MASKS: Question of choice

Both the reporting on the Panhandle Health District decision to mandate the wearing of masks in Kootenai County nor the letters to the editor in the Friday, July 24 edition of The Press have me reeling about a question which I have yet to hear addressed. The question is this: What danger is posed by those choosing to not wear a mask to those who choose to wear one?

Seems to me that those who don’t wear a mask can only infect others who have a similar mindset and have made the same choice! Those who choose to not wear a mask are certainly cognizant by now that they may be at a higher level of risk for infecting or contracting the virus from others who make the same choice. What is at issue here is losing the freedom to make one’s own choices and accept the potential risk their choices present to themselves and others. I submit those who choose to not wear masks appear to constitute very little, if any, danger to those who choose to wear them. Let everyone make their own choice!

JOHN P. ‘SKIP’ FULLER

Coeur d’Alene