As I began to process about a year ago, the mask had become the symbol to me of what this pandemic could do to our mental health. As I engage in conversation with those who mean a lot to me and even strangers, I realize it has very little to do with the actual mask, but what it has come to represent.
I understand the reasoning behind the mask for those who believe this is a health crisis. I believe in the idea that the droplets are blocked when the person wearing it speaks and that this alone can help stop the spread. I understand that wearing one makes others who are nervous about getting ill for any reason feel more secure. I get that it is a simple thing to do and refusing seems futile and selfish. I see this and I care!
Still, for how long does protect and respect outweigh all other parts of our lives, of our personhood?
The first question I have is: How long?
How much longer are we willing to not see the smile of a friend out in public? Wearing them in a grocery store for eternity may not be that big of a deal, but classrooms, workplaces, eight hour workshifts??? All without smiles or fresh air? For years on end?
I worry about what this is doing to the children. They are resilient, but still the idea that we cannot share air with other people or much less a snack, really scares me. It is becoming part of their being, one I personally am not willing to teach.
And lastly, does blocking all these germs really serve us in the long run? Don't our immune system need the bacteria, the viruses? All that stuff that exists in dirt, our gut and the exchange between the two. Clearly I am no doctor nor immunologist, but that doesn't mean I don't understand a bit about my own body. There is research pointing to those who garden, have a pet, etc... being healthier. Does that no longer matter? How long can our bodies take this? How long can our hearts and minds?
What has terrified me even more than the mask though, so much that I can barely write these words without shaking, is social distancing. From the very beginning, I was in shock that we would ever even consider stop visiting loved ones, stop hugging loved ones, see people through glass only. That our society went from publishing stories about the 20 second or longer hug benefitting our brain chemicals to hug people only for a few seconds and hold your breath if you dare to get that close at all. I hugged a friend in line at a store recently and could feel the glare of those around me. It is unacceptable to show physical affection. That all the benefits of touch for our mental health could have been abandoned and so quickly and for so long leaves me in a state of complete shock. We are letting our loved ones die alone! We are allowing that. I feel like everything in me is screaming, "NO!" I could feel the lack of touch through every inch of my body those first few months until my life resumed some relative normalcy. I still have not seen friends since this began and I certainly have not hugged them. This by their choice alone. I feel like I have been deserted by them and while intellectually I know they are doing what they feel is right and good, it is so difficult for me to understand how anyone could stop touching people for over a year.
Therefore, the second question is: What about our mental health?
This seems to have been so blantantly abandoned and not discussed as if it is even remotely a factor by politicians and policy makers and therefore by institutions trying to follow the rules. I live at a boarding school where students are required to quaratine for 14 days on end in their rooms with no interaction and 15-60 minutes of outside time a day every time someone tests positive or when returning to campus. Even prisoners get more than that, right? My family and friends cannot visit me without having quaratines forced on them when they return by workplaces and daycares to which they cannot afford the vacation and then another two weeks unpaid and without childcare.
And I hope it goes without saying that replacing connection, work, and school with something on a screen is a huge mistake! Just because we can does not mean we should.
The third question I have is: What about the environment? We certainly saw air quality improve those first few months and saw first hand how destructive humans can be on the planet, but what did we learn from that? Did we replace our cars with bikes? Did anyone actually make any lifestye changes they were not forced to make? Did we go right back to life as mormal with all the free time we have from no longer having concerts, sports, etc... And as far as single use goes, we have turned the clock back decades. We went from banning plastic bags in our state and straws in our county to no longer allowing resuable grocery bags in our stores and having medical masks litter the grounds at our national parks. I won't even mention the take out food containers. All the steps I had taken in my life to reduce my consumption from bringing my own cups to places like smoothie and coffee shops and my own to go containers from take out and leftovers, are no longer allowed. How long will it take before we can make eco-friendly choices in our own lives again?
My final question is: What about the next virus? Covid 19 is a strain of coronavirus, coronavirus itself is nothing new. Several viruses over the past decade have been strong and concerning to public health, but this one topped them all. So what about the next strain of coronavirus? The flu vaccine strain is guessed upon each year and its efficacy varies between 15%-40%. How can we not expect the same from the covid vaccine? In addtion, why are viruses getting stronger? Is that a question we can address on a national level please? Antibacterial soaps, over prescribed antibiotics, do these not make virsus and bacterias stronger? In addition, there still seems to be questions remaining about whether this virus was man made or came from a bat. Do we really know with certainty? Maybe this one was not, but does that mean we can make deadly viruses in labs? Is that an actual possibility? Seems to me we should be making policies banning that kind of research, not policies that force emergency approved vaccines on the masses.
Speaking of vaccines, why has herd immunity become a conspiracy theory. The WHO changed their definition of herd immunity during this crisus to say it can only be achieved through vaccination. Why? Stuff like this makes it hard to trust leading health organizations and certainly the politicians that rely on them.
I have so many more questions and issues with the handling of our world over the past year, but these remain the big ones. These are the questions noone really has the answers too and yet we are not allowed to decide for ourselves how to live because safety (and by that I mean physical safety) is not the top priority, it is the only prioirty. Our mental and economic health cannot take a back seat to our physical health without dire consequences.
