Forget About Travel Shaming, Mask Shaming Is Here & It. Is. Ugly. My Recent Experience

Here is why I wear a mask. For 82 days I had to wait to find out that my cancer was limited just to one organ. My surgery was canceled in early March because they needed beds potentially for Covid. It took 82 days for the ban on elective surgeries to be lifted so that I could be immediately scheduled for a radical surgery. When someone says I don’t wanna wear a mask it’s gross. Or it’s uncomfortable. You’re not thinking about the forgotten people. The people like me who sat at home for 82 days waiting patiently to have their surgery. If someone just has to be inconvenienced by wearing a mask and it decreases the amount of admissions in the hospital for Covid that means others like me – the silent forgotten ones – can actually have their medical procedures. What happened in my state was an outbreak that had a 10 day grace period where they were able to get surgeries in When someone says I don’t wanna wear a mask it’s gross. Or it’s uncomfortable. You’re not thinking about the forgotten people. The people like me who sat at home for 82 days waiting patiently to have their surgery. If someone just Hass to be inconvenienced by wearing a mask and it decreases the amount of admissions in the hospital for Covid that means others like me – the silent forgotten ones – can actually have their medical procedures. What happened in my state was an outbreak that had a 10 day grace period where they were able to get surgeries in… including mine. Then because so many people were being careless and wanted to get back to living – my state blew up with cases and now once again for the last week and a half elective surgeries have been canceled. If you knew someone or were that person who woke up every single day not knowing what severity of cancer they had but, knowing they had cancer- You may just decide wearing a mask is the least you can do so that person can get the surgery they need.

Cry me a river. Your wife is a snowflake. She got upset that someone made a comment to her. Who cares. It’s called personal responsibility. Wear à mask or dont who cares.
The faster covid gets through the community that faster it will end. It’s not going anywhere till we get herd immunity. If you are not old and almost dead anyway you will be fine.

I wouldn’t let that woman leave without telling me exactly where she was a nurse. Then I’d make the call immediately to that department.

If she was not a nurse, id loudly tell my experience to the entire restaurant. Teach my kids what taking a stand looks like.

I am sorry she had to go through this. I hate it when people decide they know what’s best and just feel the need to keep pushing, especially addressing your daughter as if your wife wasn’t protecting her. I applaud your wife’s patience with that.
Many years ago, I stopped in a fast food restaurant to pick up something to eat. I was just standing there waiting to grab my to go order when a woman walked up to me, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “smile.” “What?” I asked. “Smile,” she said, “you need to smile.”
I said, “my father just died” because I had found out he passed that morning, extremely unexpectedly. I had driven a long distance, dealt with all the administrative stuff and was super worried about how I was going to pay for everything surrounding it(I was just out of school and had to go through the legal process to gain access to his accounts while I fronted the money). I was exhausted, overwhelmed, hadn’t eaten in 12 hours, and sad at my father dying so suddenly.
I began to cry and repeated, “my father just died, I don’t want to smile, I want him back.” She looked horrified and began to walk away, but I followed and repeated, “my father died. why should I smile.” People were looking, I was making a scene, but not yelling, just asking. I was so overwhelmed and why did she need to do this? She just started muttering, “I didn’t know, I just thought you’d look better if you smiled.” “But my father just died,” I couldn’t control the tears.
That day made me realize that you have no idea what someone is dealing with and no right to try to force them into your view. If you see someone hitting someone or putting someone in physical danger, then of course you should call the police, but no one needs your opinions.
I know it was a different situation from your wife’s, but that woman has no idea what has happened. You could have lost someone to this disease, have an immunodeficient child, live with a grandparent. It just makes me mad when people do this because I always think back to that moment and how horrible and embarrassed I felt.

I don’t wear a mask (it’s gross), but I also don’t tell people what to do with their bodies.
None of my business.

That said, the hypocrisy from everyone here is… interesting:

This is totally fine to say in public, to other people, online:
“Wear a mask! Stay home! Don’t travel!”

This is not:
“Wearing a mask is stupid”

—
It’s just strange that everyone here pile on to one lady (admittedly being rude and obnoxious) for speaking her mind.

But, all the people who were attacking others for the last few months in the opposite… that’s seen as acceptable.

It’s interesting that this hypocrisy doesn’t seem to be bother anyone now that the script has flipped.

Your wife gets credit for being calm. Good job. I’m afraid if that occurred to me the the situation would have been more “exciting”.

When someone comes too close to me without a mask, I lift my mask up and start coughing. They move away pretty quickly!

Some people are fundamentally dumb and some are fundamentally smart. That’s nothing new, although we’re now seeing the added nonsense that if one party’s supporters go with the scientific consensus the other party’s supporters feel obliged to knee-jerk deny it. We’ve seen that with climate change for some time and we’re now seeing it with SARS-CoV-19. Some people get their opinions in scientific matters from politicians and TV talking heads while others look to scientists.
Just to put some historical perspective on my first sentence, here’s a quote from today’s National Geographic daily email which is particularly appropriate to this discussion:
“In the 1660s, as London succumbed to the bubonic plague, people flouted quarantines and social distancing, meeting at businesses and holding big daytime funerals, noted diarist Samuel Pepys with frustration. One night Pepys, lonely and standing before a window outside a bar, stared longingly at the jolly, sociable people inside. Reluctantly, he turned away, deciding he didn’t want to die for a drink.”
Scientifically, we’ve acquired a vast knowledge over the intervening 400 years, but we’re still coded by the same DNA – some of us are still just as dumb and some of us are still just as smart.

What an awful experience, totally inappropriate for the woman to address your daughter. It’s bad enough to have to listen to strangers lecture us. Unfortunately, medical-field personnel have opinions that run the full spectrum, and do not always align with the views of the medical establishment or even common sense. We have some friends, both nurses, who also don’t believe in the severity of covid or in taking any safety precautions. They’ve been telling our other friends to get sick now while they’re relatively young so that they’ll be immune for the rest of their lives. Dangerous and not true. Crazy times.

Soooooo, what do you need immunity for if you’ve got the mask? Isn’t that the point of the mask- to protect against a thing we don’t have immunity for?

I hope that woman is #notmynurse

Another scenario of someone getting in your personal space and commenting on something they have no right to. The audacity of people these days!

That’s unfortunate they had to experience that. I received something similar to the “I just feel so bad for your daughter that she has to wear that mask” line, in California. I told the guy I am not immune to a-holes. He wasn’t expecting that kind of response.

I am sorry that happened to your wife. When my child was a newborn, I stayed home all the time except for going to my parents. I was told by a doctor relative how it can be very serious for a newborn to get sick- I did not want my baby to end up in the hospital. My mother in law criticized me for this and everything else that I did or did not do with my child for about 8 years. We think she gets defensive when you do things differently from the way she did them. Some people are very rude and cannot keep their opinions to themselves. I also would wear and would have my child wear a mask in the restroom.

Just here to say that I’m sorry your wife had to deal with that woman, who is certainly not a nurse and should be ashamed of herself. Of course, she probably felt pretty smug about her behavior.

Living in the country with the most coronavirus cases – on the rise in an alarming number of states – it’s amazing that anyone would refuse to wear a mask (assuming no physical disabilities that don’t allow it) much less shame someone for acting responsibly to help stop the spread of a virus in a pandemic. And I likewise agree that someone not wearing a mask may not be able to, but those people also need to be considerate about distancing from those around them to avoid making their issues someone else’s.

This virus doesn’t care about political affiliation yet here we are…

I was witness to someone mask shaming a woman and used the same,”I’m a nurse and I know you don’t need that mask.” I pipped up,”I’m a Dr and I work for the CDC. Please give me your full name and license number. I need to file a report with your facility in regard to your health status and exposure.” Her face got super red and she said,”I don’t have to tell you that!” Soooo, I pretended to take her photo and said,”Cool. I’ll just run you through our database.” She yelled,”You can’t take my photo!” And I said,” You are in public harassing this woman. Have you not seen all the viral videos? Call the police. I’ll wait.” She stomped off all flustered. I’m not a Dr and I don’t work for the CDC. If she was a nurse, then she can sweat it out waiting for a “database” match. Doubtful she’s a nurse. The lady and I laughed so hard when I told her the truth of who I was.

I had COVID so I am passionate about this. The old bat in the restroom was no nurse. The masks that you and your family were wearing really weren’t protecting y’all that much. Instead they were protecting everyone else from y’all. And they do a good job of that. When you acquire COVID, you are shedding virus and spreading disease before you have symptoms. The masks really help prevent that. This has nothing to do with your daughter’s immune system and I am sorry that she had to listen to that idiot. Wearing a mask is a sign that you care about other people. Deciding not to wear a mask isn’t just about exercising personal freedom; it’s also sending others a message that you don’t care about them.

What an asshole. You and your family are doing the right thing. If she is a nurse, she should lose her license.

Yep, people stick their noses in other people’s business all the time. My wife would have really gone off on her, she would not have put up with her crap. As for the manager “comping” the meal……..nice…….but, personally, I would have declined the “comp”. These restaurants are just getting killed due to the lockdown and now with limits on them post lockdown. But, that is just me.

What a bunch of crap. My wife is a Nurse Practitioner and would love if this woman tried that line on her. She’d get her ass handed to her. Really sorry your wife and child had to deal with that. It’s an unfortunate yet teachable moment.

It’s been proven that wearing masks significantly decreases transmission rates as a whole for the population. This is FACT. Whether or not YOU have the disease is only partially relevant. We’re healthy, but what about our parents? What about your parents or immunocompromised cousin who’s only fault was being born with a compromised immune system? We all have masks and there’s not a chance in hell we would leave without them. Bottom line is not wearing it IS a sign of disrespect to your fellow humans you share your community with.

Sadly these days people care more about platitudes built on false information and they feel emboldened for obvious reasons.

I got 25k points out ofnunited last week. They told me I needed to wear a mask for the cooties. Told them my disability prevented it. They argued with me a little while then left me alone. After the flight, I called United amd asked if they were going to continue to harass me over my disability. They apologized and gave me the points. I guess ADA lawsuits are a lot more expensive for them than 25k points!

This reminds me of when I have seen people in DisneyWorld with their young children on a leash. Personally, I feel it is wrong to treat your child like an animal. However, I would never say something to the other person as it is not my place.

Now on the mask front, I will say my local post office in New Jersey today had a new sign up – it used to say masks were required in the Post Office but now it says masks are suggested.

I think people are just all stir crazy right now after being locked down for 3 months. Their hair is too long and bothering them, they haven’t been able to sneak away to see their side pieces, they had to cancel all of the trips they were looking forward to, they are sick of eating at home, their kids are under foot every second of the day etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is also throwing gas on the protest fire as well.

I was in Texas last weekend. I can tell you there was very little mask wearing there. I was in a HEB grocery store twice, and very few people wore masks except employees. Hotel housekeepers did not wear masks. At a chili’s resturaunt, people were packed into foyer in order to get a pager in order to be able to go back and wait in car til paged for a socially distanced table, lol. Attended a graduation ceremony at an outdoor stadium. There were rules in place for social distancing such as 6 feet spaced seating and color coded parking with the intent of releasing people at the end of ceremony by parking color. Almost everyone just got up at the end to crowd the exits simultaneously. Everyone was supposed to wear masks at ceremony. Most didnt. But It was 95 degrees in T, so it’s harder than it sounds. We were limited to 5 arm bands per family in order to reduce crowds to socially distance family groups in the stands. But bands weren’t checked at entrance so more people could have easily gotten in, and it seems to my eyes to be more crowded than it should have been.
So the best laid plans as they say. There was much more mask wearing at the airports. This was a 3 night trial trip for a family event and because of what I experienced there, I am considering postponing our July Florida trip. I’m not trying to be judgmental here about anyones behavior during my short trip., it all seemed very challenging for everyone, not just me.

Some people who are on the spectrum cannot wear masks. The feeling is overwhelming. You can’t tell all the time what/if someone has a problem/condition.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I am recently looking back at a life filled with: “If you don’t ______, bad things x, y, z will happen. ” Or, “If you ______, bad things a, b, and c will happen.” Yesterday was my birthday and received similar birthday advice. I am pushing fifty.

Sorry to read about your wife and child’s experience. That was really rude and none of her business.

Sadly, everything has become political especially in the past few years, even things you wouldn’t expect, like health and public safety, and science gets skewed in the direction of one’s political leanings.

Let that lady get sick if she wants.

Lol isn’t your wife a doctor? The irony.

I think this was just a jerk of a woman. If it had not been masks, it would have been something else. Sorry your wife and little girl had to encounter such a rude person.

I think it is quite a stretch to call this incident the beginning of “mask shaming”.

Agreed 100%. I’m not a mask wearer unless required, but there is zero need to tell others what they should do, especially someone else’s child. Repulsive.

Is there any clear scientific data on what medical conditions exempt people from wearing masks?

Hospital workers and people in East Asia routinely wear masks. Even prior to COVID19, I haven’t heard of medical exemptions to wearing masks in the hospital or in East Asia.