Saints urge mask wearing

[Gumbo]

At some point in the last four months of this extended episode of The Twilight Zone, an important public-health issue became a political litmus test. It shouldn’t be. And people and organizations in positions of influence are trying to reverse that.

The Saints are on board with the effort, posting on Monday an image of coach Sean Payton wearing a face covering bearing a Saints logo on the sideline, with this message: “Do your job . . . wear a mask.”

Even if you don’t care about protecting yourself (you should) or others (you should), there’s a simple and logical connection between wearing masks and limiting the spread of the virus and enhancing the possibility that football season will happen. If you want football season, wear a mask.

The corona truthers continues to search for silver linings in the storm clouds that have been strengthening not subsiding, but the news is bad and getting worse. The virus continues to race through the population, largely unchecked. The summer months haven’t done jack squat to slow it down. And so it will gather strength and pack a wallop in the fall, barring urgent, immediate action by everyone.

It starts with wearing a mask. I go to the local grocery store once a week. Roughly two thirds of the people there aren’t wearing masks. Roughly half of the people not wearing masks seem to resent those who do. Roughly a third of those wearing masks aren’t covering their noses with it. And then there are the people who have a mask on but it’s pulled down under their chin.

It’s inconvenient, yes. It can get a little uncomfortable, yes. But it’s the one tangible thing that we all must do to keep this slow-moving nuclear explosion that seems destined to eventually wipe a million or more Americans off the face of the earth before a vaccine can be developed and distributed.

So listen to the Saints and Sean Payton and Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence and everyone who is now urging us to do something we should have been doing from the get go: WEAR A MASK.