Doc Smo Rants About Face Masks and More (Pedcast)

  Hold on, you are going to hear me do something that I have never done in my 11 years of podcasting... go on a rant, specifically about Americans and their weirdness inability or unwillingness to accept face masks. We know they are effective; we know that even the most basic of masks will work and yet we can't get our many of our fellow citizens to wear them properly or wear them at all.  Stay tuned because I am about to unload my frustration on you right after this intro. Image by Pixabay Musical Intro America is losing the battle with SARS-CoV-2, largely because our citizens won't follow public health guidelines. I'm sorry to be so blunt but that is the reality. Oh, I am sure there are many reasons for our troubles with Covid-19- a country with a large number of foreign born workers, (a known risk factor for spreading Covid-19), a relatively old and unhealthy population who are very susceptible to adverse experiences with the virus, and a cultural mindset of individualism and independence resistant to being told what to do by government. But let's face it, we are in the middle of a pandemic with a germ that can kill up to 6% of those infected.  Don't we care about that? In my mind, we should be doing everything we can to protect one another and you know what that is... hand hygiene, social distancing, and face coverings. The formula is not mysterious. It is obvious that we are not doing these things otherwise we would be where the Europeans are today- kids back in school, people largely back to work, folks back shopping, and hotels filling up with guests! No, we are struggling with contact tracing, filling up ICU's with horribly sick people struggling to breath, and arguing about our right to do whatever we want. And so many of our young adults in our society bar hopping and partying... don't get me started.   Facemasks Rather than pulling together for the greater good, Americans have used face masks as a weapon to polarize us even more.  Do we not care enough about our fellow citizens to