The Maskless Wonders

Now that our chief executives and their spouses have demonstrated the hygienic value of wearing masks by spurning them, we can meditate about the symbolism of the “Maskless Wonders.” Both President Donald Trump and his wife, as well as Governor Mike Parsons (Missouri) and his wife have contracted the coronavirus within the past ten days. Whether they are severely stricken is not a political matter.  My prayer is that they are spared severe symptoms.

What matters is how their contempt for wearing masks has affected our neglect of this precaution. We know that a public model matters, because the President’s example has spawned national resistance to wearing masks as a precaution against covid. In Missouri we have had vocal protests from citizens of hard-hit Jefferson County, declaring it was a personal freedom to shun masks and brandishing signs stating that Hitler would have dictated such requirements. Apparently it is a kind of free expression to go maskless.

Two weeks ago, the director of CDC emphatically endorsed the use of masks in direct contradiction of the President:

We have clear scientific evidence they work, and they are our best defense,” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said. “I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against Covid than when I take a Covid vaccine. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/16/cdc-director-says-face-masks-may-provide-more-protection-than-coronavirus-vaccine-.html

The director held a mask up as he testified before Congress, and the reference to the vaccine was an unmistakeable rebuke of the President. He made the most authoritative and unequivocal warning of the need for masks we had received to date. It should have been enough to convict everyone of the need to wear masks in public, but the President and the resisters have remained obdurate. It has become a point of pride among certain citizens, but as the Book of Proverbs (16:18) tells us:

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall (KJV).

This is no time for politicizing a dangerous virus or a false heroism.  Mask-wearing must become the standard of good hygiene, if it is not to become law.  Bravado can be fatal. Pride goes before a fall.

Masks are precautionary and patriotic.

God save the maskless wonders and make us all  masked heroes.