Our View: Masks remain the simple solution

News that Sunnyside, Inter-Faith and other senior care centers are struggling with Covid-19 outbreaks makes us question not their procedures, but this: Why are so many people unwilling to take the most basic step and wear masks in public? We wish they would.

It’s community spread that’s bringing Covid into the homes of the most vulnerable.

Most people seem to have gotten on board with social distancing recommendations and we are grateful most of our neighbors are taking this pandemic seriously and are wearing masks. We know that health experts have told us that the virus is spread airborne, which means that infected people breathing around uninfected people increases the chance of spreading the disease. Masks help minimize that infection risk. Please wear one in public.

This virus can spread in other ways, too, so we encourage people to wash their hands frequently and take other basic precautions.

Still, we are seriously confused about people who refuse to wear a mask or to take the pandemic seriously. We know that health experts wear masks to reduce the chances of passing along infections all the time. From operating rooms to routine doctor visits, professionals wear masks because they know they work.

We simply can’t understand the political statement some think they are making. We are all in this together. It’s a virus that we are only beginning to get under control, and wearing masks reduces the spread. It attacks bodies with no regard to what political affiliations that body’s brain may have.

Nor can we understand how some people claim the death rate is so low that we shouldn’t be worried about this virus. Ask anyone who has contracted the disease. It can be intense, very unpleasant and scary. Herpes doesn’t kill anyone but we don’t know anyone who is willing to get exposed to it just because it doesn’t kill you. Covid-19 is a dangerous and unpleasant disease that we all need to take seriously to prevent it spreading.

One person dying from it is too many, and there have been far too many local deaths from Covid -19.

We are appalled at people who state, publicly, that it’s just old people who were going to die anyway. Such callousness is incomprehensible.

An uncovered cough or sneeze (or even just breathing) by an infected person in Walmart could eventually be carried to a patient in a nursing home in Carlton. Please wear your masks.

Let’s protect everyone in our midst.