Posted 10/9/20
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. –Romans 10:9
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…he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net. Psalm 10:9
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Whoever walks in integrity walks securely,
but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out. –Proverbs 10:9
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What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. Mark 10:9
lots of great 10:9 verses…
Shhhhh….don’t tell anyone, but it’s almost the weekend…a 3-day weekend for me with Columbus day! 🙂 Woot. But we press on because there is work to do for4 seniors and for our dementia community.
Phobias. I feel quite confident I have talked with you about my many phobias at the cornbread table and will likely do it again. (Oh look…here are two pieces right here in the junk drawer next to my presidential debate scorecard: Link and Link ). I have several things that could loosely be considered phobias:
- Feeling like an idiot in front of large groups
- Bees/wasps/murder hornets/flying bugs that make bee sounds
- Dying alone
- Blood
- Swimming in deep water
- Large fish and/or dolphins. Sharks too, but dolphins almost freak me out more since they are so smart and possibly sinister…and they have PR support.
That last one is loosely the topic of conversation at today’s table. Watch these clips as a backdrop:
Sorry about the swear words if I missed some… They made me swear in my heart if that counts…
Disclaimer: My mom’s nursing home is home to many, many super caring and wonderful employees. I have had hardly no bad experiences there. This piece shouldn’t be a negative reflection on them at all… it is more of a anti-anti-masker post. Is that a thing? Sorry to my many grammar teachers who have long since given up on my slaughtering of the otherwise pretty language. Anyway…here is the correlation to my biting fish phobia and mom’s nursing home: COVID-(stinking)-19.
Today, 10/9/20, I have been told and have verified as best I can that the majority of residents at her nursing home currently have the virus (including mom) and that double-digits have died (of COVID-19) in the last 30 days. It makes me think of swimming with sharks. 🙁 Some sharks…and I expect dolphins, whales and mega-catfish…are just fine to swim around. The virus doesn’t hurt everyone. Heck…for kids it often does very little. The flu is harder on a 20 and under person than COVID-19 will likely be. I mean…they do gather up the virus in their backpack next to their Trapper Keeper …uhhh…errr…laptop and earbuds…and bring it home to parents and grandparents who are not as fortunate with a super immune system…but who is counting??? We absolutely must keep those kids learning elbow-to-elbow because missing 6 months of school will break them. (sigh…) I am grumpy on this whole anti-mask movement, so bear with me…
So this is where we are…get the virus started in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the stinking pandemic feeding frenzy happens. That is what is happening in mom’s nursing home right now…and I and my family can only watch it on Zoom 15 minutes a week. 🙁
Arguments against masking:
- It is oppressive– Really? You pick this to call the government oppressive? I mean, making you pay taxes when you buy a car, pay property taxes on it every single year or you lose the car or risk sanction, and you pay tax when you sell it…oh, and you have to buy new plates again too. That makes sense…but requiring a piece of cloth over your face to help prevent people from dying…that is oppressive. Sigh…
- It doesn’t (completely) work– If it helps 75% of the time, is it better than 0%?
- There are already cures that the government is withholding from us– Peel back the tin-foil hat well enough to hear this, with love: Who cares? I mean, fight that and fight it hard if it is true (doubtful), but regardless, how about we prevent people from dying while we fight over this.
- Herd immunity needs to kick in and masks prevent that– Awesome. There is something to that…for SOME people. For seniors with health conditions (re: my mom’s nursing home), herd immunity means you die…and are now immune to everything while at room temperature in a box. (Sorry…but come on…since when do we not care about weaker folks among us…the ones who gave birth to us and raised us… because a piece of cloth on our faces is oppressive?)
- The government has killed X# of people with a vaccine in 19xx– If the government requires you to eat your mask or inject it into your arm, come talk to me. If a mask causes you problems breathing, the virus will do worse. Stay in home. Otherwise, this is a weak argument. If you reject the upcoming vaccine, I will likely be with you even though I usually get all vaccines, but keep your stinking mask on.
- People in masks tend to not physically distance– (Note the use of physical instead of social distance…we want people to be social…just physically apart) This argument is a straw man. It is two separate issues. We have free will to choose whether we distance or not…and a mask shouldn’t affect that.
- The masks are made in the same country in which the virus originated– Some are, some aren’t. My niece made mine. Don’t blame the mask maker.
- Isolation kills seniors– Absolutely true. That is why we need to defeat this virus and get back to normal with social un-distancing restored. I need a mom hug. 🙁
Here are some from another source:
“It is an enormous deal for compelling reasons that include:
(1) Mandatory mask-wearing has no conclusive scientific basis for such an extreme mandated measure;
(Extreme? There is plenty of evidence that says it helps a lot. Is it perfect? Nope. But it isn’t extreme…and it does help. My colleague’s husband was one of the dozens and dozens who, seemingly 100 years ago, got his haircut at the salon that made national news. All involved tested negative. The mask worked there. It is droplet-based…and the masks held back the droplets.)
(2) OSHA strictly regulates mask-wearing in workplaces, imposing rigid protocols precisely because mask-wearing for prolonged periods has very real, identified dangers associated with such requirements;
(There are real, identified dangers associated with dying of COVID-19 too.)
(3) Mask-wearing for prolonged periods has well-documented negative impacts on health, including reduced oxygen, increased carbon dioxide, adverse skin reactions, and the triggering of latent viruses and/or bacteria otherwise dormant in humans, causing illness;
(Possibly so, but you are not asked to wear it 24/7…mainly just when you are indoors with a crowd or when around folks with the virus. We let people smoke and vape until the cows come home…but we don’t let them smoke around everyone else. If you have to be in a crowd, do it with a mask.)
(4) There is growing concern and recent evidence that reduced oxygen levels awakening dormant viruses are resulting in positive COVID tests because humans have an abundance of other dormant coronaviruses at any given time;
(COVID-19 causes reduced oxygen levels too. It is a devil you know versus a possible devil you don’t know. Don’t wear the mask if you want…just stay away.)
(5) Accumulation of bacteria, viruses, particles, droplets, spittal, dirt, makeup, food, all contributing to trapped pools of contaminants behind masks, and around the gaps and outer edges, that can transfer on;
(Yup. That is why you wash it. Your lederhosen have yucky things too…that doesn’t mean you don’t wear them…)
(6) a false sense of security when near “at-risk” loved ones believe they are protected by their masks;
(Addressed above. Sort of compelling, but still weak. It is still a choice. )
(7) One quarter of one percent lethality is non-compelling justification for healthy people to wear masks to protect others when 99.75 percent of those who contract COVID will not perish and the majority of those who will die from COVID have comorbidity complications;
(Ahhh…I get it. If you have a condition, we should no longer protect you. You are less than a person until you can fight your way out of that state. I see. Thank you Mr. Darwin. At least you are being honest that you think that only the master groups should survive.)
(8) A perverse policy that threatens psychological damage from a constant manufactured message of fear of others, and of the environment, evidenced by an ever-masked population;
(Dying causes people psychological damage too. Parents and grandparents dying does the same. Being afraid of dying is normal and can be mitigated. There is power and peace in the knowledge that you are doing what you have to until this pandemic is over.)
(9) A violation of each individual’s natural right to control his/her own body and the risks that accrue;
(You can argue that there is no right to force someone to wear a mask. I get that one and appreciate it. Do you have the same opinion of the many, many other similar areas? Should we have the right to restrict, say, drinking alcohol while driving? Doing LSD? Walking in public naked? There are limits to natural rights and the founders understood this just fine, thank you. You can yell “FIRE!!!” outside, perhaps at the Grand Canyon to hear the echo, all you want. But if you yell it at a crowded movie theater or a major league baseball game…uhhh…errr…wait, if you tell it at a place with people…you violate their rights.)
(10) The lack of an iron-clad, unambiguous, and uncontroversial justification before any government/health authority is permitted a scintilla of jurisdiction over our livelihoods, our natural rights to live, survive, thrive as a response to any public threat.
(Break this one down a little…and here is the Cliff’s notes: If masks aren’t 100% effective, they strip us of our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Your rights don’t allow for other’s right to be alive to be violated. I can hunt or protect my home with a gun, but I can’t shoot targets on my fence with my neighbor mowing the yard on his side, right? There are limits when my right prevents you from your right.)
And perhaps the best/loudest/most underlyingly common argument available that I have heard NOT to wear a mask:
“Because politician A or talk show host B says it is important to wear a mask to prevent the spread. I hate him or her and whatever he or she says is suspect.”
(Allow me to remind you that Hitler probably gave some neighbor cookies when they moved to his neighborhood. Mother Theresa probably kicked a dog once, perhaps to defend a cat. People can have 99.9999% good/bad things going on…that doesn’t mean everything they do is right/wrong. Heck, as my mom used to say before dementia and now COVID-19 have stripped away her speech, “Even a broken clock is right twice a day”. Hate your politician or celebrity all you want…but make decisions based on fact and not anger or ugliness.)
Note: To Republicans- This one is NOT a hill worth dying on. Mask up. Please.
Summary:
- Just wear the mask. It will be over soon. I know you are sick of it. I am too. I am more sick, though, of friends and family dying from it.
- Wash your mask…
- Wash your hands
- Everyone matters equally. We are all made in the image of God (Imago Dei). We don’t think less of someone with cancer or AIDS and relegate them to less than human. Why would we a dementia patient at a nursing home.
- Masking isn’t perfect. Some will still get the virus. More won’t.
- I know and love many in health care and don’t want them sick or dead either.
- Isolation is killing folks in nursing homes too. That is why we need this to end soon. Let’s do our part and wear the stinking mask.
- The government does bad things. Yup. So do viruses.
- There are a lot of reasons why people don’t want to wear a mask. I get it and appreciate your opinion and I still love you and hope you do still love me…but I am sick of my mom swimming with sharks because of mostly weak arguments.
- We are sick of masks…me included. I am a hypocrite at times and have failed to wear mine 100% of the time…but I am trying.
- Please…just slap the thing on. Make or buy a cute one. Whatever… 😉
#EndALZ
Update: Mom, with remaining sapping of CIVID-19 and end-stage dementia, is sleeping nearly 24/7 these days. Zoom calls are fairly pointless and we cannot go see her until death is nearby…probably sooner than later. 🙁
Want to verify specific nursing home numbers? Here ya go: Link
