N.J. lawmakers want to hit the unmasked with a $500 fine

I wholeheartedly agree with New Jersey Republican leaders who are pushing back against proposed legislation that would fine New Jerseyans up to $500 for not wearing a mask inside stores.

To be clear: This legislation - as reported by NJ1015. com - introduced by Assemblyman Joe Danielsen, D-Somerset, has a pretty good chance of passing. We all know Gov. Phil Murphy would be OK with it, so if it gets out of Assembly and the Senate President Steve Sweeney posts it, and yadda yadda, presto, it’s the law.

But I don’t think it’s right. I don’t think hardworking New Jerseyans - no matter how misguided and/ or dangerous they may be by deciding to not wear a mask inside public places should be fined.

Nope. Instead, I think New Jersey lawmakers should take a page out of the playbook of Indonesian President Joko Widodo. See, there’s a national law over there mandating masks in public. People who are caught without? The punishments are a little more … creative.

For instance: One unmasked man was forced to lie in a coffin in public while others shamed him. In another case, a group of unmasked men were punished by being forced to dig graves for people who died of COVID-19.

So yes: No to $500 fines, yes to making unmasked New Jerseyans dig a few graves.

Can I get a legislator to sponsor this? No? OK then. The $500 fine is just going to have to do.

Really: I can’t even believe that we’re still arguing about masks at this point. I can’t even believe I was at Wegmans last week and saw some jackedup fool wearing his mask around his chin. I can’t even believe I was in a doctor’s office - with elderly people sitting in the same room - and some dude was sitting there without his nose being covered.

Listen: Masks work. We’ve known masks work forever. At minimum min-i-mum - they protect other people from whatever germs are flying out of your nose and mouth. Why do you think surgeons wear masks? Not for their protection; it’s so they don’t accidentally shoot a snot rocket into someone’s pancreas.

And now, all these months into the pandemic, scientists are coming to agreement as to how this thing spreads: Through the air. No need to bleach your groceries anymore, and you don’t need to douse yourself in hand sanitizer if you accidentally brush up against someone in the supermarket. It’s large droplets (think a sneeze, cough, or scream) or it’s aerosolized flotsam (think invisible, microscopic little bastards floating through the air) that do people in.

It does not take a brain surgeon - or an epidemiologist - or a freaking idiot with a newspaper column - to figure out masks help protect people around you. Not as many particles are going to escape from your nose and mouth.

It’s also not a far reach to imagine they also offer at least some protection to the wearer. After all, would you rather be sneezed on, or sneezed on with a mask surrounding your nose and mouth? And besides: What’s the downside risk? Being slightly uncomfortable while you pack your cart at Costco? Not a good reason. I’ve done four-hour radio shows masked. Is it fun? No. But it’s eminently doable. And I do it to protect the other people in the room. That’s it.

Listen: We messed up testing, we messed up contact tracing, we massively messed up data collection. All we really have left is masks and common sense.

At this point, it appears you need to be an idiot or unlucky to contract coronavirus here in New Jersey. It’s still out there, still hundreds of new cases each day in the state, but if you wear a mask (and/or maintain social distance when you’re not wearing one) it certainly seems like you’d still stand a chance even if someone is bleeding corona out of their eyes while you’re in line with them at Target.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. Treatments are getting better, and new treatments are in the pipeline. Numerous vaccines are getting close. By next spring, this is probably going to be pretty much over. Even if the vaccines aren’t ready, we’ll be back outside, where it’s tough to catch the virus. And by this time next year, no one thinks we won’t have the vaccine. This madness will end.

But for now? We’ve got six months ahead of us where we need to stay vigilant. Six months of things still not being normal. Six months of not gathering for Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or New Year’s Eve. Six months of a little bit of a bunker mentality. And this is a best-case scenario.

The not best-case scenario? People putzing around without masks, large gatherings, flaunting of the rules. That happens, you can expect Murphy to start shutting things right back down. You can also expect the ditch-digging business to be brisk.

Mask up. Social distance. Be smart. Let’s get through these next few months and then we could toss our masks in the trash.