Look, like myself and many others around the world I would love to go back to a time where I did not have to worry about wearing masks and infecting loved ones and strangers. Unfortunately it may be a while until we have a return to anything remotely close to the old normal. The fact is that there have been 135,500 deaths AND COUNTING. At least here in the United States, it is still going to get worse before it gets better.
Our decision to donate to the Coronavirus Relief Fund during our first collaboration with SavySoul was in response to our growing concerns that the virus would effect communities not only on a local but also a global scale. As testing increases there should be less positive cases shown, but instead we are seeing a reported increase. This is why mask wearing is important.
I’ll preface this by saying that everyone is entitled to their own opinions when it comes to mask wearing. However, I vehemently disagree that politics should not be entangled with measures that are proposed to limit the spread of a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. It is unfortunate that like many other social issues that this country faces, the potential overuse of the word “pandemic” has been met with an almost ignorant, numbing response by society.
Wearing a mask can protect the people wearing them as well as the people around them. Mask wearing mitigates the risk of spreading the virus overall and this can help the return to normalcy. Yes, wearing a mask will not be 100 percent effective. However, it is a fallacy to suggest that the percentage of effectiveness the mask does have is not beneficial for the greater good of society. One simulation conducted by Kai et al. (2020), predicted that 80% of the population that wears a mask would have more of an effect to decrease the spread of COVID-19 than having another lockdown. This is good news for those who would like to have a return to normalcy in some capacity, but it requires the cooperation and collaboration of members from each community to reduce the risk of spread for everyone.
Kai, D., Goldstein, G. P., Morgunov, A., Nangalia, V., & Rotkirch, A. (2020). Universal masking is urgent in the covid-19 pandemic: Seir and agent based models, empirical validation, policy recommendations. arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.13553.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/coronavirus-relief-fund/
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