I plan to continue to wear a mask in all public indoor spaces, not just because I care about others, but because I care about my own health too. Both my short and long term health. So I don’t want to catch covid. I certainly don’t want to catch it multiple times. No thank you.

The “we’re all going to catch it eventually” mindset doesn’t really make sense to me as a reason to throw in the towel since even if I catch it, immunity isn’t durable and there’s no evidence that we’re only risking long covid, clotting issues, lung damage etc the first time.

Not only do we roll the dice with each infection, but what if the damage from repeated infections is cumulative? I haven’t seen any evidence that multiple covid infections is a safe long term plan. Did I miss that study? Or am I in it? Bc in that case I choose the control group.

I realized there’s something important the powers that be don’t get. Humans have a strong sense of self-preservation. Govts don’t understand why so many aren’t going back to their old habits even though everything is open. They now think it’s bc “masks remind us of the pandemic.”

No. It’s not bc masks remind us that we’re in a pandemic. It’s bc *we’re actually in a pandemic*. And we’ll still be very aware of that with or without mask mandates. And for many of us, our sense of self-preservation and desire to protect people we care about is very strong.

So if the government wants to see me out and about maskless like it’s 2019, then make it safe for me to do that. Contain the virus. Otherwise, I’ll to continue to choose my health and the health of my family over most other things until science comes through for us. I can wait.