When You Wear a Mask
Our world has changed quite a bit in the past few months, hasn’t it? If you had told me 6 months ago that I would be stuck at home for 3.5 months and counting and that I would have to “jail-break” just to go to my boyfriend’s medical fellowship graduation, I would have never believed it. I wouldn’t have believed that I would feel anxious to be at that graduation or even guilty for disobeying my immunologist’s orders after the fact. The most recent and widespread change is that wearing a mask is becoming the new “it” trend in 2020, but the reason why goes far beyond style. When you wear a mask in public, it is a sign of respect for those around you. It’s a sign that you value someone else’s safety above your own comfort. It is a sign that you value “high risk” lives as much as anyone else’s. When you wear a mask, you are showing the world that you believe those with chronic illnesses are not disposable.
When you wear a mask, you are actively committing yourself to slowing the spread so that businesses can sustainably stay open. You show that it’s important to you that employees can safely work in their jobs so that their paychecks can continue to exist. When you wear a mask, you are saying that you want to make sure that employees at that business don’t get sick and have to take unpaid sick days while financially recovering from being furloughed. It’s a sign that you care about that employee’s elderly mother who lives with them or about that employee’s immunocompromised child. When you wear a mask, it shows that you understand that not all high-risk individuals “look” high-risk, so you never know who you may be endangering if you don’t wear one.
When you don’t wear a mask and say things like “only the elderly and immunocompromised are at serious risk,” it says that our lives are somehow less valuable than an otherwise healthy person’s life. When you make those comments, it tells us that you see our lives as collateral damage and acceptable losses in exchange for your comfort and sense of normalcy. When you say these things, you make it okay to yourself that we die from something that possibly could have been prevented. When you say “only those with chronic conditions,” I don’t think that you realize how many people are affected by chronic conditions and how many different chronic conditions exist. When you argue that not wearing mask is about your freedom, you are missing the point that your “freedom” in this scenario is directly taking away mine. Every person that chooses not to wear a mask to show their freedom of choice is actively choosing to contribute to the reason why I am still not allowed to go grocery shopping.
Before now, I have been uncomfortable confronting someone in person who wasn’t wearing a mask in my presence, and I have been uncomfortable to be the only one wearing a mask (the very few times I have been in a public setting lately). Confrontation of any kind is completely against my nature. I’m not used to begging for anything, but I BEG you to read the science behind why it’s important to wear a mask. I BEG you to try to still practice social distancing whenever possible and to wear a mask out in public spaces. Even if all that science and data turned out to be wrong, the worst thing we did was try to do something to protect our immunocompromised friends’ well-being, so there is no harm in trying. However, there could be harm in not trying. I am BEGGING you to really think before saying things like “only the elderly or immunocompromised,” because my life has value. Remember that when you wear a mask, you are silently telling me that you believe that my life, my friends’ lives, and strangers’ lives matter and are worth protecting.
Chronically yours,
Jen
