Masking our pride

To the editor,

I am responding to your article “County may challenge mask order” from July 1.

Now, I am in favor of Governor Kelly’s mask order. I could list studies and testimonials from well-regarded doctors to defend my position, but I’d rather give you my own viewpoint and maybe that’ll be enough.

Pretty much everyone agrees that COVID is bad. Where we differ is in the dealing with it. There are some who say, economic shutdown and step-ups in personal sanitation bring more fear and suffering than the virus itself. And others say the government in its orders is overstepping its bounds.

And those people won. Everything is open. Governor Kelly backed off, every rugged man and woman for his or her self.

Except for this one little mask thing. Cause COVID is getting worse, and every pioneer who isn’t afraid to go around with open nose and throat is making it more awful for everyone who can’t.

Seatbelts, ladies and gents, Seatbelts.

Freedom as the Founding Fathers conceived it includes the idea that when your exercise of freedom endangers that of others, then it is government’s duty to act.

And it’s not saying you have to drive the speed limit, it’s not requiring safety features in your car, it’s not restricting how many people congregate or the reasons for which people can. They’re just saying that you have to wear a seatbelt.

‘But how do we enforce it?’ say Commissioners Becker and Gehring (who seems to have a funny notion of how HIPAA works).

Well, you could start by mandating that institutions provide services only to customers who are wearing masks or who have a doctor’s letter exempting them from the requirement. Or, if a church or business really doesn’t like dress codes, it needs to enforce strict social distancing.

And I came up with that in five minutes. Surely you can come up with more.

But if what I’ve written isn’t good enough for the Commission, let me at least say something to the individuals in this county. A healthcare worker friend of mine posted a picture of a mask on Facebook with this caption: “In Humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Philippians 2:3.”

And, really, that’s what this is all about. I know you’d rather forget that this is happening, I know you’d like to go to parties and have fun, I know you’re probably not going to get hardly sick at all. But it isn’t about you. And even if masks only help a little bit, at least they help a little bit.

So please, Commissioners and please Nurse Serene, do the right thing. And if they don’t, dear reader, make sure you do.

Nejlepší i zdraví (The best and health)

Jacob Jirak, Ramona