I hate wearing a mask.
To be more precise, I hate teaching in a mask. Putting one on to shop in a grocery store or sit in a plane packed with other germy passengers makes sense, and is a minor inconvenience.
But wearing a mask while teaching a college writing class, which I do as an adjunct, is more annoying.
It's hard to hear some students, especially the low-talkers. It takes longer to learn students' names. And on the occasions when I lecture for much of the class, I feel short of breath. Plus, seeing students' faces and expressions helps me to gauge their engagement with the material.
Interestingly, my first-year students are less bothered by the masks than I am. Like most children and teens, they've adapted to these circumstances with more flexibility and grace than many adults.
The university is one of the few places in my life where masking is still mandatory. No one masks at the gym anymore. Hardly anyone does at large indoor social gatherings. And with a local circuit court judge striking down health orders, and Missouri's attorney general threatening school districts that require masks, schools may not be able to enforce masking -- or any public health protection measures.
Masking is such a politicized, patchwork effort in this country. Is it even effective this way? And how much longer do we really need to keep covering our faces?
For answers, I turned to trusted friends who are doctors in different specialties -- emergency medicine, pulmonology, infectious disease, internal medicine and geriatrics -- along with one who is a chief medical officer. I wanted them to talk as freely as possible, so I'm not using their names. They've all been treating COVID-19 patients since the start of the pandemic. They have decades of experience and a deep commitment to patient care. These are all people I would trust with my own life if I needed care, so I was curious to hear their predictions and explanations.
Here's something they all agreed on: Wearing a mask reduces the risk of getting COVID and passing it to others. (Heck, even the Missouri governor knows that inconvenient truth, but didn't want his people publicizing it.) The doctors also unanimously agreed that we shouldn't stop masking in crowded indoor settings anytime soon.
When I pushed to find out when it would be safe to stop, they said it depends on how soon we get vaccination rates to at least 75% (currently, the country is at 60% fully vaxxed) and how vaccines hold up to new variants. Pfizer said this week that getting its vaccines and booster provides protection against the new omicron variant.
I asked why we can't just fend for ourselves now.
"We are only as strong as our weakest link," the pulmonologist said. If the virus continues to spread unchecked, that means more chances for variants to develop that can break through vaccine protections. Also, masking is a way to protect those who are medically vulnerable and cannot be vaccinated, or who get less protection from vaccines.
Out of my small but trusted sample, more than half refused to even offer a guess as to when we might safely ditch the masks.
"Show me the numbers," the chief medical officer said, adding that their hospitals' number of COVID patients has increased significantly in the past week.
"I wish I had better news for you," she said. "Trust me, I want it gone more than anyone because we are running out of capacity to manage the sick."
The infectious disease specialist and emergency medicine doctor both refused to hazard a guess on when we might reach herd immunity. Both the pulmonologist and the internal medicine physician, who treats many geriatric patients, said it would likely be at least 18 more months or two more years before we could safely stop masking.
That was disheartening to hear. But it's useful to have reasonable expectations rather than the dread of facing a never-ending pandemic.
Hearing their explanations -- based on science, and on decades of experience trying to save people's lives -- helped me adjust my own attitude.
I still find masking annoying and inconvenient, but I want an end to these surges of death and serious disease.
Getting our shots and wearing our masks still seem to be the only ways there.