The author, Brooke Crump, is a lawyer and mom in Mt. Gilead. 

Another teacher recently asked me if I miss teaching. I said, “No, I could have a trial every day for the rest of my career and it would still be easier than teaching.” But you know what? I miss using facts and examples to analyze problems and answer questions. So, Speckled Paw Times classroom, allow me this:

1. “Why are we forced to wear masks if the COVID rates continue to rise? Doesn’t that mean masks don’t work?”

Well, I’m no scientist or doctor but I’ve been in the hospital a time or two and in a dentist chair many times. Doctors always seem to wear a mask in high-transmission risk environments and every dentist I’ve ever had does. Do germs still enter the body during surgery that leads to infections? Yep. But my guess is that it happens a lot less than it would if they didn’t wear a mask. But they don’t wear cloth masks, right? It’s my understanding that medical-grade masks are not readily available on a global scale. Especially when COVID first occurred. Has that changed? Idk, but I don’t see them everywhere and the government certainly hasn’t mailed me one. So I’m guessing no? So folks like my grandma, who’ve always had a knack for a sewing machine, stepped up and stitched up. Would medical-grade masks work better? Probably! But we do the best we can. Does it stop all spread? Nope. We humans are gross. We’re forever touching our mouths/nose/rubbing our eyes. There’s other ways for it to get in. But the hope is that by wearing a mask, we are lessening our chances of spreading the germ to others. Because when a sneeze sneaks up, hopefully some of those droplets will be contained.

2. “Well I’ve been exposed and didn’t get it, so I don’t need a vaccine, right?”

Again, I hated biology but I think it’s pretty common knowledge that sometimes our immune systems are stronger than at other times. Can we do things like take vitamin C to help strengthen our immune system? Yep. But can things like stress, poor sleep, etc., lower it? The doctors say so (from their mouths to my ears). So perhaps your spouse got it and you didn’t. What a wonderful blessing. But could your coworker get it when your immune system wasn’t functioning at maximum capacity, leading you to being exposed while in a more vulnerable state? Yep. Why risk it?

3. “The vaccine is rushed. It’s too risky, right?”

I hear this mostly from those who voted for Trump. Trump was very proud of the speed in which the vaccine was developed; he literally said so in a debate. It was his entire plan for COVID. So idk why it’s like a dirty Democrat thing, but I digress. It was rushed, you say? Did you know that the measles vaccine was developed in four years? In 1967, actually. I’m going to guess that most of us here got the measles vaccine, as most vaccines are required to attend school, absent a medical reason. I got the vaccine and never got the measles. Also, science has come a long way in more than 50 years. Also, the hefty funding allocated toward it probably went a long way. I talked to someone this week who had COVID, lived to tell about it, and donated blood for the development of the vaccine. Sacrificing one’s time and discomfort to potentially help save a life through blood donation – gosh, that sounds a whole lot like a charitable contribution to me. Quite similar to the teachings I learned from the word of God.

4. “But just the old, sick, fat people get it and die, right? I take care of my body so I won’t die from it will I?”

At this point, I personally know several who have died from COVID. How many had life-threatening conditions or were so fat you about had to Gilbert Grape them out of their house? None. My husband has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic heart condition that was essentially a ticking time bomb. (That, Matt, above, getting his COVID shot on Tuesday.) How did we discover this condition? He had a physical so he could go to the fire academy. So he got a pacemaker/defibrillator. And it’s gone off a time or two and potentially saved his life. Had he not gotten a physical that required an EKG in his early 30s, we wouldn’t have known that he essentially had one foot in the grave. Does he take care of himself? Absolutely. But all the health and fitness in the world wouldn’t have fixed his genetic problem. And had he not gotten a pacemaker and contracted COVID, I could’ve ended up as a widow in my 30s. We aren’t all getting MRI/CT scans all the time, so we don’t know what lies beneath the surface. Are masks uncomfortable? Hate them. Could they save lives? From the deductive reasoning above, I would argue yes. And just like giving blood (that sucks, too), sometimes we ask not what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country.