The United States should have normalized masking after the deadly flu pandemic in 1918. Imagine if Americans knew to put on a mask when COVID hit in 2020 – that might have prevented the country’s colossal infection control failure.

Instead of uniting to beat this still rapidly mutating virus that unceasingly takes lives and disables even the young and healthy, and instead of normalizing prevention against all mask-preventable infectious diseases, some people are misusing their power to try to ban masks. Some politicians and law enforcement officials claim that masks conceal the identities of “criminals,” while masking in reality reflects caring for community safety and is a critical mitigation tool for both air pollution and infection control.

Let’s all ask our elected officials to make public health a priority. Nobody should be stopped from protecting their health. Rather than banning masks, we need laws that prohibit mask bans.

We are encouraged by the fact that Massachusetts State Senator Will Brownsberger has introduced a landmark bill (S.1427) that protects the right to mask for “protective or medical use” across all municipalities in the state. Likewise, 15 Vermont senators are cosponsoring S.81, which very simply and directly prohibits mask bans, so as to protect our right to wear a mask and support public health.

We need these bills to pass and for other states to follow suit - everyone should be guaranteed the right to wear a mask!

Mask bans are disability injustice, discrimination, and violation of human rights. They are an ADA issue. No one should be required to disclose their own or their household's health conditions, or other reasons they wear a mask. Harassing someone to unmask or justify wearing effective mitigation tools is an invasion of privacy. Black and brown people and other people of color in general use mitigation tools like masking at higher rates than white people. People of color have experienced more harassment throughout the pandemic for masking. Under any mask ban - even if it incorporates medical mask exemptions in theory – people of color will be disproportionately targeted by law enforcement. Everyone should be able to be in public, including to participate in civic action, while masking for safety.

Illinois State Rep Hoan Huynh filed HB3853, a bill to protect people’s right to wear PPE, which includes this powerful language: “every individual has the right to wear protective medical equipment in any place of public accommodation where they have a lawful right to be without obligation to disclose health status or any other protected information, and no person, entity, or authority shall deny, restrict, or infringe upon this right.”

Everyone is entitled to equal rights to wear a mask and this bill clarified that. This bill, however, has been amended to include security checks as an exception. Being forced to remove your mask even briefly creates a chance to get infected. Forcing people to get sick if they try to use public spaces is immoral and raises huge equity issues.

Anti-mask policies and harassment could spur more people to give up masking entirely. Lack of mitigation will lead to more outbreaks of airborne illnesses such as COVID, RSV, flu, measles, mpox, human metapneumovirus, and tuberculosis – and increase risk of a new flu pandemic.

The MaskTogetherAmerica community created a letter template for you to raise your voice! Personalize this letter and send it to government officials to ask them to protect our right to mask! Collective action and the layered approach in mitigation are urgently needed.

MaskTogetherAmerica is an advocacy organization created to support public health in 2020. Our volunteers across the U.S. are devoted to educating people about the benefits of wearing masks, testing, getting vaccinated, opening windows, using air filters, doing things outside, remote working, and staying home while sick to protect each other from airborne viruses that can kill people and cause chronic illnesses. As an organization, we are committed to standing with high risk communities facing the ongoing threat of respiratory-acquired infection and struggling to safely access healthcare and public spaces.

We’ve compiled information you need to take action besides sending your letter today. We’ve also created a toolkit and will continue to update it. Follow us and other advocates. Stay informed. Let’s do this together.

Current COVID vaccines wane very fast, and the virus is rapidly mutating due to huge volumes of infection. People need to get the updated vaccine if they can to lower the risk of death or hospitalization, but should know they can still get infected even if they are vaccinated – or if they’ve had COVID before. If people get sick, whether they test positive or not, they must wear a tight-fitting N95 respirator when around others! And the worst part is that about half of the people with COVID-19 caught it from someone who did not have symptoms, evidence indicates. Improved ventilation and air filtration reduce the concentration of viruses in indoor spaces, but most buildings, including schools, don’t have ventilation systems that follow the updated standard essential to mitigate transmission of airborne diseases.

For all the above reasons, a well-filtering and fitting mask is a critical layer of protection for both wearers and others around them. (Tell officials how vital masking is!)

You might be able to recover, but people are still dying and becoming disabled/chronically ill from COVID and flu every day!

• At least 1.2 million Americans have lost their lives to COVID in this pandemic.
• An estimated 17 million people in the U.S. are immunocompromised.
• 1 in 4 U.S. adults, 61 million people, were part of the community with disabilities even before the pandemic.
• Roughly 75% of U.S. adults are at high risk of severe COVID because of medical conditions, disabilities, and environmental factors.
• An estimated 23 million people in the U.S., including 6 million children, have been affected by Long COVID, with symptoms and conditions that may impact almost any organ in the body.

Studies show that COVID substantially increases people’s risk of autoimmune disease. Many studies show that viral persistence of SARS-CoV-2 can affect your blood and tissues. Even an infection that seems mild may shrink parts of your brain. COVID can damage your immune system cells. Proteins and fragments of the virus can set off a continuing immune response and drive inflammation. After COVID infections, some people have immune dysregulation and chronic inflammation, blood clots, or abnormal autoantibodies that lead to autoimmune disorders. Rare cancers are on the rise. Medical experts have observed an increase in late-stage cancers, especially lung, blood, and colon cancer, even in previously healthy individuals. Some scientists believe that COVID-19, particularly Long COVID, could be contributing to higher cancer rates by causing full-body inflammation and genetic changes.

Tracking and reporting of COVID and Long COVID cases would provide essential public warnings. Education for the general public about the combined benefit of vaccination, masking, ventilation, testing, isolation and treatment would spur actions that can greatly reduce the risk of transmission, infection, and post-infection chronic illnesses. Yet Americans will no longer be able to rely on our stripped-down federal and state agencies for case surveillance, prevention guidance, and public awareness efforts, or providing underserved Americans with mitigation tools.

Under CDC’s recent guidance, employers are pushing staff to return to work even when symptomatic and testing positive. Though widely ignored, the CDC’s recommendation is still to mask during and after an infection. Americans need our elected officials to fight for paid sick leave and programs that provide free tools for sickness prevention. Instead, we are heartbroken to see politicians using ‘fighting crime’ as an excuse to discourage masking, which will further undermine infection control.

Chronic conditions from a mask-preventable infection can torpedo an individual's livelihood by limiting their ability to work, driving up poverty, societal instability and the number of people abandoned and uncared for.

Masking is about health equity! We need you to help us fight the widespread denial and minimization of the detrimental impact of spreading sickness. We need to hold our leaders to account!

Everyone has a powerful story to share. Personalize the letter and send it. Call your elected officials. Only collective action can we preserve our right to mask protection.

We must #StopMaskBans!