We discussed this in the office earlier this week. Some truly have difficulties wearing masks. It is often dismissed as ridiculous. If one ever has trouble breathing perhaps they will have a better understanding. If you start to cough, wheeze or choke...breathing quickens and becomes more shallow. This makes the issue worse than ever. Gasping for air can be a bit unnerving.
A vaccine provides immunity to the disease. Articles are still saying the efficacy rate for Moderna and Pfizer are about 95%. Thats a pretty darn good number. Likely J&J will be out around March. Mask mandates will be tough to push past spring. It will probably affect compliance with the vaccination if the restrictions and mandates don't lighten up. Otherwise it doesn't provide much incentive to get poked.
I have some thoughts on wearing masks and getting vaccines that I hope to clarify why perhaps some of us feel wearing masks is a good thing and why vaccines are necessary even if we don't get immediate relief. The following is an expression of my personal opinion and is not meant to offend or attack, but to explain and give reasons for my point of view.
Getting on my soap box:
I too have trouble breathing and yes, it is unnerving when you are gasping for breath, to say the least. It is not ridiculous to have trouble wearing a mask. It is a difficulty that is by far the lesser of two evils, though. Trouble breathing is far worse, however, when you have a respiratory illness that exacerbates that difficulty breathing. Night time can be scary in those times, especially when you are alone. I have experienced difficulty breathing alone at night - it can be terrifying. I comfort myself with the thought that, although it feels like I am suffocating, I am not, not really. Just imagine experiencing this, and worse, alone in hospital and knowing that this may well be killing you.....for far too many people, that is how they die with Covid.
This is one reason
why I push through the problems with wearing the mask - if a small piece of
relatively easily breathed through fabric can prevent me and/or others from going through the torment of not being able to breathe to the degree that happens with Covid - then I am OK getting used to wearing a mask. Some masks are easier to wear than others, some masks will fog up glasses less than others, you just have to find the one that works best for you and wear it when necessary. It does get easier over time. You will adjust, though it will never feel as good as breathing without a mask. BUT, here's the point. It won't harm you even though: it is uncomfortable, it is perhaps harder for you than some people, or it fogs up your glasses. At the end of the argument - it will help protect you and others from something FAR WORSE than the difficulty that you are experiencing with a mask.
The biggest incentive for getting the vaccine is that in about 6 months to a year after this, we will most likely get our lives back. It still isn't just about you or me alone - it is about all of us. The vaccine will work when we are all (or nearly all) vaccinated. That is one HUGE incentive. Instead of hospitals over run, people losing their livelihoods and massive illness and dying - we can get together again and live our lives. Yes, maybe the masks will still be here with us for another year, but now we see a way to really reduce the scale of this thing to something that we can control. Covid is here. It is unlikely to completely go away. But we can put it into the category of another illness to be careful of and to get vaccinated against rather than a devastating pandemic such as what we have now.
But, yes, if you are lucky enough to get the vaccine early, you may have to continue as we are now until more people have also been able to get vaccinated. That will include still wearing a mask and. washing your hands and socially distancing. That may feel frustrating. But just because you are one of the lucky ones doesn't mean that this is over. The rest of us are still waiting for our turn to be safe from the massive illness that Covid can bring.
Meanwhile, especially for many of us with pre existing conditions, there is another, more immediate incentive for getting the vaccine. It is the ability to live a life without numbing fear. It will allow a little freedom to leave your home without fear, to no longer feel like a prisoner. I am tired of staying home alone, not seeing my children and grand children, and being afraid of the people I run into when I HAVE NO choice but to go out for some reason. I long for the opportunity to chat with a friend, sing in a church, go to a movie, eat in a restaurant or go back to WDW. Small things and large, I miss them all.
So... Young healthy people who are not afraid of Covid feel that no one else has the right to tell them what they have to do. I get it, we do live in a free country. People that have more difficulty wearing a mask feel that this is too hard to have to live this way. I understand and literally feel your pain. People wearing glasses can barely see where they are going when wearing a mask. I get it, I wear glasses too and I live up north where temperature changes make this situation even worse. Yeah, it sucks!
But wearing a mask is vastly better than getting a severe case of Covid. You may feel that it is unlikely to happen to you. Everyone feels that way. But it is real and it is happening to millions of people every day.
Is this me trying to induce fear? You bet it is! Healthy, respectful fear is not a bad thing. When my kids were young I taught them to respectfully fear hot things like fire. They could get burned, if they weren't careful. Fire handled improperly puts other people at risk as well. So, I also taught them what to do to minimize the risk when dealing with fire. That way they are protected from danger and are less likely to cause danger to others. Did I curtail their right to do as they please and play with matches on the floor? Yep, I sure did! Rights and freedoms have limits!
This pandemic is revealing the nature of the people in our countries. It is revealing our moral fiber and our strength of character. It shows just how much we really care about suffering and even unnecessary deaths in others around us. What the current lack of compliance wearing a mask tells me about us as a nation, terrifies me almost as much as Covid.
Doctors and nurses wear masks all day long when operating on patients. Do they have a right not to wear a mask? It is uncomfortable for them, but they do so to protect their patients. For a few months, we are experiencing this tiny thing that they do every day to protect us and we say "NO, it is too hard" or "No, you can't tell me what to do"? Right now, they need us to help them survive the trauma that they are experiencing while helping others. By wearing a mask we reduce the spread of the virus and lighten their work load.
So, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE! Wear a mask!
getting off my soap box