To mask, or not to mask?

It's been a few days. That's a good thing, I think. Things aren't moving so fast.

The news lately is whether we should all be wearing masks in public or not. For me, it is mostly a moot point, as I've not interacted face-to-face with any non-household humans since March 20th. I take a daily dog walk where I stay far from everyone else and that's about it. We plan to pick up groceries tomorrow, which I suppose would be a time to put mask wearing into practice.

So we've heard that we should wear masks in public as a prevention measure. Not fancy N95 masks. Not full personal protective equipment (PPE). Nope, the recommendation is to leave those for the professionals and craft our own using fabric, bandanas, even wrapping scarves around our faces.

Want to know how a scarf will protect you out in the world? To be honest, that's not the point. If you are touching things and interacting with potentially infected humans/surfaces then a mask isn't going to do much. Want to lower your risk? Stay the fuck home.

We should wear masks because we might be the problem, We might be infectious and not yet sick, we may be infectious and never get sick. The mask is to protect other people from us. You wear a mask and any virus you're breathing out is less likely to get out there into the world.

So, yeah, I'm coming around to the idea that masks are valuable and we should not feel afraid to implement them when we have to leave our homes or interact with other people. However thinking that face masks will save you from infection is incorrect.

Should I go out masked to model the behavior? I have been pretty isolated so I know my risk is low. It feels overblown still, but so did the other measures - until they suddenly weren't enough.