Re: “People wearing face masks should be avoided,” letter, May 13, Airdrie City View
Dear editor,
The editor of the Airdrie City View has given people in this city a mixed message by publishing Kevin Tennant’s letter suggesting that lockdowns don’t work, while in the same issue publishing a letter from the Airdrie Community Physicians Association urging people to talk to their doctors about vaccines.
Like the Government of Alberta – which has not once done the right thing with regards to this pandemic, repeatedly imposing half-measures resulting in the highest COVID-19 infection rate in North America – the paper has done the community a grave disservice by publishing Tennant’s letter. The utter stupidity of his letter is astonishing.
I agree with him that the government is moving the goal posts back to suit their right-wing agenda to privatize health care at all costs, but he implies lockdowns don’t work and kill the economy. I have news for him; lockdowns do work, and you only need to look at the two most successful countries in the world that beat the virus long before we reached this third wave – New Zealand and Australia. Both countries imposed total lockdowns longer than any other country and are now almost back to normal.
So, lockdowns work, and nothing Mr. Tennant or his anti-masker buddies believe will change that fact. Besides, without any restrictions or lockdowns, more people die, and dead people do not contribute to the economy. That is pure common sense.
The logic that face masks only protect others from you is not even close to being correct. Face masks not only protect others from you, but you from others. They protect both ways. Otherwise, why would doctors nurses, and other members of surgical teams wear them?
COVID-19 randomly spreads through the air via droplets and the air in all directions, so wearing a face mask is not a political statement, it does not infringe on rights, should not be voluntary but mandatory, and it saves lives. Face masks are a matter of public safety, just like speed limits. You are protected and people you encounter are also protected. This is simple logic.
Wearing them does not mean people are either infected or unsure of their health status, as Mr. Tennant thinks, because the simple fact is that viruses are invisible and infections take time to develop. That means we can only tell by testing if we carry the virus and are immune like “Typhoid Mary,” or eventually get sick within a few hours or days of exposure.
Avoiding people who wear face masks is stupid if you are concerned about the economy. Masked people contribute to the economy, while dead people do not, (except as temporary income for the funeral service industry).
There are more than 250 combined years of scientific data that proves two simple, easy to understand facts – wearing masks saves lives and getting vaccinated stops the virus. End of story.
Ron Roffel
Airdrie
