US Cases: 1,248,137
US Deaths: 70,002
Worldwide Cases: 3,836,215
Worldwide Deaths: 269,267
Trump continues to be horrible. Even setting aside the non-COVID-related horribleness, there are almost too many stories to choose from. Here's a quick sample of news items from today:
- Someone at the CDC leaked a set of guidelines businesses should meet before they consider reopening. These guidelines were supposed to be released last Friday, but since they conflict with the Trump Death Cult's push to reopen everything, workers be damned, they got buried. Agency scientists were told the guidance would never see the light of day.
- One of Trump's personal valets has tested positive for #COVID19, and reportedly Trump is "lava level mad" about it, and feels that his staff isn't doing all it can to protect him. If only he were "lava level mad" about the other 1.2 million Americans who are infected.
There are few things stupider than the Republican war on masks. As I mentioned Monday, there is good reason to believe that regularly wearing masks in public is the single most effective way ordinary Americans can help to defeat the pandemic --- which, presumably, everyone wants! It is a very minor inconvenience, and if we all agree to bear it, we would be able to resume 90% (or more!) of our pre-pandemic activity.
And yet, the hostility some have at the prospect of wearing a mask in public ranges from indignant to homicidal.
So as a public service, I thought I would lay out the rationale for requiring everyone, everywhere, to wear masks for the duration of the pandemic. And to make it more fun, I've decided to present it as a discussion with a hypothetical mask opponent. Meet 'Hawk', a white man with a steadfast commitment to his understanding of the Constitution.
DB: Okay, Hawk, it's really quite simple. Surely you agree that businesses like Costco have the right to enforce policies to protect their employees and customers --- like, for example, banning guns in their stores?
Hawk: No way, man! I don't need Costco to worry about my safety. The Constitution gives me the right to take my AR-15 with me anywhere I want! In fact, Costco should be thanking me for bringing my rifle into their store. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun!
DB: Wow, okay, my mistake. I forgot that Trump supporters are impervious to logic when it comes to their precious guns. And that whole 'good guy with a gun' slogan is nonsense, but that's a discussion for another time.
Let's start again. Would you agree that retailers have the right and responsibility to provide a safe environment for their workers and their customers?
Hawk: Sure.
DB: So for example --- even though we disagree about whether guns should be allowed in Costco, you DO agree that it's wrong for someone to walk into Costco and randomly open fire, right?
Hawk: Right on! And that's why I need to have my rifle with me at all times! Because a shooter could open up at any time, and so if he sees me with my weapon . . .
DB: Right, right, right, we're not talking about that right now. So, good, we agree that randomly firing a gun into a crowd of people is wrong (small victories).
Hawk: Sure.
DB: So, if we could move away from guns --- by the same logic, it would be wrong for someone to, say, walk into Costco and release a poison gas into the store that would make a lot of people sick and possibly kill them?
Hawk: (pauses, thinks) Yeah ---
DB: And the same goes if someone released a biological agent into the store --- you, know like the kind of bioweapon it turns out Saddam Hussein didn't actually have?
Hawk: (laughs) Yeah ---
DB: Now, suppose we're not talking about a bad guy any more. Suppose we're talking about someone who might be releasing a bioweapon into the store without even realizing it? If there was a chance someone could accidentally release a biological agent that would make lots of people sick and/or kill them, then it would be completely appropriate for Costco to try to protect its employees and customers from it, right?
Hawk: That's a ridiculous hypothetical. How can someone release a bioweapon in Costco without even knowing it? That's, like, some real spy-novel shit right there.
DB: Maybe. But if it were a real possibility that something like that could happen, then there's nothing wrong with Costco protecting people from it, right?
Hawk: Whatever, dude. Okay, fine, yeah. But that's got nothing to do with guns.
DB: So I just want to make sure we're in agreement here. Retailers are within their rights to take measures to protect people from an unintentional release of a harmful biological agent?
Hawk: Sure.
DB: Even if it means requiring everyone to accept a minor inconvenience --- like how you have to go through a metal detector and take your shoes off to get on an airplane?
Hawk: God, I hate that. I hate going through those lines. I hate that I can't take my gun on a plane.
DB: Sure, it's annoying. But we do it to keep everyone safe, right?
Hawk: Yeah.
DB: And it's fine for retailers to do the same thing. In order to keep people safe, right?
Hawk: Sure.
DB: Especially if the inconvenience you have to deal with is less cumbersome than airport security?
Hawk: Sure!
DB: To protect people from a biological agent?
Hawk: Sure.
DB: Like a virus, for example?
Hawk: (broods)
DB: Seriously. That's what they're doing. They want everyone to wear a mask so that someone who is sick with coronavirus doesn't spread it around at their store. Which could happen without the sick person even knowing it, since it's possible that as many as half of people infected with coronavirus are asymptomatic.
Hawk: That doesn't mean that I need to wear a mask, though! I know I'm not sick! I don't feel sick!
DB: Did you hear what I just said about asymptomatic carriers? Do you know what 'asymptomatic' means?
Hawk: I don't care, man! The only thing that stops a bad guy with coronavirus is a good guy with ---
DB: Thanks for your time, Hawk.
Seriously, folks. The anti-mask hate is stupid, and it's deadly:
On March 25 one of his daughters gave him a face mask to wear at the plant, where he operated boxing and loading equipment near the entrance and was often the first person to greet arriving co-workers. “He was always so respectful,” a shiftmate says. Two days later, Benjamin told his kids a supervisor had ordered him to remove the mask because it was creating unnecessary fears among plant employees.
On Saturday, April 4, Benjamin called in sick. So few workers had shown up the day before that he’d had to do the work of three people, he told his family. By Monday his cough and fever were much worse. The next morning he could barely move. An ambulance took him to the hospital.
. . .
Benjamin was admitted to the intensive care unit and spent his work anniversary on a ventilator. He died on April 19.Masks are not the problem; the coronavirus is the problem. And masks are possibly the best solution we have. We should be embracing the masks, not fighting them.
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