Dear Us:

How are we messing this thing up? The pandemic, coronavirus, Covid-19?

The CDC has given us some pretty simple steps to take. Stay home (folks are already tired of being cooped up after what, a month), wash your hands, practice social distancing, and most recently...wear face masks.

Per the governor's latest executive order:

The order will require people to wear homemade, non-medical grade face coverings when they enter enclosed public spaces. It will also require employers to provide at least cloth face coverings to their employees. People won’t have to wear face coverings when they’re taking a walk in the neighborhood, but when they go to the grocery store, they should be wearing one. Under the order, however, no one will be subject to criminal penalty for going without a mask. (Michigan.gov)

And I get it. At first they were like, "not everyone needs to wear one". Now if you're out in enclosed public places, you need to have on some type of face mask covering your nose and mouth.

Nose and mouth.

There are a bazillion face mask "how to" videos on youtube and DIY and so on. There are instructions on how to put them on and take them off. There are explanations on how wearing them will help to control microdroplets and more. I'm not telling you anything you haven't already heard.

Because, it's been on a nonstop news loop since this thing has become...a thing.

But yesterday (Friday) I went out to get some essential items. I had to stop at no less than 3 locations. I tried to whittle it down to 2 but no such luck.

What I saw was a bunch of this.

The face mask on the face and under the nose.

Or under the neck.

And again.

And again.

And that was IF FOLKS were wearing them at all

To beat this thing, we have to do some things. And we've had to teach people these pretty simple things that we still don't seem to get.

It's 2020. We still have to tell people how to wash your hands effectively, how far six feet apart is, and how to wear a face mask that covers your nose and mouth.

Pretty sure that when they were telling us (and showing us all these videos), none of them said it was ok to have the mask on part of your face or under your chin. That part about covering your nose and mouth was pretty clear.

How are we this lazy and carefree about doing something that is supposed to help us save our lives ?

They warned us to not get comfortable with wearing face masks making up for not doing the other things. But if we're only wearing face masks. And this is the maximum effort we're putting into it, we've lost the race before we even started.

We have got to take this thing seriously. Not do it half assed. If we're gonna wear masks, we've got to do it right. And we still wash our hands and practice social distancing.

Here are the CDC guidelines:

Use of Cloth Face Coverings to Help Slow the Spread of COVID-19

Watch the video above and below so you know.

Get it together people. We can't afford to screw this up. It could cost you (or someone else) their life.