TO MASK OR NOT TO MASK?

by Sam J Christopher

Strange, that a little palm-sized piece of cloth, can elicit so much social, political and even religious fervour and controversy. Even to the possible toppling of governments!

So.what gives?

Being an avid DIY-er, masks are not alien to me. (I have a few types on the wall in my modest workshop.) And I am well aware of the media-hyped global paranoia over a pandemic that apparently had its origins in China, that great bastion of lofty humanitarian values (not to mention cheap gadgets and fantastic taste in exotic meats).

Slow as I may be, I do get it, that this novel virus is a deadlier variety of the seasonal flu virus. And.that it has rampaged sensationally throughout the length and breadth of the country where I live, on a 4month killing spree leaving in its deadly wake an alarming recovery rate of a mere 98%! Fortunately, WHO, that noble global foundation that consistently looks out for nothing other than my personal good health or the future of humanity, whichever is more useful around this time of the year, reported  that this virus (second only to its evolutionary TB cousin that kills about 1,000,000 people EVERY SINGLE YEAR without so much as a news tag in the mainstream media!) can actually be stopped by masks.

I get that too.

So the mask is to prevent me from catching the dreaded cov19, they say. It's to prevent me from infecting innocent others with covid19, yet others say. And I  thought I did get that too. But then, a recent anecdote of a friend who was required to take an actual cov19 test, triggered the locked-down skeptic in me. 

So, the test involves a 6inch long cotton swab pushed into your preferred nostril. I kid you not. Pushed all the way in, until it has no place to go. Again I kid you not! Any further, and it will probably rip into your brain. Right into that tiny section of your grey matter that alerts you to things that have gone too far, and flashes a signal to your right leg to automatically kick out with all its might. Right between the legs of that white-cloaked male nurse bearing down on your nose. But I digress.

Once there, said swab is twisted around sadistically, accompanied by guttural threats from afore-mentioned male nurse, that should you dare strain or shift in your seat, he will have to withdraw and start all over again. With that same soggy swab! This time down your throat! While another burly male nurse holds you down!

Finally after several miserably long seconds, said swab is withdrawn, trailing yucky stuff laced with traces of  blood. YOUR blood! End.

Now what got my skeptical goat is this: I am told the mask is mandatory, ostensibly because the dastardly covid virus hops around on the droplets that I inadvertently jettison when I cough, speak or even sing hymns in church. Now if that be so, why in heck the need for KGB-type burly chaps, rimming out the depths of people's noses with swabs? Just to grab hold of a few elusive viruses? You gotta be kidding me! 

Hello, if the damn virus is known to be hitching a ride on mouthfuls of droplets of EXHALED AIR, why in heck the need for all this brutal swabbing of people's orifices? All that is required is for me to blow up a hearty lungful of covid-laden phlegm out through my nose, into a Petri dish. And if said Petri dish happens to be held in the palm of afore-mentioned plastic-clad male nurse, I would be most happy to provide a bonus load of covid-laden sputum too, also heartily coughed up with appropriate rude sound effects!

So, where did the science go with the swabs and masks, doc?