In the play Hamlet, the namesake character struggles with a choice: “to be, or not to be.”  Today, many are struggling with an iteration of that question.  In the context of the play’s version, let me say this: love yourself.  Love your family and friends. And as my father always says “there IS a better card on top.”  Also, here are two numbers you should keep. 1-800-273-TALK and 303-253-0707. At one, you will find a trained counselor and at the other… me.

But for today- smile, appreciate the birds and the flowers and hang in there. And talk to someone.

As to the question that occupies the mind of many these days, it is “to mask or not to mask.”  As you know, in early April I did a post that said that I will happily wear a mask if everything was allowed to fully open by April 30th (yes, I set a fake deadline…).  Instead, we have gone full ‘Simple Jack’.  Masks are some level of mandatory in almost all places, there are 6’ markings on floors at stores, businesses as barely open AND schools and youth sports remain shut.  The kicker is studies have shown the 95% confidence interval for the appearance of symptoms is 4.3-5.9 days. Meaning, if you have COVID it will show up in that range 95% of the time. Yet we use the 99% outlier of 14 days to pick the quarantine duration and time between opening phases of the economy.  It’s beyond rationality.

Which is why the big controversy of yesterday was whether the President would wear a mask, in spite of being tested every day and surrounded by people wearing masks, more 6’ away from him.

When my defense of my choice is that “wearing a mask infringes on my personal choice” my wife countered with “no shoes, no shirt, no service” and “people have to wear clothes in public, don’t be stupid David.”  I’ll admit, there are a lot of rules that we abide by everyday that I have never really thought twice about.  You pay taxes to participate in society.  I accept that.  But the efficacy of the mask and the slippery slope it represents is what I struggle with.

There are those that say “it’s selfish not to”… I can’t totally disagree with that.  What I do disagree with is the fear and misinformation on statistics.  I also disagree that if you have been pounding cheeseburgers for 40 years, somehow your co-morbidity is my fault.   Where I always land is choice.  If YOU are concerned, we can stay 6’ away from each other and YOU can wear a mask. Me, my mask is math and statistics and when I get sick of anything, I will stay home.

We can go round and round on this point, but at the core, the issue is the type of mask people are wearing. I think we can acknowledge if you wrap yourself in plastic wrap, and I wrap myself in plastic wrap, it’s not as effective as condoms.  The effectiveness is in how stupid we look and how hot and uncomfortable we feel.  And although studies (and we know what we think about un-peer reviewed models now….) suggest that 80% less infections would occur wearing masks, flattening the curve still meant everyone who was going to get it, would get it and we need to build herd immunity so it feels like scope creep.  5 mph speed limits would surely reduce traffic accidents as well but we don’t do that because life is trade offs.

The bottom line is that medical professionals with N95 masks expect “condom like protection” and so that should be the goal. With most hospitals empty and with all the ventilators we will need to last 100 years, and with the knowledge that 33% of deaths in the US are in nursing homes (the at risk group we need to protect), it’s time to make N95 masks readily available to the public who wants it. That way- if you want to protect yourself, you can. And if I choose not to, I can too.

We haven’t mandated people eat better and exercise to prevent obesity (a co-morbidity). We haven’t banned smoking or drinking to reduce the incidence of cancers (a co-morbidity).  So sure, masks seem like an easy discussion, but the reason this is so politicized is the issue cuts right to the heart of the difference between Republicans and Democrats.  Choice and freedom versus the collective good, and there is a reason there are two parties.

It remains to be seen “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them?” Strange times, indeed.