What of Maskless Masses?

The barrell-shaped, bearded guy with a Budweiser beer in his hand, approaches me as I belt sand smooth a deck handrail at a marina in Wildwood, NJ, last Friday. He's not wearing a facial covering, as he boldly insists that "this pandemic thing is overblown." 

The guy stood five or six feet away, but I slipped the bandana that was around my neck, up over my mouth and nose. I remind the guy that nearly 90,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States in a couple months.

"Yeah, more people die from pneumonia every year” he parroted what sounded like a Fox News soundbite.

What do you say to this?  

Then, the guy went on the tiresome lament, that Conservatives, in particular, like to muddy the water with -- "Really, you just don’t know who to believe."

Of course, he went on about how all politicians are crooked and all news stations can't be trusted.

 I suggested that for starters, he cross off Donald Trump and Fox News from the list of even remotely believable sources. "Okay, so you don't like Trump," he retorted, and went on a rant about "those Democrats."

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

It's as if we've lost our common sense, our ability to listen to our gut or think for ourselves. We need a talking head to tell us what to believe or how to feel.

So, amidst the confusion, what the heck? Why not, just party, man?

I thought of that Mark Twain line:

"Never argue with stupid people, they will only drag you down to their level, and then beat you with experience."

A few minutes later, the same guy was gathered with about 5 or 6 other people around a small deck in front of a house overlooking the harbor. They were yukin' it up as if they were in a local bar and the Coronavirus had never happened. Only one person that I could see was wearing a facial mask covering.

On Saturday, hundreds of people swarmed the Wildwood Boardwalk. The Cape May Standard, published on Twitter a picture of the boardwalk crowds; the overwhelming majority were maskless. I could indentify maybe five people, out of about a hundred in the picture, wearing masks.

In the meantime, Governor Phil Murphy is still working out phased reopening plans for New Jersey. It seems to me, we need to more urgently insist that folks mask up and don't get lax about wearing a face covering in public, particularly amidst crowds.

How many individuals could be unknowingly carrying the virus and pass it on?

How many might catch the virus and spread it to wherever they came from after happy time on the boardwalk is over?

In the same way, the Trump administration criminally failed Americans by declaring a national emergency around the Covid-19 pandemic several weeks too late, hence ensuring the deaths of tens of thousands of people, President Trump prematurely, irresponsibly is chomping at the bit, egging on the impatient, to reopen the country.

This precarious moment in time demands wisdom, compassion and finesse -- three qualities in which the President is miserably lacking. Just a couple weeks could mean the difference between life or death for many.

I hope and pray the virus numbers drop steadily. But if New Jersey or surrounding states, like Pennsylvania, New York or Delaware experience any type of jump in Coronavirus cases in the coming weeks, we'll have a pretty good idea why.

So, yeah, if the maskless multitudes observed in Wildwood this past Saturday, is any indication of the senseless citizen behavior that we can expect this Memorial Day weekend re-opening -- we unwittingly could be ringing the dinner bell (to borrow from Jaws) for the "invisible enemy."