As a medical professional and Alaskan, I was dismayed to read about the recent behavior of Alaska State Sen. Lora Reinbold on an Alaska Airlines flight where she threw a fit over Alaska Airlines’ mask requirement.
We are in the middle of a pandemic that is getting worse by the day. Our fellow Alaskans are getting sick in record numbers, and some are dying. And Sen. Reinbold apparently could care less.
At this point, the data on mask-wearing is overwhelmingly convincing that mask-wearing saves lives and slows down the spread of the virus. People who won’t wear masks are playing a significant role in Alaska’s rising case count as well as our economic woes.
If citizens uniformly complied with mask wearing we would have fewer cases and deaths and our economy could be more open. People who won’t wear masks are making this crisis worse than it needs to be and are making it drag on longer than it needs to. Those of us who wear masks are paying the price for those who won’t, and frankly, we’re getting a little tired of it.
Being a citizen of this state doesn’t just come with rights, it also comes with responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is not taking actions that cause direct harm to other Alaskans. Wearing a small piece of cloth over your mouth and nose when you are out in public is a trivial personal sacrifice, especially compared to the enormous effects that not wearing a mask has on the health and financial well-being of other Alaskans.
Robert Hall, M.D.
Anchorage
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