Jehovah's Witnesses Straight Talk - Forum/Blog

Love means speaking the truth with each other and this is why I am posting this most insightful truth telling post by Hrand Tookman. Thank you sir for you courage and love to speak truth at the hardest times!

MY REPLY:
Hi Angel. This is the author of the piece. Thank you so much for dropping a line in response to this. I understand your frustration as mine, too, was clear when I wrote the piece. But I have a few answers for you…

Obviously working in any surgical environment you need to mask up and then some. Not sure if you cross the OR threshold but if you do, then you know all about sterilization etc. Even if you don’t, yes, you can and likely should work diligently to mitigate the spread by wearing at a minimum some kind of face covering.

But I think (hope) you know, those face coverings aren’t about keeping you healthy. Their only real value is in slowing the spread to others. (If you’re infected and sneeze or cough or even talk loudly or laugh, the face covering slows down the droplet so instead of traveling 5-10 feet, it may only travel 1-2 feet at the most.) So if you work in an environment where virtually everyone you run into is immunocompromised, then you should be taking precautions.

And if you believe you’re among the immunocompromised — the very small percentage of relatively young and otherwise healthy people for whom a COVID-19 infection would reflect a comorbidity — then you should invest in an N95 mask. But you should also be mindful of the carbon implications that wearing a protective mask like that can bring, over long periods. Make sure you have time to remove it in safe environments etc so you’re not just wearing it all day, as some people regrettably and even fatally have made the mistake of doing.

You take care of the immunocompromised people you work with. And if you believe you’re one of them, then by all means get an N95 mask so you’re actually protecting yourself instead of just giving yourself the false sense of security that so many Americans sadly are wrapped up in.

The rest of us — the vast majority of us to whom a COVID-19 infection will come and go with very mild or no symptoms at all — will do our part by developing herd immunity so that the virus can no longer spread.

We need the immunocompromised who would present with comorbidities should they become infected with COVID-19 doing their part to protect themselves with tools like self-quarantining, and properly worn and maintained N95 masks. We need people to help keep them safe. And we need the rest of us to stop fighting off who work or interact closely with those populations to do their part the one thing that might actually help us truly beat this thing instead of just letting it linger for years and years until — if we’re lucky — a vaccine is found.

Hope that makes sense and is received with the fairness, intellectual honesty, and respect I intended.
Hrand Tookman

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