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Just wear your mask

To the editor:

In a recent interview for AXIOS on HBO, Donald Trump again reiterated his argument that the reason the U.S. has so many coronavirus cases is we do so much more testing. Then, when confronted by the fact that the U.S. has the most COVID-19 deaths per capita, his argument shifted to note that as a percentage of confirmed cases we have fewer per capita deaths than much of the world. This is Trump wanting to have his cake and eat it, too. According to his logic, we have the most deaths because we have the most confirmed cases, and we have the most cases because we have the most testing. By that logic, if we had never tested anyone, nobody would have ever died.

This is the guy so many Americans take their cues from about wearing (or rather not wearing) facemasks. This is the guy who told the CDC and his virus task forces to loosen up restrictions in their recommendations to states. Also, according to a recent Vanity Fair article (since corroborated by other sources,) this is the guy who had a plan at the ready to speed PPE and testing to the states, but took partisan advice to hold off because (at the time) the hardest hit states were run by Democrats, and that could be politically advantageous.

Mike Pence appeared with the Republican governor of Florida some months ago to brag about how the nay-sayers had been wrong about his decision to keep Florida beaches open because their numbers were still low. Since then the numbers in Florida have skyrocketed, and the higher numbers in many other states can arguably be tied to people returning from spring break and other Florida vacations. The Republican mayor of Las Vegas insisted that her city was willing to be the guinea pig when she reopened gambling. Clark County, the home county of Las Vegas, is now the epicenter of Nevada’s worst spike to date with 44,000 confirmed cases and more than 700 deaths.

Meanwhile, Trump surrogates from Jim Jordan to Tucker Carlson are doing their best to discredit Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx all while propping up Dr. Stella Immanuel because she says masks aren’t helpful but that hydroxychloroquine is. But Fauci and Birx are well-respected members of the medical community, and Immanuel believes that vaccines contain alien DNA and if you dream of having sex with demons they can impregnate you.

Here’s the bottom line. I don’t care if you believe Trump’s idiocy. I don’t care if you think being required to wear a mask is a violation of your Constitutional rights. Stores are saying masks are required on their premises because they don’t want to breathe your possibly diseased exhalations. They’re trying to protect management, their employees, their customers and even you. Their property, their rule. Don’t refuse. Don’t search for loopholes. Don’t pontificate. Those of us who understand the science also have rights: One being the right to breathe in an uncontaminated store.

J. David Core

Toronto

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