If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past 1-1.5 years, I’m sure you’ve had to deal with this coronavirus pandemic that has been affecting the lives of billions of people all over the world. This pandemic has altered many aspects of our life and in order to address this issue, the majority of the certified government organizations have been recommending one important method since the start, which has been proven to halt the spread of the virus. Although a lot of people consider this method useless, the best way to prevent the spread of the pandemic is to wear masks since this method has been proven to be a potential solution for the current situation.
Masks are important during our current situation for endless reasons, but the main reason why certified government organizations recommend it is because it has the ability to prevent the spread of germs through the respiratory system.
According to the University of California, when they “compared the COVID-19 growth rate before and after mask mandates … [they] found that mask mandates led to a slowdown in [the] daily COVID-19 growth rate.”
This shows the impact of masks and why many states agreed with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] to make it a statewide mandate for citizens to wear masks.
“Last August, Vermont was the latest to announce a statewide mandate requiring that all residents wear face masks in any indoor public space, as well as outdoors if they can't adhere to social distancing.” Due to the effectiveness of masks in preventing the spread of COVID-19, it is being used as a method of halting the spread of the virus until everyone around the world is vaccinated, which is hopefully something that will happen in the near future.
Masks also have a long history of preventing multiple disease outbreaks in the past. According to India Bioscience, “the practice of wearing face masks to prevent disease can date back to the 1910-11 Manchurian epidemic in China.” Masks have been proven to prevent the spread of many epidemics in the past, which is why they’re now being used as a method of preventing the spread of the virus in many countries all around the world.
“Since April 27, 2020, face masks have become mandatory for shopping and in public transportation in Germany. In the Netherlands, it became mandatory only for public transportation, from June 1, 2020 onwards.” However, even with such evidence that supports the mask’s effectiveness, some people still find them to be very unnecessary and useless.
There is one theory which states that vaccines can sometimes act like a “crude vaccine.” It prevents virus particles from entering, allowing the immune system to fight off the virus.
According to The New England Journal of Medicine, “the unproven idea inspired by the age-old concept of variation, the exposure to a pathogen to generate a protective immune response.” Masks are very effective in reducing the number of daily coronavirus cases as well as in letting the researchers and scientists who develop the vaccines know that they can take their time in developing the vaccine because besides the vaccine, there’s already another method out there which is being recognized as a way of preventing the spread of the virus. This allows them to not have to rush and develop the vaccine in the most effective way possible. In conclusion, wearing masks is very helpful because it is the best method of slowing the spread of the virus before the vaccines are finally developed.
Whether masks are necessary or not has been a very controversial topic in the recent past. Although many people find masks to be ineffective and reject them, they are very essential in our current circumstances. If people aren’t convinced enough by scientific reasons why masks are effective in slowing the spread of the virus, they should at least understand how helpful they are after finding out that masks have a long history in preventing the spread of multiple diseases and outbreaks. This proves that masks have the ability to aid in our current situation, especially since scientists and researchers are still in the process of developing vaccines. If people are still unable to recognize all the benefits of masks, it won’t just put their own life at risk, but others’ lives can be at stake at the same time. For this reason, masks have been made mandatory in many areas around the world. To all the people out there that find masks unnecessary, even if you don’t see any personal gain in wearing masks, you will at least get the satisfaction that you most likely prevented someone else from contracting the virus if you wear masks and conform to society.
댓글