Letter to the editor: What we've learned about masks

Before covid-19, most people didn’t wear masks, not even in 2009 during the swine flu pandemic. I was in fourth grade then. How did I get the flu? Somebody sneezed. Another coughed. Like covid-19, influenza spreads by airborne droplets.

Unknown to me, I came home from school infected. Days later, my grandma was in bed with chills, cold sweats and a fever, coughing to the point of crying. My mother was a single parent and left for work that morning. By the end of the day, she had infected her workplace and several of the customers, too.

If wearing masks limits the spread of covid-19, why didn’t we wear them for the flu? Was it not obvious that masks covering our mouths and noses block the aerosols, thus, preventing widespread infection? Did we really need to do a meta- analysis of 21 studies to figure that out?

In a world after covid-19, the flu will still be here to bother us. Those around me have learned from covid-19 to wear masks. Not everyone does, but most do. Those who are sick stay home, but one person next to me does not. That person’s sick, but luckily, they’re wearing a mask. I wear a mask, too, even as there’s no mandate to do so. It was a personal choice. And others have followed along.

Christopher Guttman

Squirrel Hill