To Mask or Not To Mask? Whose Rights Are We Talking About? ...................... Claire W. Stanard

Yesterday, I took a risk and ventured out to Trader Joe’s for groceries. Initially, I was impressed by their safety efforts – only about 30 shoppers allowed inside, waiting in line 6 ft. apart outside, workers cleaning carts, with greeters squirting hand sanitizer as one entered.  Donning my gloves and mask, I felt fairly secure when it was my chance to go in. But clearly, my rights to be shielded from others’ sneezes, coughs, droplets, and assymptomatic virus carrying was negated by one statuesque, forty-five year old couple flaunting their mask-less mugs. As these partners in Coronavirus crime floated arrogantly through the grocery store, the other 28 mask wearing customers, along with 20 equally adorned employees, cringed at the harmful aerosol sprays exiting the loud talking mouths of these potential spreaders. Our masked attempts to protect each other were rendered totally useless by this one couple.

While six of us expressed our concerns to management regarding requiring masks to shop in the store while lacking any enforcement, we were admonished, “Trader Joe’s believes it is the customer’s right not to wear a mask, and we are not policemen.” Really? Their individual ‘rights’ to irresponsibly refuse to wear masks are more important than our collective health? So, is it the customer’s right to smoke inside the store and put my lungs at risk?  Is it the customer’s right to brandish a gun in the store if there is a sign out front saying no guns allowed?  Is it the customer’s right to come into the store screaming obscenities and disturbing the peace?  Most stores have established protocols which customers must follow, and employees rarely have any issue with enforcing them. Policing only occurs when the customer refuses to comply, so management has the right to then call in re-enforcements.

The real issue is what constitutes ‘rights?’ People seem to forget that the purpose of our tax funded government is to provide services and protections for the health, safety, and welfare of the general public, while respecting individual rights. As citizens of a communal society, we also have a civic duty to not knowingly put others at risk of harm. Along with retaining our personal rights, seatbelts must be worn in cars; drinking and driving is no longer allowed; vaccination records are required before entering schools; drivers’ licenses are mandatory; and our bodies and bags must pass through metal detectors in order to fly the skies. There is an unspoken understanding that some invasion of individual rights will be inevitable in order to maintain and protect civil society. Not too long ago, someone who spit on another person while having the AIDS virus was considered a criminal act. Polio, tuberculosis, and Ebola taught society the importance of quarantines and protecting others from contagions in public spaces. 

In a country with almost 1.5 million confirmed cases of Covid19 and over 100,000 deaths, where the CDC has established that the wearing of a mask indoors protects others from the spreading of your potentially microbe infected mucus, how are your rights being violated in being required to wear one?   Aren’t you violating the rights of the other 48 people in Trader Joe’s in not abiding by CDC precaution guidelines and thus jeopardizing their health?  For what?  To exercise your freedom or to demonstrate you’re too macho to wear a mask?  If we all decided to exercise our individual rights by refusing to stop at traffic signals any longer, what would be the result? The greater good of containing this virus is ultimately more important than the irrelevant protest over the minor inconvenience of being required to wear a mask in public indoor venues. The mask isn’t to protect the wearer, but is worn to protect others from you. A small sacrifice of one individual’s rights, in order to create a safer community environment for all.