Why I mask*

Disability, racial and social justice

Disabled people deserve to participate in public life fully and safely. By wearing a mask, I can make these spaces safer and do not treat their lives as disposable.

As adverse impacts from COVID19 also disproportionally impacts Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour it is important for me to continue masking for their safety.

Similarly, women and 2SLGBTQIA+ folks are more likely to develop complications after COVID19 and so continuing to wear a mask and reduce spread of this disease will hopefully break the chain of infection for these groups and all other people as well.

COVID19 is not mild

COVID19 is a mass disabling disease that spreads through the air and is vascular meaning it can infect various organs through the bloodstream. The vaccine does not eliminate the risk of complications or Long COVID, and repeat infections increase the likelihood of long term complications.

In fact, Long COVID represents an ongoing threat that the majority of us may develop within our lifetimes if we carry on without taking precautions such as improving indoor air quality and wearing masks. Again, COVID is a threat regardless of vaccination status.

This is harm reduction

Masks work at reducing the spread of COVID19 and the more people who wear a mask, the greater the impact of this reduction and the safer we all are. A really effective breakdown of how this works is available in this explorable essay by Aatish Bhatia and Minute Physics.

If you believe in caring for your community and the people around you, wearing a mask is a simple and effective way to do that.

You might be at risk and not even know after your COVID19 infection.

COVID19 has been linked to an increased risk of autoimmune disease post infection

"Underlying conditions" is frequently used to dismiss and normalize any death due to a COVID-19 infection, but the reality is the list of conditions is long and varied.

Every death comes with the underlying condition: failure of our society to keep one another safe, regardless of the individual's health status.

We must acknowledge the problems in our world if we're going to fix them.

Combatting denial and continuing to pay attention is how I am processing my grief around this pandemic.

The pandemic has been traumatic, and I understand why everyone would like to move on but to tackle the struggles ahead we must stay the course of reality.

Personally, I have been most disappointed by the reaction of fellow "progressive" folks and organizations in terms of their eagerness to "return to normal" as we accept mass death imposed on us by our governments.

We don't know when we'll get the next pandemic.

& I don't want to live in fear.

As I work on the first version of this zine, H5N1 is circulating amongst American dairy cows and frequently infecting human dairy workers. While this situation is not yet a general risk to the public, continued virus circulation means increased evolution and potentially increased risk. This is also something we're seeing with the continued circulation of COVID19