As of Nov. 8, just less than 40 days since we were asked to wear our masks in all indoor public places, we are being given the OK to not wear the mask. Yes, any and all businesses may make their own rules as to public having to wear face masks in their place of business. Having to deal with angry mask haters, non-vaccinators, just plain idiots, will thrill us all as we head out to shop and visit for the holidays.
It’s not fun to be in a store when an unmasked individual arrives to fight it out with whoever they can round up to berate, about all “your stupid rules.” It is very difficult to maintain a mask rule when your city doesn’t support you. We are now honoring those who won’t follow simple rules of a society trying to function during a pandemic, we are, just trying to avoid violence. BTW, it’ll be harder to handle feeding the masses during the holidays without a mask order in place.
Once the mask order goes, so goes common sense, as I saw for myself the last time we were mask free. Due to the “private nature” of COVID status, as they call it, people believe they don’t need to wear a mask while unvaccinated and that is their freedom. It is not. This is a public health matter, not a choice of religion, political or any other of the choices we are free to make. This, once again, is not about you. It’s about all of us.
The unvaccinated have just been given permission, by our Mayor, with advice from the Health Department. and Board of Health to be mask free and unvaccinated and not bound by any moral compass or direction to care about the rest of us. We cannot make people kind and caring but we sure as heck can keep them covered up! It’s easy to see a large population of people in our country and community have somehow walled themselves off from the rest of us. If they don’t look at us, they don’t see us, they live in their own world of their own making, they cannot possibly be harming us, could they? They are and will continue to do so under the guise of freedom. And privilege.
It occurs to me that the mayor and boards of Greenfield have fallen victim to the peer pressure of Trumpism. Not good for leadership and not a wonder why our town can be so divided on so many issues. I have friends and family who are not receiving the booster as they are “done with the shots.” This means our embarrassing number of 64% vaccinated will drop even further down and how will we even know or keep track of this number?
When those people don’t vaccinate their kids, well, one can see how this can escalate, especially in cold winter months. If one is 80 years old or 60 years old, and not receiving a booster, your immunity has waned or is completely gone. If you’ve had COVID, you are still not immune.
Greenfield was on a roll. We were all very used to wearing the mask. It was becoming, as it needs to be, a habit of good health. Masks serve as a reminder, all the time, of what we need to be aware of. The longer we do it, the more familiar it becomes. Less of a stressor. We upped our vaccine number by 8% in just a few weeks and now it’s stalled again.
With the mask order lifted, it’ll stagnate. Stuck at 64% is not enough to prevent another variant from surfacing and or having a sickly winter with more COVID cases. Many of our elders are not boosted yet as it takes time, their kids often bring them and need time to do that, doctor’s offices are just getting vaccines in their offices, they are also receiving pneumonia flu and shingles vaccines so it takes a bit of time between shots for many folks. There is a bit of shot fatigue happening and we needed more time. We deserved more time.
A possible solution and positive motivator for our community might be to consider lifting the mask requirement once we’ve met a reachable goal, say 80% or 85% fully vaccinated. Keep it on the front page, have Recorder stay on top of the numbers and report back to the public and of course, update the websites, shout it from the rooftops every time that vax number moves up even just one percent.
We’d have something to collectively work toward, it might get people talking rather than clamming up about their fears of vaccination. 80% is not the number needed to get the job done but it’s a start. This is not our only vaccine for COVID. More boosters may and probably will be needed, new variants could appear, we really don’t know. Till then, I’ll be in my mask.
Ellen Villani lives in Greenfield.