I recently had the opportunity to watch a brief video of a doc from Door County Medical center explain the spread of Covid. The interesting thing about Covid is that the amount (dose) of the virus you are exposed-can determine whether or not you become critically ill, mildly sick or are asymptomatic.
This makes sense – because a healthy individual can fight-off a slight exposure without developing any outward symptoms of disease (and also trigger an immune response). Exposure to a very high dose of the virus might result in a dangerously serious outcome. Of course there is a range of responses in between.
Because the spread of Covid is dose-dependent this is the argument for social distancing, avoiding crowds, washing your hands and wearing a mask.
Masking is not government overreach and it is shameful to have been politicized. The use of a mask reduces the dose an infected person might spread and an uninfected person might receive. While it is not 100% guaranteed effective – it does reduce the odds of higher dose exposure.
Of course, individual differences have to be accounted-for. Outcomes may vary for individuals that are elderly, are medically fragile or have a compromised immune system. For some individuals even a small dose can result in a seriously bad outcome.
Until a sufficiently large-enough number of the population is vaccinated and we attain herd immunity - do the right thing – wear a mask when you cannot appropriately distance.
Suck it up people.
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