INDIANAPOLIS – Until we get a vaccination for the coronavirus, you’re the best hope we’ve got. Yes, you. And you and you. Also: you. And me. Want to beat this thing? Want to weaken its spread, strengthen our economy?
Let’s get down to brass tacks: Do you want football in the fall?
Wear a mask.
Apparently people have reasons for not wearing a mask, for being offended at the very idea that businesses and restaurants and some state governments mandate the wearing of masks. I’m wondering if those reasons, whatever they are, trump mine:
I don’t want people to die.
I don’t want my dad, older and coming off heart surgery and living in a Central Florida coronavirus hot spot, to die. I don’t want my mom, older and with her own medical story and living in a South Carolina coronavirus hot spot, to die.
The virus is a killer. The best two ways to slow its spread, from everything we know, are these: social distancing and masks.
But, alas. Go to a store. Kroger, Walmart, the gas station. Go to a dentist’s office. Sit in the waiting room. Notice all the people who aren’t wearing masks. How many of them have the virus, but don’t know?
Experts say asymptomatic carriers are spreading the virus, a scientific fact to go along with common sense: This thing, this COVID-19, is too brutal for most people to carry on with life as usual. So if the sick people are mostly holed up — in their homes, in a hospital, in a morgue — why are cases spiking all over America?
Because you’re not wearing a mask.
If you won’t wear a mask for me and my family, or for you and your family, maybe you’ll wear it for another reason:
Do you want football, or don’t you?
Science, or Aubrey Huff?
We’re not all selfish jerks.
We’re not all like former Major League Baseball player Aubrey Huff, in other words. Huff, a deep-thinking and compassionate sort, has become a leading voice of the anti-mask revolution after being banned this year from the San Francisco Giants’ 2010 World Series reunion for crafting several Cro-Magnon tweets where he joked — he says — about teaching his sons to shoot a gun in case Donald Trump loses the 2020 election to Bernie Sanders, and about kidnapping Iranian women so “we can bring them back here as they fan us and feed us grapes, amongst other things…”
That moral compass Aubrey Huff recently said on video: “I would rather die from coronavirus than live the rest of my life in fear and wear a mask.”
Contemplative man that he is, Huff appears unaware that scientists have proved wearing a mask, while good for the person wearing it, is even better for those around us. Or maybe Huff does know, and doesn't care about anyone but himself. All I know is this: He tweeted the video under the words, “Take your #coronavirus mask & stick it where the sun don’t shine.” It was then retweeted by tens of thousands of his supporters.
In California, Hugo's Tacos has temporarily closed its two Los Angeles locations because too many selfish jerks refuse to wear masks — which are mandatory in California — and are verbally and even physically harassing employees over the issue.
Meanwhile, in some states, positive tests and hospitalization and deaths are spiking to new highs almost every day.
But we’re not all selfish jerks. Some of us who aren’t wearing a mask, we forgot to put it on. I keep a mask in my car, on the console, in plain sight. Every now and then I’ll walk into my Kroger and see someone in a mask, and realize:
Oh no! I’m not wearing mine! You must think …
Well, you must think I’m a selfish jerk. And I’m not. Just forgetful.
In Florida, where people are emboldened by Gov. Ron DeSantis to not wear masks because #media and #fakenews and blah blah blah, coronavirus cases are spiking at obscene levels. My dad’s in Polk County, the hottest coronavirus hot spot in that whole scalding state. The next county over is another red-hot spot: Orange County. What’s in Orange County? Town called Orlando.
Where NBA teams will allegedly start reporting in one week to finish the season.
But it’s in a bubble!
No, my friend, it is not. There is no biodome over Orlando. There is an airport, there are hotels, and there are several arenas. There are thousands of Orlando-based employees in Disney's food and hotel industry, people who have been living right there in the middle of this COVID-19 spike. Some of those folks who will be in and around NBA players and coaches and support staff.
What could possibly go wrong?
A lot. Because people haven’t been wearing masks.
I mean, how many different ways do you need this explained? With some of our elected leaders assuring us that masks are not necessary, the United States — with 4.3% of the world’s population — has suffered 25.5% of the COVID-19 deaths. Several European countries, meanwhile, are winning the fight and saying U.S. visitors might soon be quarantined for two weeks because America has become the most dangerous COVID-19 hotspot in the world. Makes you proud, don’t it?
As time passes and researchers learn more about this new virus, the evidence in favor of masks is exhausting. Countries where masks are ubiquitous are winning the battle, and here in America, states with mask mandates are corralling the virus. The states that are spiking? No mandates.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington projects the American death toll will reach 180,000 by October 1, but “those numbers drop to 146,047 if at least 95 percent of people wear masks in public.”
That’s the evidence in favor of masks.
The evidence against masks? Here you go:
Burp.
Football depends on you
The direction we’re going for the 2020 football season, it’s not good.
Various college football teams are reporting outbreaks, including the past two national champions, Clemson and LSU, and one college has already canceled its 2020 season. Last week the NFL canceled the Aug. 6 Hall of Fame Game between the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers. (At least they didn’t wait until 9½ minutes before kickoff, like those greedy bastards did in 2016 to sucker money from Indianapolis Colts fans.)
We’re just one or two steps away from the 2020 NFL regular-season opener, scheduled for Sept. 10 between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans, getting delayed. From there, it’s a step or two from the season being canceled.
That’s where we could be going, but I’m here with good news. We still have a shot at football! Likewise, if you’re a parent who would really, really like your kids to attend school all fall — not just in August and September, but in October, November and December as well — we have a shot at that as well. And if this matters, here you go: We can help people stop dying, too.
But the most crucial person in the pursuit of all of that isn’t NFL commissioner Roger Goodell or Indiana Health Commissioner Kristina Box, and it isn’t Dr. Anthony Fauci or Dr. Aubrey Huff.
The most important person is you. And you. And you and you and … me.
Wear a mask.
The other day I took my cat to our veterinarian, where the rule is this: Park your car and call the vet when you arrive; someone will come get your pet. Guy in the car next to me has a dog, a cute little yippy thing, scared to death. The veterinarian technician comes outside in her mask to get the dog from the car, but Lil’ Yippy ain’t having it. So his human gets out of the car — no mask — and walks toward the retreating vet tech, obliviously getting into her space before she heads inside with the dog.
You stupid jerk, I’m thinking as I watch the guy climb back into his car, when I see it. It’s one of those multi-colored masks — white on one side and blue on the other; blue goes outside, promise — and it’s hanging from his rear-view mirror. He’s like me at Kroger: He just forgot to put it on. Hey, we’re trying.
We all need to try harder. We need to try as if our life depends on it, because it does.
And if that’s not enough, try like football depends on it.
Because it does, you selfish jerk. It does.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at https://ift.tt/1JDCJuT.
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