Why Do We Still Need to Wear Masks?
Written by Akkarasorn Opilan (Ang-Ang) | Edited by Akkarasorn Opilan (Ang-Ang), Pollisa Tien-iam-arnan (Polly), Pimnara Boondoungprasert (Fin) | Designed by Maria Angela Declaro (Gaea)
Each and every person has an integral role to play in this global pandemic (yes, it’s still happening). Either you are helping to safeguard public health, or you’re one of those assholes who shit on public health. If you wear a mask when going outside, congratulations, you’re helping protect our collective health.
Quick reminder: In the entire history of infectious diseases, only smallpox and rinderpest have ever been eradicated. That’s only due to an extremely effective and well done vaccination program that was accessible enough to people all across the globe. Nothing will return to normal until there’s an effective vaccine accompanied with a vaccination programme to help us achieve herd immunity.
This is NOT a matter of politics, this is a matter of public health.
There are people out there arguing that it’s a violation of their rights to be forced to wear a mask or quarantine in their houses. It’s not a violation of your rights. It’s an action that the government takes to safeguard public health. The less people wearing masks, the more people getting infected, the more likely harm will come to you as well. Your monthly haircuts are not as important as someone else’s life.
If you’re a younger, healthy person, the act of wearing a mask is a choice you make to protect people who are at risk as well as yourself.
Your parents, grandparents, immune-suppressed friends and strangers are counting on you to help keep them safe because they’re more likely to have severe symptoms if infected with COVID-19. You could be an asymptomatic carrier for all you know. If you somehow infect someone you care about, it is your fault that they get sick.
If you don’t wear a mask, you’re making the choice to put someone else’s life at risk simply because it’s “inconvenient”.
But if anything you’ve read before doesn’t matter to you, let me appeal to your best interests.
Even if you never end up becoming infected with COVID-19, this disease still affects all other aspects of your life. If you physically get hurt or sick, it’s now much more dangerous for you to go to the hospital. In fact, they might not even have the capacity to take care of you because the ever-rising number of infections spreads their resources thin. What an inconvenience! Perhaps you’ll even be turned away from shops that care about the safety of their customers because you don’t. If you have a job, you can’t go back to work and not wear a mask because that’s a risk to the safety of your coworkers. After all, a complete disregard for other people’s lives is not an attractive quality in a person.
What you should take away from this: Prepare yourself, life will not go back to normal for a long time. Make it a habit to wear a mask if you go outside. If you don’t want to, please just don’t go outside.