouth or neck.  A show is made of spraying shopping carts with sanitizer before the customer takes one, but people touch everything else in the store, constantly, and it would be impossible to clean every surface.

 

          In addition, except when I am at work, I never wear a mask in public though I am required to do so by our Governor’s executive edict.  When an employee at a bank or supermarket I am visiting comes up to me and asks me to wear one, I do, but usually nobody says anything.  Though I’ve known from the beginning that mask-wearing is ineffective in curbing respiratory virus infections, I initially followed the requirements just to be polite.  No more.  The mask has become a political fetish object for the totalitarian Left, and that makes me angry, of course.  However, the main reason for my resistance is that there is simply no reason for me to wear one.  I’ve been exposed repeatedly---every day probably---and I never got sick.  I pose no risk to anyone.  I’M IMMUNE.

 

          And I’m not the only one.  All of my co-workers are in the same position, along with all the other workers at big-box stores and supermarkets.  A few of us have gotten sick during the pandemic, or at least “tested positive,” but the vast majority have not because we are part of the 80% of the population that was never at risk to begin with.

 

          Then there are all the people like my friend, an emergency room doctor at Frankford Hospital in Philly.  Through the pandemic, he has continued to deal with everything that walks through his door---gunshot wounds, overdoses, strokes, suicide attempts, heart attacks, diabetic comas, and yes, COVID patients.  Though he wears a mask and gloves and follows all the protocols, there is simply no way he was not exposed to the virus, yet he remains healthy and uninfected.

 

          It almost seems that the Executive Orders and Edicts and Pronunciamentos become more intrusive and restrictive as the virus itself fades into the past.  The need for universal mask-wearing (if there ever was one), is certainly lower now than it has been since the beginning of the pandemic, but the politicians and bureaucrats show no sign of slowing down in their efforts to regulate us.

 

          But why?  What is the purpose of this endless tinkering with our lives and our freedom?  We have all learned something about what each of us is facing and we have become more knowledgeable about our individual needs and what we are comfortable with.  Want to wear a mask?  I would never tell you not to.  But each of us is in a unique position to decide for ourselves what level of concern or precaution is reasonable.

 

          We are not children, and we do not need the Governor of this state or any other to tell us what is best for us.  We are all capable of making those decisions for ourselves, as responsible citizens have always done.  Faith in individual responsibility and freedom, in fact, is the foundation of our society. My position is a simple one: if there is no reason for me to wear a mask, and there is not, I should not be ordered to wear one, and there can be no legitimate legal authority for such an order.

 

Copyright2020MichaelKubacki