If you have a family member/friend/online troll who keeps yelling
“FREEDOM! I don’t need a mask — I’m not a coward!”
“This is government overreach!”
“Its my life — if I want to take my chances and die that’s my right!”
Feel free to tell them — “So, you’re willing to kill for the economy.”
Because that is all I see about whenever I hear people spout these ridiculous statements and/or go out in public without a mask.
In the fall of 2009, I traveled to Los Angeles for work and was in the area for two weeks. Before I left, my manager asked me if I was ok traveling because of the H1N1 going around. I told her I was excited about the project and worst case scenario, I joked, I would have 2 weeks off paid sick leave so win-win. On my way back home, I sat next to a man that didn’t look so well and was coughing. Not the first time I sat next to someone on a plane coughing so I didn’t think twice about it.
When I got back home later that day, not only had my elderly aunt come for a visit but our housekeeper had brought her three children over to play in our pool, including her 9 month old new born, while she did her work. I remember sitting on the pool deck, enjoying the perfect warm autumn afternoon, watching the kids and playing with the baby while catching up with my aunt. It should have been a pleasant memory but now when I think about it, it just brings me dread.
Two days later, I was in an emergency room with a high fever, difficulty breathing, and coughing so violently that I actually burst an eardrum. Got tested and it turned out to be H1N1. At this time, a second spike was hitting the US so everyone in my house needed to get tested, isolated and be placed on Tamiflu. Luckily, no one in my household, including my aunt, turned out to be positive and/or got sick. I thought we had all dodged a bullet.
Until we got a call from our housekeeper a couple of days later.
Her baby had spiked a fever and was taken to the ER. She had contracted H1N1 and had gotten so critically ill that she was placed in NICU. For 9 days, it was touch and go. Luckily, she was (and still is) a tough little fighter and pulled through. The fear and anguish on her mother’s face, I will never forget. The baby hooked up to so many tubes and wires laying under a plastic dome and not being able to have any human contact, I will never forget. That I was very possibly the cause of this, I will never forget.
It haunts me to this day what happened to that baby and exposing my aunt to who knows what because of my cavalier attitude. Me getting sick and possibly dying because of my own actions, fine. I can weigh the risks & act accordingly. But my aunt didn’t realize what chances she was taking coming to my house and most certainly that baby didn’t.
So, no — I will not kill for this or any other economy. I will not play around with other people’s lives because I want a haircut & a hot dog. Not wearing a mask doesn’t make you brave or a warrior — it just shows others that you are a scared gutless wonder who isn’t strong or smart enough to take true responsibility for your own actions including actions that may impact others.
What I will do is hound my representatives to make sure people are as well protected as they can be both physically & financially during this pandemic and understand that the bravest thing anyone can do right now is stay home, possibly take a financial hit, continue to be pandemic pretty and if I have to go out, not be an asshole and wear a damn mask.