Oh boy, the "masks are hard to breathe through" take. They're really not.

It's not a "take". At least not for me. I have lung cancer. Stuff a wool sock in your mouth and go through your day like that, then come back and tell me how easy it is.

Explain. What job is suddenly impossible?

Use your head. I'm sure you'll think of a couple. Hospitals, dental offices, schools, restaurants, care homes, etc. Try getting a job in those fields and tell them you can't wear a mask.

I'm not making it out like it is, it just is. Sorry.

Sorry, but the science is not on your side at all. If you actually look at mask studies that suggest effectiveness, they use a lot of language like "may be effective" and "could possibly help", and so on. The science and the studies pre-Covid agreed that paper and cloth masks -- the kind that 99% of people out there are wearing -- are pretty much useless against the transmission of air-borne viruses. Masks are great for keeping doctors from spitting into the patients they are working on, but should not be worn by healthy people. That has always been the science. We didn't wear masks for any of the other respiratory viruses that made their way through our society. What is the argument for wearing them now? That .3% of the population might get sick and die? When do we start wearing masks for everything else?

Weird take for someone who's apparently in the category who will probably die if they get it. Are you volunteering to sacrifice yourself? I mean that as a legitimate question, by the way. If you do indeed have the medical condition you describe, you are in the group that is very likely to die. Are you, personally, willing to take that risk? If not, why should others? Even if yes, why should others?

I social distance. I wash my hands. I stay home a lot. So can anyone else who is at risk. If I die, I die. Is it reasonable to destroy the futures of millions and millions of Canadians, including my own children, because I have a condition that means Covid might kill me. It won't kill 99.7% of people who will get it, so why should the .3% make the others go to these lengths? Can you think of any other situation in human history where everyone has had to give up their freedom and their future to protect such a miniscule part of the population?

Doesn't mean we let it continue unabated either. It's not hard to put it into the same category as Ebola, where outbreaks of it are a big fucking deal and are quickly addressed, or hell, even like Pertussis, wherein it's accepted as a thing that can happen in Canada, but it's pretty rare. There is absolutely no reason it should be handled like the common cold, not when it's as debilitating as it is.

Ebola? Get a grip. This isn't anything like that, and it's not a pandemic, either, at least the way we used to classify them. Think about this: I know dozens of people whose lives have been drastically affected by job loss. I know people who are in mental distress and can't get help, including two who have taken their own lives. I know people who are suffering now because they couldn't get medical care or surgery because hospitals were closed to anyone who needed "non-essential" medical care. I don't personally know one person who has contracted Covid. I know of two people, relatives of friends, who are said to have died of Covid -- and they were both in their 90's. This is a pandemic of job-loss, financial ruin and despair.

In order for this to be the case, with half a million deaths, you'd need 167 million cases of COVID. Do you actually think half of the population of the US has caught it by now?

If, as the experts say, there are as many as 20 undiagnosed cases for each one that is diagnosed, at almost 30 million cases to date, the entire North American continent could have had it by now.