Facebook Encourages Spread Of COVID-19 — By Tommy Purser

“I am OSHA 10&30 certified. I know some of you are too. I don’t really know WHY OSHA hasn’t come forward and stopped the nonsense BUT ….”
So reads a small portion of the intro to a long posting on Facebook that claims masks don’t protect people from COVID-19.
As with most such posts, the author provided just enough actual facts to make it believable to the gullible. But the great majority of the post is full of half truths, lies by omission and out-and-out falsehoods.
SNOPES.com, one of the leading and most accurate fact-checking sites on the Internet, judged the post “mostly false.”
For instance, the author’s claim of being “OSHA 10&30 certified” refers to OSHA’s 10-hour and 30-hour training modules about common health and safety hazards in the workplace. But OSHA says the courses do not include COVID-19 topics. And OSHA doesn’t certify trainers at all.
The post has been shared for a couple of months or more and plenty of people have been duped by it and other anti-science posts. Social media is full of instances where people are encouraging the spread of COVID-19 and those efforts appear to be working as the virus is spreading alarmingly fast across the country, including right here in Jeff Davis County.
My  daughter, Anna, has tested positive for the disease but seems to be handling it quite well. Her symptoms thus far have amounted merely to a loss of smell and a loss of taste.
But she lives in fear she will spread the disease to the good wife and me. Both of us, at 72 years of age, are in the older Americans category, a group whose immune systems would find it difficult to fight off an infection. So, when she comes to our house, she wears a mask.
But her youngest, Ace, last week spent two nights with us and he could very well have passed the infection on to us.
Two of my son’s children, both of whom are in their early 20s, learned that a friend of theirs had tested positive for COVID-19. They had recently been in close contact with the friend and they both were tested as a precaution. And both of them paid an overnight visit to my home where they came in close contact with their grandparents….. and their aunt and uncle from Richmond Hill who also spent the night. And Anna and Ace.
For the past few days I’ve been sneezing and sniffling almost uncontrollably but haven’t had a fever. Still, I worry.
Saturday, I went to the Red, White and Boom celebration at the fairgrounds wearing a mask. I was only able to stay for a short time but while I was there, in the early portion of the event, there were probably 75 people present. If any people were wearing masks, I didn’t see them.
I was gone before the biggest part of what turned out to be a large gathering arrived for the fireworks display. But I doubt there were many masks nor was social distancing practiced. I hope I’m wrong.