Paul W. Smith: Let's put our masks on

“Outta’ my mind on a Monday moanin’”

I’ve said it till I’m blue in the face.

You couldn't see that though, because of my mask, dutifully worn long before I could get much of the medical community to agree it was a good thing to do.

In fact, I was roundly lambasted and told just how wrong I was with my non-scientific 

observation and, frankly, common sense. 

For years I have observed people in Japan wearing masks, not to protect themselves from getting my germs, but thoughtfully to keep me from getting theirs.

Same basic principle in play with COVID-19:

You’re wearing your mask for me, I’m wearing my mask for you, or as actor, singer, writer Jeff Daniels recently put it, “I’m being careful for you. You be careful for me.”

There was a recent article in Forbes by a Calvin Mackie quoting medical professionals who said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that if there was universal masking for 28 days (two cycles of the incubation period of SARS-CoV-2) we could pretty much wipe out COVID-19. But think of this, without us acting like the fine hosts we are, the virus is dead. It literally can’t survive without us. The question of whether or not to wear a mask is not a sensible one. 

Unfortunately, early on, everything related to our current pandemic became politicized. 

Wearing or not wearing a mask now seems to indicate who we are voting for (or against) for president. 

Again, I go back to a medical opinion, this one from Dr. Sigmund Freud (with my creative license and apologies): “Sometimes a mask is just a mask.”

Paul W. Smith is host of “The Paul W. Smith Show” on WJR-AM (760) from 5:30-9 a.m. Monday-Friday.