Mask, don’t mask, but be careful

There’s no one on this great green Earth who isn’t sick of the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus outbreak.

A year ago this week, less than a month after the first vaccine doses went out, only 3,570 people had been vaccinated and there was a gold rush for the vaccine.

A year later, that figure is not far from the difference between the number of people who have initiated the two-shot process and those who’ve completed it which was 26,582 as of late last week.

People are still being hospitalized by the virus and are still ending up in intensive care. 

The reluctance by a pretty big segment of the population to be vaccinated is a mystery. Coming up with a vaccine for the coronavirus during 2020 was one of the Trump administration’s greatest achievements.

And yet even with the endorsement of President Trump there’s still a significant portion of the population that distrusts the vaccine.

It’s true that being vaccinated isn’t a guarantee against catching the virus. It’s true that you can wear a mask and social distance and get sick. But the virus isn’t magic. It follows well-understood rules. 

The purpose of a mask isn’t to protect the person wearing it from others, but others from the wearer. At some point over the last two years, the understanding of how a mask works has shifted. No one wants people to think they have germs, though that’s a reality of life.

The reason surgeons wear masks is to keep their germs from infecting a patient, not necessarily to protect themselves from the patient. 

With governors in both New York and California letting some mask mandates lapse, it’s only a matter of time before Nevada follows suit. We know the mask debate is as much a political as a medical issue. 

We just ask that people understand that sometimes wearing or eschewing masks isn’t necessarily a political statement. 

On Wednesday, Douglas County started distributing coronavirus tests to residents and we encourage people to participate.

We hear those tests are flying off the shelves, and that’s a good thing. 

Test often and stay well.