Usually the end of October brings parents out to purchase Halloween costumes and masks for a big night of trick or treating. This year things may change. Masks seem to be out of favor with many Mississippians. I will reveal my bias about masks. I wear one and even use hand sanitizer! My personal research on masks versus no masks consists of my limited visits to the grocery store and a big box chain store in my community. Over the past two weeks I have seen a steady decline in the use of masks by adults. According to the Mississippi Department of Health, fewer Mississippians are wearing masks and officials worry this may be related to a spike in confirmed Coronavirus cases over the past three weeks.
During almost daily press conferences by Governor Tate Reeves, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, State Health Officer emphatically requests that all citizens practice social distancing and wear a facial mask. He has even remarked “my head is sore from banging it on the wall-wear a mask, social distance, don’t do mass gatherings..”
The results of a national survey released June 18 by Care.com which polled parents as to their child care plans and concerns indicates 63% of families are uncomfortable placing their children in day care as states reopen, and nearly half are more concerned about the cost of child care than they were pre-pandemic. Only 7% of parents surveyed feel it is safe to return to a normal routine now, while a 52% majority don’t anticipate a return to normalcy until next year or until a vaccine is developed. This is where it gets tricky. How many parents are choosing not to wear a mask in public, but are concerned about sending their child to child care when they return to work or school?
I am a child of the pre-Jonas Salk polio vaccine days which was before the Sabin polio sugar cube vaccine. When I was three years old, our neighbor was diagnosed with polio and placed in an iron lung to enable her to breathe. No one knew how polio was spread and there was a very embryonic scientific community in the early 1950s as compared to the one of 2020. All people knew to do was to give children shots of gamma globulin, which contained massive doses of antibodies, and wait on the vaccine. The shots hurt and were administered often, but parents felt the responsibility of protecting their children’s health. My parents traveled 12 miles one way to take my brother and me to the doctor so we could receive the shots. Our neighbor recovered, and while she was never able to walk again, had an active life as a mother and wife using crutches and a wheel chair to care for her family.
Today we are waiting on a vaccine. Doctors repeatedly tell us wearing a mask and social distancing reduces the spread of the virus. We know children can get sick and transmit the virus to adults while not appearing to be sick. Why are parents, the major protectors of their children, choosing to put themselves and their families at risk of dying? They don’t believe the mask works. The mask is hot. The mask is some sort of political statement. The mask will save my life. The mask will save my child’s life and those of my parents and extended family members. So which is it? As I said, Halloween will probably be a bummer this year.
by Dr. Cathy Grace