As most of the nation seems thrilled to rip off their face masks and breathe again, I’m simultaneously amused and annoyed by the people who still wear them. You see all kinds of situations. One of the worst are maskless adults with masked children. I don’t see that as much anymore, but it happens. One demographic I expected to mask in greater numbers than other groups has been the elderly. After all, we know that COVID is more serious for people over 65. Obviously, there’s a lot of data showing that masks really don’t make a difference.
Still, if you’re in a high-risk group, if you think masking up will help you, I won’t even waste my time pointing out that last summer a study determined that KN95 and N95 masks only filter a little over 50% of exhaled aerosols and most cloth masks only filter about 10%.
At this point, as long as people don’t care that I’m maskless and leave me alone, I will return the favor. If anyone gives me crap, however, it’s open season. I will pummel them with facts and make them regret their effort to shame me.
I don’t expect it to happen, to be honest. We seem to be at a point where people have decided to just do their own thing and be okay about it. Okay, maybe there are a bunch of liberals triggered over the federal travel mask mandate being lifted, but other than that, we’re basically back to “live and let live.”
Oh, how I’ve missed it. In most places now, mask wearers are the rare exception. I’m starting to think that the Babylon Bee is right that those who are still masked are just ugly.
Most people in most places aren’t masked, and it’s glorious. No one cares, and they’re happy to be maskless. Heck, even at my son’s school, most are maskless. But on Saturday, I discovered one exception. I was out and about with my son, and we went to a local Starbucks. This particular Starbucks is regularly hopping with college students. And, I kid you not, at least half of the maybe thirty college kids inside were masked. One group in particular stood out. It was a group of five guys who came in together, and they were all masked up.
Why? These are young kids between the ages of 18 and 21. While it’s possible one of them may have some medical reason for wanting to be cautious, it seemed unlikely that they all were. At 42, my risk is really low, and theirs is even lower. Yet they were all covered up, pretending to be good citizens or something.
Of course, it quickly hit me. These were college students. These kids were probably brainwashed into thinking that even though the rest of the country is breathing free, they’d basically be akin to Nazis if they didn’t wear a mask. Or maybe they’re just virtue signaling their wokeness or trying to prove their selflessness in caring for others. Whatever it is, is it really worth it?
I can’t imagine that it is.
