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Masks a bit like helmets

Re: Concern not conspiracy

I'm glad to hear that you are not a Covid denier. Though you do come across as irresponsible for the fact that you find reasons to not wear a mask when asked/mandated to.

With regards to the pandemic, we are lucky to be where we are. BC has one of the lowest mortality rates in Canada (1.35%) versus Quebec where the rate is close to 4.9%. On top of that, here in the interior we have only 5.5% of the cases from the provincial total and an even lower mortality rate.

Personally I attribute this luck to Dr. Bonnie Henry and our provincial leadership setting up the guidelines and then all of us for doing everything we can to abide by them. The staff at KGH thankfully hasn't been run ragged or pushed over the edge as is happening in other places. If something happens we have the capacity to deal with it before we get to that point.

The DANMASK-19 study doesn't explicitly say that you shouldn't wear a mask, it was actually quite inconclusive in its findings. The experts are mixed on how to interpret the data presented in the paper. This is science, when all the scientists agree on something 100% then I start looking for political bias. This wasn't a study that controlled for all the environmental factors. The armchair professors on Facebook pre-published the findings so people were already primed to take it as you are saying, masks do absolutely nothing.

One thing that the masks really help with is the fact that we have to think about the effects our contacts could have. If we try to pretend everything is alright, no need for a mask, just put old folks in quarantine and we'll see them for Christmas 2021 then we'll end up like our neighbours down south. Sure, we won't die but we'll fill up the hospitals and maybe the more extreme cases will die when they don't need to.

Sure, if you're not over a certain age you can think you might get lucky, but there is no guarantee and you look like an idiot pretending that this isn't something that can affect everyone.

As I tell my daughter, the mask isn't about fear, it's about awareness. We aren't living scared of the virus, but we are living with the hope that fewer people get infected by it before we have the vaccine. The fact that the majority of people I see on a daily basis are wearing their masks (and thankfully properly in most cases) helps me feel better that we'll be alright.

I wear a bike helmet knowing full well that it won't do me much good if I get hit by a car, there is data to back up that, but my helmet can only help me, it will never hurt me. Same for my mask, it can't hurt me, it can only help me and those I come near, medical science has decades of use to show this is the case. The fact that masks are not 100% is fine, nothing in life is, but I want whatever percentage increase in a good outcome it will provide.

Landon Bradshaw, Kelowna
 



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