Representing long-term care providers, the New Hampshire Health Care Association applauds Nashua’s decision to mandate the wearing of masks in public places.

In an April 1942 speech, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called for every American to exercise “the privilege of making whatever self-denial is necessary” to win World War II, and he noted that “‘sacrifice’ is not exactly the proper word with which to describe this program of self-denial. When, at the end of this great struggle we shall have saved our free way of life, we shall have made no ‘sacrifice.'”

Do we possess a similar resolve and concern for our fellow citizens today? Or have we grown too selfish and entitled?

The COVID-19 pandemic has killed over 100,000 Americans in a few months. That is more Americans than we lost in the protracted Korean and Vietnam wars combined.

A terrible proportion of those deaths have occurred in long-term care facilities. Many who have the virus are asymptomatic. Thus, in the absence of everyday testing availability, the virus can get past temperature screenings and health questions, and it can enter the environment where it is most deadly given the age and medical condition of residents.

New Hampshire has the nation’s second-oldest population, and one of its oldest nursing home populations. The average long-stay resident is 83, compared to the national average of 79, and over one-tenth of New Hampshire nursing home residents are 95-and-older. A very large number of the male residents are veterans, including a dwindling number of World War II veterans.

Those not wearing masks may feel free to take chances with their own health. But it is not that simple. When you go out into public you are sharing the same air as those who work in long-term care facilities, or who are caring for the elderly at home. There are also others out in public who are medically at risk but cannot live in bubbles: They go shopping, for example. You might feel fine but be asymptomatically shedding the virus and exposing others, and that contagion will spread.

In other words, this is not about you, or your conception of “freedom.” Freedom does not include the right to kill others through selfishness. If you think wearing a mask is a joke, I guarantee no one in a nursing home is laughing along with you. Nor is any elderly person you might crowd in a public place.

As part of a society, we have a moral obligation to protect one another. For example, in Christianity, the second greatest commandment, after loving God, is loving one’s neighbor as “thyself.”

The warming weather will bring more of a test of our regard for others. Our beaches will re-open, and the temptation will only grow to congregate and abandon caution. Are we up to this test? Or have we decided that those most at risk of death from this virus are expendable?

Far from overreach, Nashua’s mask mandate honors the sense of community that we should all possess. And, let’s face it, in saving those who sacrificed to win WW II wearing a mask isn’t asking much.

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Brendan Williams is the president/CEO of the New Hampshire Health Care Association.

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