By John Estridge
For disclaimer purposes let me get this out front: I struggled in high school chemistry to get a C+.
When I took the introductory chemistry course in college, I got an A.
The difference was where I was sitting. In high school, I sat by my friends who remained as clueless as myself during that semester. But, in college, I sat by a very pretty coed. While the coed would not give me the time of day, and let me tell you that was one of several unanswered questions I asked her during that semester, she did allow me to copy off her. And every now and then she would let a smile slip at some wisecrack I made about our strange professor.
Both incidents happened in very ancient history because I am old.
Due to the lack of academic strictures during that time, I was not forced to take biology at any point. I am still thankful for that.
While my knowledge of science is probably among the 5 percent of those in the world tabulated as being extremely science challenged, I want to weigh in on wearing masks as I believe my lack of knowledge about the situation puts me firmly among the majority.
As I do when I know nothing of what I am talking about, I Googled the size of a virus. That took me to book.bionumbers.org. And I don’t understand anything in the information printed on that site except the articles: a, an, the, etc.
An in-law, who I enjoy talking to, said viruses are very small so let’s go with that. He was talking about masks. He also said the voids in a typical cloth mask are very huge when compared to the size of viruses. For my benefit, I am sure, because of the look on my face, which may be perpetual, he held his finger and his thumb very close together as people do when showing how small something is. And I gather viruses are even smaller than that. And when he talked about the voids in masks, he held is finger and thumb farther apart, and I got the feeling, again, the voids are really smaller than that.
However, I think I understood what he was talking about, but maybe my face did not correspond my understanding as he tried again to put it into something I could relate to.
He said it is like putting up a barbed-wire fence to keep mosquitoes out of an area. I nodded and smiled at that simile.
A few decades ago I spent an afternoon on a walking tour of Brookville, and it became one of my favorite memories. One of Brookville’s doctors at the time, Dr. Elmer Peters, headed up the walking tour of Brookville. It was historical in nature. Somebody videotaped it. I audio taped it and then wrote an article about it. Dr. Peters was very knowledgeable and was able to relate stories and anecdotes in a very interesting manner.
One of his stories during that day, which really stuck with myself, concerned two doctors in Brookville who labored during the Spanish flu epidemic/pandemic that hit during the late 1910s. Dr. Peters said there was no medicine to help people who were inflicted with that virus. Unlike the COVID-19, which is seemingly harder on those, like myself, who sport gray hair or in my case, gray wisps around a bald pate, unfortunately, the Spanish flu did not spare any age group.
Doctors at that time, more often than not, made house calls. The two doctors found, even though there was no medicine to help families inflicted with the terrible disease, residents expected the doctors to have medicine and leave it with them. So, they made a cough syrup-like substance that was mostly water, but some of the liquid was colored green and some red. They made it taste mediciney. And they started leaving bottles of the innocuous stuff with the families they visited.
And it seemed to help. Dr. Peters briefly explained the placebo effect and said hope is one of the great weapons against things that occur like the Spanish flu.
And that brings me back to masks and the size of viruses.
Personally, I don’t like to wear masks although it might help ease my looks a bit to others having to look at me. However, with my current job, I must wear a mask when I deal with the public, and I am OK with that. If my coworkers feel better with me wearing a mask when I am around them, again, that is OK. Also, there are places, like Menards, where masks are mandatory. I will follow the rules in those instances, too.
But if people think a cloth mask will protect others from the mask-wearing person or vice versa, well, I go back to the barbed wire and mosquitoes analogy as well as Dr. Peters’ story from another, seemingly scarier pandemic.
Also, remember to use hand sanitizer and wash those hands.