July 19, 2021. OG Beach. What’s the reason for the mask?
OG boards. July 19, 2021. Blogfinger photo.
Paul Goldfinger, MD, FACC Editor at Blogfinger.net
It seems that a mask would not be necessary at the beach or on the boards. But that “ain’t necessarily so.” *
This morning there were few people at the beachfront in the Grove. Perhaps these two are immunocompromised. Or there may be other good reasons.
It is still important to keep distanced and to wear a mask if you or someone near you is ill in any way (for example a cough which they say is allergic.) Or if you are in a crowded environment. And wear the mask if there is a risk of droplet exposure. And don’t swallow ocean water.
Here’s an item (NY Times)
“The risk is lower outdoors, but it’s not zero,” Shan Soe-Lin, a lecturer at the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, told the New York Times. “And I think the risk is higher if you have two people who are stationary next to each other for a long time, like on a beach blanket, rather than people who are walking and passing each other.”
So, there are so many ifs, ands or butts that people should wear a mask if they are concerned for any reason.
After all, Methuselah lived 900 years , and so might you if you are careful, but “who calls dat livin’ when no gal will give in to no man what’s nine hundred years?”*
HUGH LAURIE: from his album Let Them Talk. This is from the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. *
Saturday night on Cookman Ave. there were areas of crowding, but hardly anyone was wearing a mask. But everyone I saw was outdoors where the risk of COVID-19 is diminished; however the new strain of virus is very communicable. And how many folks in those Asburian crowds were vaccinated? —PG