THIS TROUBLING YEAR I THOUGHT PEOPLE WERE MORE CARING
2020 will always be known as the year a brutal pandemic changed the world. But it didn’t impact everyone the same way. What will you remember most about 2020? We asked The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Community Voices Project contributors. Earlier pieces ran Christmas Day and this week. Four more appear below and more will run later this week.
It was described by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as having “spikes that adorn the outer surface, which impart the look of a corona surrounding the virion.” It looked hideous, and I wish I had never seen it. The coronavirus was here.
Health experts provided recommendations to the public to help slow the spread of this nasty invader. One of those was to wear a face covering also known as a mask.
In so doing, we could help ourselves and others from becoming sick. Plus, it could help prevent the virus from spreading so businesses, schools, parks, etc., could remain open. It also would help ensure the availability of hospital beds needed to care for patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. There were lots of really good and scientific reasons to wear a mask, and it seemed a simple enough thing to do.
At first, masks were not that easy to find in the stores. This was made worse by those who sought profits over conscience.
It soon became a political symbol, which just made matters a gazillion times worse. Some folks didn’t believe wearing a mask would make a difference. Some thought it was uncool or took away their freedom. And some denied the existence of the coronavirus altogether.
Other folks believed masks would help save lives and wore one because they felt it was an easy and responsible thing to do.
Lines were drawn, and we had the maskers and the antimaskers. It wasn’t long before those groups identified with a political party.
Now, not a day goes by without hearing about or seeing something about the maskers and anti-maskers. The news regularly shows events where almost no one is wearing a mask.
I really try to be understanding of other people’s points of view. But I just can’t do it anymore, especially when it comes to something so simple as wearing a face covering during a pandemic.
It’s a mask that helps prevent the spread of a deadly virus. Why is that so difficult to understand? Are people really that dense? Do they not know the Earth is round, gravity exists and the spread of infections can be reduced by limiting exposure to them? Do they not see that people are getting really, really sick? Can they not comprehend the number of people in hospitals and nursing homes who are never coming home and will never again see their loved ones?
The list of questions goes on and on.
If the virus infected only people who refuse to wear a mask, then so be it. By all means, feel free to be stupid. But that’s not reality.
The mask has shown us who we are and too much of it paints a damning portrait. It’s been a really hard lesson for me because I thought people were a lot more decent and caring than that. I didn’t realize that helping our fellow humans had became so unimportant to so many.
Over time, the gross graphic of the coronavirus will fade. I pray the same will be true for my mind’s image of the antimaskers who aided and abetted it. As the saying goes, “Hope springs eternal.”
Frye