Wear the damn mask!

By: Omowale Luthuli-Allen

There is a reason that God put our heads on top.

The biggest problem that we have with COVID -19 is that it can be transmitted asymptomatically by people. You don’t know who has it. You don’t know if you have it or not. When you’re out and about and around people, you need to wear a mask, so you don’t unwittingly spread it to somebody else.

My advice is the same thing Batman told John Blake in The Dark Knight, “the mask Is not for you, it’s to protect the people you care about.”

Unthinkable and unacceptable is the news that Junior and Sis have returned to their grandparents’ home and infected them with the virus. And now you have cases of multiple deaths in the same family group.

Food for thought, should a grandparent or a parent emancipate a teenager that rebels against wearing a mask in public gatherings and in the house? Agreed, it is coldblooded to give a child the boot but it’s also sinister to push back against the best public health recommendations.

Child, do you know that you can kill us. Coughing, sneezing and spitting are the virus blasts that are the main driver of the spread of the pandemic. The virus is airborne.

Crazy that we are supposedly in the world’s most advanced country and we are leading the world in infections. We are 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the infections. Crazy that we don’t have a national mandate to wear masks. Crazy that we don’t have a centralized policy for PPE and point of care institutions. Crazy that we don’t want to protect doctors and nurses. What do we do when the frontline health care workers are pushing up daisies (DEAD)?

We must recognize that this beast can be brought under control by the scientists and healthcare professionals alone. We are going to need the hip hoppers, religious people-atheists and agnostics, parents, teachers and students, bus drivers and passengers, clerks and food service workers, law enforcement and those who are locked down in jails-innocent and guilty.

Denial and ignorance will not reverse this monster. Maintaining that this is a hoax will aggravate the problem. A seat belt will not stop you and your passengers from being killed but it will offer than much better chances of surviving and accident. Did government violated your vaunted and cherished freedom when they mandated buckle up?

Vaccines are mandated to prevent mass sickness and death. Your child can’t enter school and infect the other kids if he or she is positive with a dreaded illness like measles, mumps or diphtheria. You can’t work if you have tuberculosis, once a dreaded disease. Ask the dead Presidents. James Monroe and Andrew Jackson died of TB. Smallpox almost took Abraham Lincoln out. President Franklin Roosevelt (1882 – 1945) had incurable polio. During the so-called Revolutionary War, George Washington faced a deadlier force than the hated redcoats- a smallpox epidemic.

I had to insert this vaccine admonition because of the flurry of cynics and Q-Anon zealots that are already prejudging vaccines. The vaccine will have a few adverse effects for a tiny group of people, but the benefits outweigh the disadvantages for hundreds of millions.

The mask is to protect others, not you. When I wear my mask, I protect your mama, daddy and grandmother.

For those of you who refuse to wear masks, THERE IS A REASON THAT GOD PUT YOUR HEAD ON TOP. YOU JUST DON” T KNOW IT. WE LOVE YOU MADLY….