I am pleased to say that I have stayed well above this entire thing. I wear a mask where the signs say I ought to, and they make more sense to me than shoes, to be honest. I used to go into restaurants barefoot during the summertime, but then somebody pointed out that this was strictly not allowed in restaurants in my state. I had not known that, at the time, and it sounded genuinely zany to me. Yes, I have heard the defenses for this law, and the masks still actually make more sense to me. The argument on behalf of the shoes is that feet spread diseases, but so do shoes. I wash my feet every day while my shoes would literally fall apart if I washed them that often. Between the two rules, the mask wins for me. People say they don't like having their faces covered. Well, I don't like having my feet covered, but I'm not going to die on that hill.
It's a pandemic, and it's really not all that weird to me that people want to make new laws to protect themselves during a pandemic. All of the measures that we are taking, put together, do seem to be working.
Chiu N, Chi H, Tai Y, Peng C, Tseng C, Chen C, Tan B, Lin C
Impact of Wearing Masks, Hand Hygiene, and Social Distancing on Influenza, Enterovirus, and All-Cause Pneumonia During the Coronavirus Pandemic: Retrospective National Epidemiological Surveillance Study
J Med Internet Res 2020;22(8):e21257
URL:
https://www.jmir.org/2020/8/e21257
DOI: 10.2196/21257
and...
Steffen E. Eikenberry, Marina Mancuso, Enahoro Iboi, Tin Phan, Keenan Eikenberry, Yang Kuang, Eric Kostelich, Abba B. Gumel,
To mask or not to mask: Modeling the potential for face mask use by the general public to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic,
Infectious Disease Modelling,
Volume 5,
2020,
Pages 293-308,
ISSN 2468-0427,
But what do they know? They are just highly educated scientists, after all.
I would wear a mask just because they asked me to, though. I am a guest in somebody else's space. Following other people's house rules, when you are in their space, is just what you do. It's not about being safe for me, but it's about respect.