After last week’s column on masking in mostly empty office spaces, Etiquetteer learned from readers that there’s a lot of impatience out there: impatience with the unmasked, and impatience with those who insist on masking:
Dear Etiquetteer:
So, just to be clear, shouting “PUT ON YOUR [expletive deleted] MASK YOU SELFISH [expletive deleted]!” would not be perfectly proper, even after a year of this nonsense? My patience level is at an absolute minimum with this.
Dear Frustrated in Chicago:
Now you know very well that shouting and profanity are not going to improve this situation. Etiquetteer has written before about whether or not profanity is necessary. Sometimes it is; more often it obscures the message. You may want to think about traveling with a pack of extra masks, so you can offer them to the Maskless. Then the Maskless might consider that they should consider others.
Dear Etiquetteer:
Apparently Karen does not know the meaning of the word OR. It is wear a mask OR keep six feet apart.
Dear Impatient:
Your message prompted Etiquetteer to refer back to the CDC guidelines about How to Protect Yourself & Others to get the facts. They are presented as a list, without conjunctions. In the absence of either AND or OR, Etiquetteer believes AND is more consistent with the advice cited by Dr. Al-Sayed: “Wash up, mask up, back up, vax up.”
Your response also made Etiquetteer think of something Dear Mother (may she rest in peace) used to say: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The long-term effects of COVID-19 are still being researched; we already know it can “damage the heart, lungs, and brain, which increases the risk of long-term health problems.” It’s understandable why people are anxious about contracting the virus. Your own apparent frustrations with these new complications to daily life are also understandable. You are not alone. Dear Mother also used to say “This is an opportunity to practice patience.” Etiquetteer wants to appeal to you in the kindest way possible to look with compassion on those who walk more anxiously in the shadow of COVID-19 than you.
Dear Etiquetteer:
I do wear a mask when in the corridors at the office, though I only see another human being in the building about once a week or less. When I do see another person, and generally they are not wearing a mask, we are so happy to actually see another person in the flesh that we don't mention mask status.
Dear Masked:
Many of us are missing in-person social interaction, Etiquetteer included. Reading your response was so refreshing! You would still be within your rights, however, to offer them an extra mask.
Etiquetteer would like to leave you all with the words of David Leonhardt from his piece “Irrational Covid Fears” in the New York Times (with thanks to the friend who pointed it out): “It’s true that experts believe vaccinated people should still sometimes wear a mask, partly because it’s a modest inconvenience that further reduces a tiny risk — and mostly because it contributes to a culture of mask wearing. It is the decent thing to do when most people still aren’t vaccinated. If you’re vaccinated, a mask is more of a symbol of solidarity than anything else.”