Over the weekend, thousands of people demonstrated against corona protective measures in Berlin. Among other things, they feel deprived of their freedom by the mask requirement. A Facebook post changes perspective – and shows how absurd this attitude is.
Masks can be annoying: you sweat underneath, get poor air and keep touching them. But they are an important means of protecting high-risk groups and slowing the spread of the coronavirus, according to the Robert Koch Institute.
However, some are not convinced and refuse to put on masks. There has been opposition to this since the beginning of the mask requirement, the highlight was on Saturday: About 20,000 people gathered in Berlin for a demonstration against the Corona measures – to regain their supposedly lost freedom. The motto of the protests: “The end of the pandemic – Freedom Day”.
Welcome to the Freedom Hospital!
What if this attitude prevailed everywhere in society? A post that is currently circulating on Facebook deals with this question. The author describes the conditions that would prevail in a “hospital for freedom”.
“We trust you to decide for yourself whether you want to wear a face mask,” says the post. “In the spirit of individual freedom, our staff can also choose which safety measures they prefer during their treatment.”
The hospital encourages its employees to wash their hands after using the toilet or treating a surgical wound. “However, we understand that some people are allergic to soaps or do not like to wash their hands. It is not our job as clinic leaders to tell them what to do. ”
“Most of them will survive”
The hospital recommends that surgical staff wear a face mask, hood, sterile disposable clothing, gloves and surgical shoes. But not all nurses and doctors find this appropriate for their personal freedom. “So it can happen that a doctor in street clothes operates on you without gloves. Most of you will survive without or with only minor infections. The others probably had previous illnesses and would soon have died anyway. ”
The hospital not only gives medical staff freedom of choice: “The water temperature and the choice of detergent are also very personal decisions. We therefore leave it up to our kitchen team to decide how they want to wash the cutlery they put in their mouth. Some of you may get sick, but almost everyone survives food poisoning. ”
All of this is a small price for the “sweet freedom”: “… that no one is told what to do – especially not to wear a mask while shopping or on the train for the stupid reason to protect the health of strangers . “
An effective change of perspective
The Facebook post was liked, shared and commented a thousand times. He is deliberately pointed and exaggerated – but he alludes to a number of arguments that have repeatedly been mentioned in connection with the corona crisis in recent months: the corona virus is less dangerous than the flu – and an illness is not that bad at all. The virus is only critical for high-risk patients – and they will sooner or later anyway die from their pre-existing conditions. Because of them, not all of Germany has to restrict itself. If you transfer these arguments to a different context – as the Facebook post did – it becomes clear how absurd they are.
Read more on Techzle.com:
- Make a face mask yourself: sewing instructions and what protection it offers against coronaviruses
- Thoroughly hand washing: a series of photos shows how stubborn germs are
- Coronavirus: Warning, these hand disinfectants do not help