There seems to be some widespread perception among left-wingers and other COVID crazies that freedom-loving Americans refused to wear masks during the COVID pandemic. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, Americans were more than happy to mask up. During the worst of the pandemic (which coincided with the seasonal flu), close to 94 percent of people said they masked up in public locations. This is of course easy to prove anecdotally — when was the last time you went into a store and saw more than one or two people (if that) NOT wearing masks?
I am sorry to report that I have seen literally hundreds of people on trails in Colorado and California wearing masks when they are by themselves far from other people. They somehow seem to believe that they can catch COVID from the trees or perhaps the rocks. I often see people on bicycles, again literally hundreds of yards from other people, wearing masks as they huff and puff up hills. Not only does this go against the science, which says that the virus dies in sunlight, it also goes against all common sense. Numerous studies have shown for years that exercising with a mask on is extremely unhealthy.
I will mention here that my kids’ basketball league insists that teenagers wear masks while they run up and down the court. This has to be the stupidest rule in a world filled with insane COVID mandates. Before the game they are all hanging out together without masks. Everybody sees this and knows this. And, yet, we are supposed to believe that somehow the mask on during the game does…what exactly? I am happy to report that in the last month or so the kids are wearing the masks like chin straps, ie, not over their mouths or noses, and nobody tells them to pull the mask up, but the whole thing is another sad chapter in COVID theater.
Even the COVID-promoting New York Times had to admit this week: “There is not a single documented Covid infection anywhere in the world from casual outdoor interactions, such as walking past someone on a street or eating at a nearby table.”
As a reminder, there has also never been a single case of people catching COVID from a surface such as a door handle or chair or church hymnal. So, stop with all of the unnecessary sanitizing, which is a waste of time and resources.
Yes, people have lost their ability to think rationally in the last several years. The irrational fear of COVID, which I have been trying to help people overcome, has caused a series of behaviors that have made people less healthy, not more healthy. Note: staying home and living off your government check while you watch Netflix and eat Cheetos is NOT making you more healthy.
As I have written more than a dozen times now, people should follow Church guidance that asks people to wear masks at church and at the temple and in other common sense locations. But, please, common sense. Stop wearing the mask outside, especially if you have been vaccinated. Accept that more and more people will stop wearing the mask altogether as natural herd immunity begins to help us return to normal. Don’t be a mask Nazi feeling that you are somehow self-righteous if you tell other people what they should and should not be wearing on their faces. Concentrate on proven methods of improving your immune system, which should always be your best defense against viruses.
I don’t accept a “new normal” where people act like lunatics when it comes to viruses. Neither should you.