Forgive me.  I know this is a sports blog – in name, anyway – and as such I should be delighting you with an analysis of ESPN’s The Last Dance documentary and arguing about whether Jordan or LeBron is the true GOAT, or maybe spending five or six paragraphs breaking down the NFL draft and predicting great success or misery for NFL teams based solely on the addition of one twenty-two year old first round draft pick.  But I can’t help myself.  I just can’t help but wade back into those murky, dangerous Coronavirus waters.

What the hell is up with everyone freaking out over masks??

Of all of the fascinating societal aspects of this pandemic, this one is by far the most fascinating.  In the span of about three weeks, masks have morphed from a fairly straightforward protective device into a symbol.  As far as I can tell from social media, whether or not a person wears a mask can tell you whether someone is a Republican or a Democrat, a conservative or a liberal, embraces the nanny state or is a champion for freedom, cares about saving lives or embraces escalating deaths, or can even tell you whether someone prefers boxers or briefs.  (Ok, that last one might be my own theory, but I think it’s got some promise.)  

How did masks – a protective device – suddenly become a flashpoint in this pandemic?  We’re in the middle of a global pandemic, and we’re yelling at each other on Twitter about …… masks.  We were able to muster up the energy to fight a common enemy for about a month, and then like a twelve year old boy with ADD we decided that was getting boring so we went back to what we know how to do best – fight each other.  Let’s face it – it’s way more fun.  I mean, Coronavirus doesn’t have a Twitter account (as far as I know), so it can’t respond with a clever meme when you accuse it of wanting to kill people by reopening the economy or accuse it of being a socialist because it wants to extend the stay-at-home order.  All we really know how to do anymore as Americans is quickly, efficiently and usually incorrectly classify people into groups based on perceived beliefs and then relentlessly attack them to help confirm that our own beliefs are the right beliefs, so why wouldn’t we go back to doing what we do best?  Tribalism may not be very productive, but it sure feels good, doesn’t it?  If watching our collective response to this pandemic quickly devolve from unity into partisan attacks on each other doesn’t make you want to run out and stock up on survivalist gear for the coming apocalypse, I commend your optimism.  I’ll be busy filling my basement with canned beans and ammo.

So how did we land on masks as the hot-button issue?  How did we get to a place where some view wearing a mask as a symbol of unity against a common enemy and not wearing a mask as a blatant disregard for human life, and others view wearing a mask as succumbing to totalitarian oppression and not wearing a mask as a noble display of freedom?  

If you’re a mask-wearer (or ‘pro-mask’, since it’s important in today’s world to use strong, absolute adjectives that make it clear that there are only two positions – or teams – to choose from, and one is clearly right and one is clearly wrong), you may be wondering why someone would choose not to wear a mask.  How could someone be ‘anti-mask’?  

I’m glad you asked.  First, it’s possible that the government’s guidance during the pandemic to date hasn’t done a lot to instill confidence in the general public that its recommendations are, well, worth a shit.  For example, we couldn’t get testing ramped up, we quarantined the healthy instead of the sick, and sent sick people back into nursing homes.  Specifically with respect to masks, we were initially told by the CDC they weren’t recommended (which was pretty obviously motivated by fear of a shortage for health care workers) and then a month later told that now they are recommended.  Hey, it’s a pandemic. It happens every hundred years.  Nobody knows what the hell the right guidance is.  But I think it’s reasonable to believe that some portion of the population is rightly going to view government recommendations with some skepticism given not just its performance on COVID-19, but also its general ability to solve much of anything, ever.

So a tendency to doubt the government’s sage advice is the first ingredient of the anti-mask recipe, like the tasty crust of a homemade apple pie.  The next ingredient is ironically the one that is the cornerstone of American Exceptionalism, and what has led us to become the world’s greatest superpower.  For lack of a better term, it’s the American Spirit – the spirit of freedom and entrepreneurship that makes us uniquely American.  It’s the filling in our pie.  And at the core of that American Spirit is the American Attitude – the one that lives in each of us that says, “No one’s going to tell me what to do – I’ll do what I want, when I want, and how I want, and you can’t stop me, because I’m free!”  This attitude is so uniquely ingrained in us as Americans – the freedom to do as we choose and to use ingenuity to solve problems – that when we get just a whiff of what we might consider to be an infringement on our freedom or liberty, we lose our freaking minds.  It’s a knee-jerk reaction, and one that has rightly kept us firmly entrenched as the most free country in the world.  And in the case of masks, when you combine it with a strong degree of skepticism of government’s efficacy and motives, it results in a lot of people choosing not to wear one simply because the government is telling them that they should, which is taken as an assault on our freedom and liberty, and goes over about as well as telling people they can’t get a Big Gulp anymore.

The final ingredient – the whipped cream on top of that homemade anti-mask apple pie in this horrendous pie analogy – is a fundamental misunderstanding over the purposes of wearing a mask.  People seem to be confused about the benefits of wearing a mask.  I see it in social media discussions all the time.  Someone posts a comment suggesting that people wear masks when out in public around others, and after the initial replies arguing that the government doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing and more replies arguing that Big Brother can’t suppress our liberty and take away our freedom by forcing us to wear masks, there will inevitably be a comment along the lines of, “If you’re worried about it, just protect yourself and don’t worry about everyone else.”  This is always the comment that gets me (yeah, I’ve been spending way too much time on social media going down the rabbit hole.  I need another hobby.).  It’s the one that sets me off because it demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding regarding the purposes of a mask.  

One purpose of a mask, which is also the most obvious one, is to protect you from contracting the virus from others by keeping it from entering your mouth or nose.  It’s not hard to wrap your head around this one.  If this were the only purpose of a mask, no one would get too fired up about someone else not wearing a mask, since I think we can all agree that it’s totally up to each of us to decide what level of precaution we want to take for ourselves against the virus.  You want to wear a hazmat suit?  Go nuts.  You want to run naked through the streets?  Have fun.  For most of the people who are choosing not to wear masks in dense public places, I think it’s a direct result of believing that the only purpose of a mask is to protect yourself.  “The government doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing, no one is going to suppress my freedom or liberty, and I get to decide what level of protection I want to take against the virus.”

If the purpose of the mask was exclusively to protect yourself against the virus, I don’t think mask wearing would be nearly the flashpoint that it is.  I know I wouldn’t begrudge a single person who chooses not to wear a mask.  I agree that it’s a good policy to be skeptical of the  government.  And I agree that no one should be able to take away my liberty or my freedom to do as I choose.  And I also agree that it’s up to me how I choose to protect myself and what risks I’m willing to assume.  So if this were the end of the story, I would tip my cap to all those non-mask wearers (sorry, I meant anti-maskers) and commend them on their decision to exercise their freedom and do as they see fit.  

But there’s a wrinkle (as there always tends to be), because there isn’t just one purpose for masks.  There’s another purpose, and in many respects it’s more important than the one that everyone seems to understand.  The other purpose of a mask is to protect OTHERS from getting infected by YOU.  This one seems to be a more elusive concept, maybe because of two other elusive concepts.  The first is incubation period, and the second is the concept of the asymptomatic carrier, but both get us to the same place, which is that you can pass the virus to others before you know you have it (during the incubation period) or even while you have it (if you are asymptomatic).  So you can be walking around, hanging out, feeling great, and meanwhile be infecting people with a virus you don’t know you have.  Because of this dynamic, if you’re wearing a mask, you are actually protecting OTHER PEOPLE from potentially getting the virus from YOU.  This is also why comments like, “just protect yourself and don’t worry about what other people are doing” are so problematic, since one of the best ways to protect yourself is actually by other people wearing masks.

Now this is the point where I could cite a bunch of scientific journals and articles explaining how wearing a mask decreases the probability of viral transmission to others.  But if you’re hell bent on not wearing a mask because of government skepticism and freedom/liberty (the crust and the filling of our apple pie, if you’ll remember), you’re going to counter my journals and articles with your journals and articles and claims of increased face touching and people passing out and crashing their cars while wearing masks and people getting sick from their own bacteria and so on and so forth, so I’ll just leave it at this:  you don’t have to be Bill Nye The Science Guy to understand that if you’re wearing something that covers your nose and mouth, the stuff that comes out of your nose and mouth when you’re talking and breathing and sneezing and coughing isn’t going to go as far into the air as if you’re not wearing something that covers your nose and mouth.  You don’t need a scientific journal or a celebrity TV science guy to understand that.  It’s pretty simple, really.  If you’re wearing a mask, you’re decreasing the likelihood of spreading the virus to others.  If you’re not wearing a mask, you’re not only increasing the likelihood that you’re going to get it, which is totally your call, but you’re also increasing the likelihood that you’re going to give it someone else.

So it’s this second purpose for a mask – to protect others – that coincidentally also happens to throw a real wrench in the very legitimate arguments I just covered for not wearing a mask.  Because as it turns out, the decision to wear or not wear a mask isn’t just about you.  It’s about protecting others from the possibility of getting the virus from you.

And this is where, as a non-mask wearer (anti-masker!), if you know that wearing a mask around others will reduce the risk of transmission to them, you have to ask yourself a question.  Is this the hill I want to die on?  (figuratively, of course.)  Do I really want to put others in physical jeopardy just to demonstrate my irritation with the government and my love of freedom and liberty?  Look, I’m no big government guy.  I’m angry too.  I think the blanket lockdowns are ridiculous given what we now know about the virus.  We should be quarantining the elderly and vulnerable and opening up the economy.  But it seems awfully counterproductive to actively put fellow Americans in danger – essentially serve them up as collateral damage – to demonstrate your anger with the government and love of freedom and liberty by not wearing a mask.  

I understand the anger, because I feel it too, but unfortunately it’s being misdirected.  If you want to get angry, you’ve got plenty to choose from – the lockdown, the politicians, big Pharma – the list goes on.  But masks?  Boycotting Costco? Because they are requiring you to wear a device that will decrease the risk of spreading a virus to the other people you inhabit the earth with during a global pandemic?  Is this really where you want to put your energy?  I’m watching videos of people walking around Costco filming themselves without masks as a show of defiance and love of freedom.  Is that really the look you’re going for?  You’d be better served by putting a sign on your forehead that says, “I don’t give a shit about anyone but myself.”  

It’s a bad look, folks.  I don’t see anybody protesting or boycotting seatbelts, and they’re just about as restrictive and annoying as a mask.  And unlike masks, seatbelts only serve one purpose – to protect you.  Nobody else is getting hurt because you decided not to wear your seatbelt, unless of course you go flying through your windshield and take out another motorist with your lifeless body that has been transformed into a deadly projectile.  But somehow we’re OK with seatbelts but not with masks?  If you wear a mask you’re a weak, sad communist who’s bowing down to a totalitarian regime but if you wear your seatbelt you’re a law abiding citizen?  You’re just not helping those of us who love freedom as much as you do.  We’re pissed off about the lockdown too, but we’re also pro-mask, because we realize the best way to end this nonsense and get the economy rolling is to do it safely, and doing it safely means not having a bunch of incubating or asymptomatic carriers running around infecting others.

Choosing not to wear a mask as a symbol of your freedom of choice when the price is others’ safety, while completely within your rights, may not be the way to go.  While you may think not wearing a mask tells people that you’re a brave, freedom loving American, what it tells me is that either a) you don’t understand how masks work, or b) worse yet, you do, but you just can’t bring yourself to endure a minor inconvenience for the safety of others.