I first gave my thoughts about the value and reasonableness of masks in the face of the Covid epidemic about a year ago. It’s time to revisit this issue as one inaccurate and one inappropriate excuse for failing to get vaccinated still persist.

The inaccurate excuse is that masks are not effective in diminishing the amount of virus that is exhaled by an infected person. Wrong. The reason my surgeon peers have been wearing masks during surgery for more than a century is that it has been shown both experimentally and by clinical experience that masks effectively filter the exhaled mucous that is the transport vehicle for bacteria and viri and diminish the frequency of postoperative infections. They work and if universally worn the pandemic would be less severe.

The inappropriate reason is the notion that mask mandates don’t respect individual liberties. Here the social contract comes into play. Society has a number of rules/mandates/laws that value the greater population over the individual. We have all agreed to follow them for our own protection, our families, and our fellow Americans. A few are the requirements to stop at red lights when driving, to wear a seat belt in our cars and to refrain from smoking cigarettes inside most buildings. These “mandates” protect us all while avoiding anarchy. As I read in an editorial today, the Constitution begins, “We the people…,” not, “I the person…”

Of course, there are the conspiracy theories that only stick to the gullible. This includes the ideas that the vaccines make men sterile and that Bill Gates has inserted some sort of computer chip in the vaccines. It’s not worth addressing these as the conspiracy theorists are locked in their misguided beliefs; problem is that they are dangerous to others.