Army Bob: Please protect everyone by masking up

As you know if you read this column (thank you kindly), I am an advocate for the use of face masks during this pandemic, and indeed any time you have a communicable disease like the flu.

My weekly trip to the big box grocery store April 8 had good and bad findings. The store was well stocked, and the only purchase limit was on Ramen noodles. Go figure? However, of the shoppers who were at the store early that morning, less than half were using protective masks.

It is not surprising that folks are slow to use masks as we have been told for a month now masks are of no help, they even do more harm than good. The government even told us it was unpatriotic to mask up. Folks are slow to get the new word that mask are now magically good.

Of the folks I saw masked up at the store, some had very ingenious designs. One lady had a mask made of paper towels and masking tape, which appeared to be functional and not bad looking; one had what appeared to be a hood cut off a shirt, with the draw string used to hold it up.

Hey if it works, why not? I found a no-sew mask you can make online out of a sock in less than 30 seconds; we Americans are nothing if not ingenious.

Please help protect everyone, and mask up.

Some very bad news reported by the Louisiana state government, a state with 32% of the population being African American, that over 70% of the deaths are in that demographic. Any American can get treated for COVID-19 at no cost, and the Louisiana government has made that well known, so lack of medical care may not be the reason. Some are saying the fact that African Americans have hypertension and high blood pressure at a higher rate than other groups may be the reason. Time and research will figure out why.

Other states are releasing data showing that alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, suicide, assaults and other crimes against persons are rising at a very rapid rate. Not surprising; person crimes are higher among those unemployed, and with the majority of the nation not working it is logical, sad but logical.

In a conversation with the liberal New York side of our family, I mentioned that we need to get folks back to work, and the reply was that we can’t kill people just to help Wall Street get even richer. Their attitude may be typical of what is to come when we open the nation back up; whoever decides to do it will be excoriated in the media as having blood on their hands. We already have those who have said that about governors who did not close their states.

There will be no correct answer to the employment question; it’s one of those “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” things that are so common in politics. We are not keeping the same hour-by-hour count of suicides, homicides, assaults, abuse of adults and children that we are with the COVID-19 virus cases.

The total cost in ruined lives because of the shutdown may never be known, but we can quantify the virus cases. So as in so many things, who opens the economy back up or keeps it shutdown, and what political party the person represents, will be more important than the facts.

A good example is President Trump’s travel ban on The Peoples Republic of China, condemned as xenophobic and not needed by the media when he did it; then they went seamlessly into saying that he was too late in banning travel so he has blood on his hands. Nothing new for the media who are not always right, they are just never wrong.

Again, nothing macho about not wearing a protective mask or gloves. It only proves your ignorance of the facts.

Stay safe my friends.