We have the freedom to mask, vax for common good

The long and winding road of COVID, which appeared to be at an end, now has an extension. The delta variant is a stubborn adaptation beginning to wreak more havoc on Americans’ health — and on our collective psyche.

No one wants to extend our prior inconveniences. However, medical experts declare that it is best to wear a mask in designated sites, get a booster shot when available and limit the size of gatherings. Many politicians and citizens maintain that these requirements infringe on our freedom and liberty.

Give me a break.

In less than two weeks we will celebrate Labor Day and commemorate those who insisted on a humane and safe workplace. In November, Veterans’ Day will honor those whose sacrifices preserved a country that ensures health care for all.

Today, however, when the most highly qualified medical research personnel in the world recommend vaccines and masks, a large segment of elected officials, scared of their own political shadow, equate non-compliance with an exercise of freedom. They suggest that citizens have a fundamental right to refuse vaccination and wearing a mask.

Adhering to this self-centered philosophy does not embrace freedom — it transforms it into a selfish, individual concept that jeopardizes our collective well-being.

Perhaps appropriate legislative enactments would read as follows:

“For those who receive vaccination and wear masks when recommended to do so, activities can be pursued with minor limitations. Those who totally refuse to wear a mask or receive vaccination, absent certified medical grounds, must stay in their homes.”

Make sense?

Many World War I veterans wanted masks but didn’t have them and died of mustard gas. Many World War II veterans died of malaria in the Pacific since they lacked a vaccine to protect them. We now have access to masks and vaccines, a deadly virus that has killed several hundred thousand Americans and a large segment of the population refuses both — thereby endangering their own lives and those of others.

Those who refuse masks and vaccination should go to a National Military Cemetery and tell the veterans buried there of the infringement on their freedom imposed by masks and vaccines.