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Editor's Note: Catherine Pearlman is a clinical social worker, associate professor at Brandman University and author of Ignore It !: How Selectively Looking the Other Way Can Decrease Behavioral Problems and Increase Parenting Satisfaction. The opinions expressed in this comment are yours. See more opinions at CNNE.com/opinion
(CNN) - Take a walk, visit any open establishment or public space and you will notice a puzzling phenomenon: people without masks.
There is a pandemic. Tens of thousands of Americans are dead from covid-19, a disease that spreads in droplets that are expelled by infected humans, even when they speak or cough and show symptoms or not.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that everyone wear a cloth that covers the face in public, especially when there is a high degree of community transmission (that is, when the source of infection is unknown). I live in California, where almost 60,000 people have been infected. Nationwide, 1.2 million Americans have tested positive for covid-19, more than 73,000 people have died, and the projections for the future (another peak of infections in the fall?) Are really bleak.
Meanwhile, hospitals and their workers are forced to care for the sick, and medical staff work weeks without days off to treat those affected, risking their own lives and those of their families. And yet, many people refuse to take warnings seriously to protect themselves and others by wearing a mask in public.
It is difficult to determine how many of us are clueless and careless, perhaps half of those who leave? One third? Any other fraction? In any case it is too large a number.
Lack of empathy is irritating. We need a change.
We need our leaders, all of them, to deliver the message loud and clear. If you are away from the closed system in your home, the message should be to wear a mask. That also means that employers demand that workers of all kinds mask themselves. Do you want the spread of the disease to decrease? Do they want business and the economy to finally recover or not?
Masks of any kind are not perfect barriers to infection. Wearing one does not offer complete protection and should not be considered a safe and foolproof way to interact. But experts report that using it helps protect against transmission from asymptomatic carriers. And note that the data shows, according to Robert Redfield, CDC director appointed by President Donald Trump, that probably one in four people infected with covid-19 is asymptomatic and unaware of their infection.
Be prudent, be kind. One might think that the government's response to the virus is an overreaction and still wear a mask, just in case it could infect someone. Thats the reality.
Wearing a mask is cumbersome. It is hot and uncomfortable. But it can save lives and ease the burden of those doctors and nurses facing indescribable pain and suffering on the front lines.
Making personal sacrifices for the public good has not always been an American priority. We are an individualistic culture, and by nature we may find it more difficult to empathize with others when we feel that our own freedom and rights are at stake. There is a resistance to allowing the government or anyone else to step in and demand, or even strongly urge, Americans to cover their faces.
But surely we can all understand that sometimes there are regulations to protect people from themselves or to avoid suffering in the community. We require drivers to wear seat belts to protect passengers and minimize the possibility of serious injury (those injuries not only affect the driver, but also emergency room workers and even taxpayers who fund disability grants and unemployment).
Laws require that children be vaccinated, not only for the good of the child but to maintain immunity at the collective level. We do not have a vaccine against covid-19. But we can all help until we have it: we know about masks.
In the early 1990s, she was a social work intern at the HIV / AIDS unit at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. AIDS was still a death sentence, and each worker and visitor took "universal precautions" to avoid transmission of the virus. The prevailing wisdom at the time and now indicates that when it is impossible to assess whether someone may be infected, you should wear gloves and masks. We protected ourselves. Yes, wearing gloves was uncomfortable. So was getting HIV.
Where are our universal precautions for the covid-19?
Wearing a mask in public is an act of respect for other humans. This is the kind of empathy that I try to teach my children. Our children observe adults during this pandemic and learn many lessons, intended and unintended.
I want my children to understand that being slightly uncomfortable to achieve a greater good is not only correct, it is a moral imperative. It is how we manage to live together in relative safety in our society.
It's obvious. Wear the damn mask.
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