HomeMy WebLinkAboutPlease require face masks (3)Dear City Council,
It is my understanding that you are voting tonight on whether to mandate face masks in Rexburg. My vote would be YES, please do!
There are many who want to make this a political issue, but it is a health and safety issue first and foremost. Please do not be intimidated by the conspiracy-loving anti-maskers. Instead,
choose to do the RIGHT THING! You have the potential to be heroes and to save lives. Since BYU-Idaho will be requiring masks in the fall, it only seems fitting that those students should
also be required to wear them in the community, and that if we all wear them we can protect each other.
I leave you with one personal example (below) of a young, healthy woman (friend of a friend) who has shared her experience with Covid-19 and her plea to please wear masks.
Thank you so much,
Erin Stewart
(208) 206-3281
Experience of Andrea Jarvis Twitchell:
I got covid back in February in the New York airport on my way back to Brazil, and I am still extremely ill from the effects of this virus on my heart and immune system. Our son got
it as well and was terribly ill with fevers for months but is thankfully recovered now. I was not so lucky. To all my friends in the US who could be feeling like not wearing a mask,
I just wanted to share my own private experience, which l would keep to myself normally, but I am worried about people suffering the way I have.
I am usually a very healthy person, so you can't chalk it up to being in the high risk group. I am still suffering with terrible heart inflammation caused by the virus which gives me
extreme fatigue, palpitations, irregularities in heartbeat, shortness of breath, chest pain and general malaise. It is difficult to sleep because inflammation in your heart hurts worse
when you are horizontal. It is difficult to sit because that shortens your abdomen and puts more pressure on the inflamed heart and causes chest pain and shortness of breath. It has
been five months now and I am still desperately searching for treatments that will help me recover. And I am not the only one. I belong to an online support group with people from all
over the world who also are suffering from heart inflammation and other post-covid complications like me.
Believe me, you don't want this virus! If I had worn a mask on my flight home I might have been spared. I can't tell you how much I wish I had done that. You don't want to give this
virus to anyone else either. It is no joke. Whether you believe in conspiracy theories is not the point. Wherever this virus came from, it is here and it is bad and we need to protect
ourselves and others from it.
News articles like this one <https://www.ksl.com/article/46777290/anti-mask-crowd-fills-utah-county-meeting-on-mask-mandate-exemption-request-meeting-rescheduled-due-to-health-concerns?fbclid=IwAR17Q
YURoFy0yZv85b2p_v3cgwGGHpCT8lpjSnnKZFQuSQQVHMc9pX82HvA> make me sad because these people have no idea what they are protesting against. Thank goodness wearing a mask can make a difference!
Please help convince those you love to gratefully use them, to protect themselves and others. Even if nobody around you is wearing a mask, you still protect yourself by wearing one,
and protect others from getting what you may unknowingly have. This is not a political issue! It is a health issue.