By Larry Anderson of Anderson Family Medicine 

This may be a hard one but stick with me while I go through it. Yes, it is all about wearing a mask. 

There are four different scenarios with four different probabilities for becoming infected. 

First: A COVID-19 infected person not wearing a mask and you not wearing a mask, has a 90% probability of your becoming infected. 

Second:  A COVID-19 infected person not wearing a mask and you wearing a mask, the probability drops to 70%. Not a bad deal. 

Third:  A COVID-19 infected person wearing a mask and you not wearing a mask, the probability is now 5%. This is a great deal, but wait, it gets better  

Fourth:  A COVID-19 infected person wearing a mask and you wearing a mask, then the probability drops to an unbelievable 1.5%. How much better can it get?

We need to be careful about plagues. There is a lot of historical data about what happens in a plague when you don’t pay attention to the directives of what you should be doing. Let’s see if we can apply lessons learned from the past to the present day. 

First, we have COVID-19. Second, we now have influenza B in Dawson County. Third, West Nile Virus has infected one person in Miami and now DeKalb County has three locations where mosquitos caring the West Nile Virus have been found. Seems to be heading our way. Three down and seven to go.  Remember number 10 was a real show stopper. 

Wear your mask. Thanks for reading.