The Patriotic Mask
The “sturm und drang” of daily politics across our culturally and politically diverse nation is known to sometimes produce bizarre effects. None of these weird effects are quite as idiotic, however, as the politicization of wearing a face mask for COVID prophylaxis. Somehow, refusing to wear a mask has become a shibboleth to libertarians throughout the land.
Now it IS indisputable that our ever expanding government intrudes more and more into the personal lives of its citizens, and such an intrusion naturally engenders a “push back” that is both justifiable and healthy. When governmental intrusion advances into realms traditionally thought of as a private (like how much sugary soda you can drink), “flash points”, unsurprisingly, develop. One such flash point appears to be mandatory masking requirements. As such, resistance to required masking is understandable. But, because it’s understandable doesn’t mean it’s smart. Or that it’s right.
Because there hasn’t been a world wide pandemic like the Black Death plagues of the 1300’s (with at least twenty MILLION fatalities) or the “Spanish Flu” of 1918 (sixty MILLION dead) for a hundred or more years, people don’t have the visceral dread that a looming COVID-19 pandemic should engender. This blazé mind set coupled with great faith in the power of medical science to, ultimately, vanquish infectious diseases, has resulted, in some quarters, in a very casual attitude toward the dangers of COVID.
And, making maters worse is medical naïveté. Many people in non medical leadership roles in both business and politics have what I would call a “business mindset” regarding disease. That “mindset” involves grouping infectious diseases together with other business challenges that are amenable to strategic remedies. In the business world, many of the challenges they face are the result of self fulfilling prophesies: fear of a weakening economy, for example, causes people to spend less, thereby causing… a weakening economy. Or, fear of inner city crime leads to less investment in inner city economies, leading to increasing poverty which leads to… inner city crime. Accordingly, business leaders and politicians continue to be entranced by an unrealistic expectation that psychology can control destiny: if we just keep everyone THINKING that the economy is strong, the economy WILL be strong. If we just keep THINKING COVID is a paper tiger, it WILL be just that. The trouble is, however, in the realm of disease in general, and infectious disease in particular, such wishful thinking simply doesn’t apply.
Whether we like it or not, even whether we believe it or not, COVID is, incontestably, a malevolent threat. While its virulence is strongest in the elderly and infirm, it has the capacity to kill the young and the healthy as well. In fact, it has the capacity to kill ANYONE. As of today, it has killed over HALF A MILLION PEOPLE worldwide (608 THOUSAND to be exact), and 140, 500 in the US. Such a malefactor can not be trivialized and must not be ignored.
When considering what response we should have to the COVID pandemic, it would be wise to look back at an archetypal example of a similar disease: the 1918 “Spanish Flu” (which, despite the name, really originated, like COVID, in China). From that pandemic we can glean two very important things: 1) Viral pandemics can be penultimate killers. While exact numbers are not available, it is estimated, as noted above, that “Spanish Flu” killed sixty MILLION people. While it is true that fatality rates in 1918 are likely to have been higher than they would be today (vaccines were not available back then and advanced respiratory life support did not yet exist), the ability that viral epidemics have to cause death on a massive scale was demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt. 2) The most effective containment strategies against the pandemic proved to be quarantine and social distancing. Now, one hundred years later, social distancing and quarantine STILL are the most effective strategies, at least until effective vaccines become widely available.
Which brings us around to the topic at hand: required face masking. Numerous studies have shown (a comprehensive review of the literature was carried out recently by MacIntyre and Chugati and was posted on www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), clearly, that masking significantly reduces the chance of COVID transmission (and this is true DESPITE the fact that the original WHO and CDC directives advised that masks would “do more harm than good!”) This applies to blue states (California) as well as red states (Florida). It applies to Democrats as well as Republicans, second amendment advocates as well as George Floyd “protestors.” EVERYONE should wear masks where ever and when ever social distancing is either difficult or impossible. And, in my opinion, such masking should be required.
Now, having said that, I must concede that the constitutional basis for mandatory masking is not clear. While both the US Constitution and American case law clearly allow for those with serious communicable diseases to be isolated from the general population in order to protect that population, what ISN’T clear is the Constitutionality and legality of placing restrictions on HEALTHY people. The trouble with COVID, of course, is that because it often spreads by transmission from asymptomatic carriers, it’s not possible to easily differentiate healthy individuals from those that are infectious. Because of this rather unique aspect of COVID, American law, in my opinion, must adapt to COVID’s inconvenient reality. In essence, we must consider EVERYONE to be contagious, or, at least, potentially contageous. In order to justify this change of criteria, we need simply to refer to the broader spirit of the law: the primary responsibility of governments (and laws) is the protection and safety of its citizens. To this end, we must adapt the law, in this case, to include healthy, but potentially contagious people, in addition to those who are already sick. For public health and safety, we must accept, as a necessary evil, the intrusion into civil liberties that mandatory masking would involve.
Lastly, one of the foremost goals that all Americans SHOULD share is the speedy recovery of our weakened economy. The swiftest way to make this happen is to control and, eventually, eliminate COVID. Masking, along with social distancing and strict sanitary measures is the surest way to do this. I hope that all of my fellow citizens can overcome what ever libertarian concerns they may harbor and come to see masking as not only wise medically, but as a PATRIOTIC gesture that will help America recover economically more quickly. A gesture that will help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.