There's a lovely man that works where I rent a car to go camping in the summer. When I walk in with my N95 in place, he starts wiping the shit out of the counter and applying sanitizer liberally to his own hands and the car keys before passing them over to me in order to keep me safe. So thoughtful!
But he doesn't wear a mask.
That's what bad public health comms does to people. It keeps people unaware that Covid lives in the air more than the counter.
And that's what's happening to the Leafs, as they succumb, one by one, to a mysterious illness.
"Remember that kids' show where there's always a mystery and it's totally obvious but the townspeople can't figure it out, and then after half an hour of a toddler shouting clues at the TV, the dog finally puts it together and solves the mystery?"
It's not just from bad comms, although that's where it started. At this point in the game, shifting sides on this means letting in some pretty painful shit.
Whenever acknowledging what is true can provoke feelings of guilt or shame for what we believed was true in the past, we will fight to stay ignorant.
It's why some of the most caring and protective parents will NOT put their kids in a mask. Considering using masks to reduce illness means opening that door to the reality that they have been putting their child in danger, willingly, for years now -- that their decision to send the kids to school to raw-dog the air in there is the reason their kids got sick over and over and now one of them can barely sit up in bed. They have to keep that door firmly closed and bolted shut and fiercely fight against masks with the most unsubstantiated or incomprehensible claims that they can muster to somehow rationalize their parenting choices.
Seatbelts? Always. Limited screen time? Definitely. Masks in class? I've heard they don't work anyway.
It's okay.
You were doing you best in the midst of some really confusing information. So many different important people were saying contradicting things at once. It's hard to know who to trust.
But well-fitting good quality masks, like N95s, really work. And the virus really IS airborne. Cleaning off counters and washing our hands does very little with this one. It's still good to stay clean, for sure, but it's not doing the kind of work many people think it does. To stop transmission of a virus that spreads through the air and hangs around like smoke, we need to filter the air with HEPA or CR boxes, ventilate rooms by letting in more fresh air, and we need to wear a filter right on our face to stop any viruses in our body getting into the room AND to stop any viruses in the room getting into us!
It's not too late. Every infection increases the odds of getting Long Covid, so even if the kids have been sick all year, stopping that cycle NOW is important. And wearing a mask in class is one of the best ways to prevent that -- and in the arena. And demanding exceptional air filtering and ventilation in classrooms and locker rooms to keep the people we care about safe can help when some people actually can't mask or when people need to eat or drink.
It's so possible to prevent these illnesses. We have to spread the facts, not the disease.
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