Masking up again?

If you read this paper with any regularity, you probably know my relationship with the coronavirus.

In early 2020, when COVID-19 was just something us folks here in Arkansas were just reading about, I was, like many of you, pretty unconcerned. I even wrote a column with the title of something like “No, we’re not all going to die.” I really thought it would be no more serious than your typical flu season.

Well, it turns out that even your typical flu season can be pretty bad, and it also turns out that I was wrong. By March or April, when everything started shutting down I realized just how serious it was. And by May, I was well into masking up, social distancing and shetlering in place.

We were all told that the key to ending this whole mess was a vaccine, and months later, we got not one but three! So, of course, the frontline folks got theirs. Then the atrisk folks. Then it finally trickled down to the general public… and many of those in the general public simply did not get the vaccine.

I won’t get into that whole debate, but it got political and then it got even dumber, and now to the shock of no one who is paying the least bit of attention, we’re back to people getting sick and people dying just so some other people can… what? Prove that there ain’t no government gonna tell them what to do? Shameful.

So, now we’re starting to see the push for masks again. I hate, hate, hate wearing masks. But, like the good little sheep I am (apparently), I will do my part and mask up to save lives. It’s the least I can do (and you can too).