Richard Reuer, Minot

These past months that we in our state and community have been trying every way we can to protect ourselves from the COVID-19 virus. We’ve asked people to practice social distancing and to wear a mask.

One day I was sharing with my brother my experience with being in the Marine Corps, and during my first months of training we learned how to protect ourselves, just as we today are learning how to protect ourselves from contamination (virus).

Looking through my old Marine Corps guidebook I came across the chapter about Nuclear Decontamination, the stages that a Marine had to do to decontaminate his exposure to Nuclear Radiation and the different effects of nuclear radiation require both immediate and delayed action. And I see that if we were going to really be serious about this virus, maybe we need to go deeper than where we have been going.

We are reminded each day to wash our hands with soap and water, or hand sanitizer, when really we should be washing our whole body, just the same, and to remove our contaminated clothing to be washed, for as we are walking around going from places to places, we are contaminating all areas, including the vehicle we drive in. I don’t see anyone taking a sanitizing cloth to wipe the door handle of their vehicle each time they get in, as I see some people when they grab a cart start sanitizing it after they have already touched the cart to bring it into the store near the sanitization station.

I myself find it difficult to wear a mask for a long period of time. I guess that’s why I’ve never chosen a profession that requires wearing of masks. I find it difficult to breathe, speak or hear others speak and when I do try wearing a mask, it’s destroyed within a matter of minutes, because I’m constantly scratching the upper part of my nose and the lower part of my chin from the irritation the mask does in those areas.

I do not condemn those who wear a mask and do the things that they do for protection, but if we’re going to really overcome this virus, then I think we need to really treat it more like if this were a nuclear radiation type contamination. We’ve asked people to stay in their homes, for a period of times, especially if they think or have the virus, but really did that help anything? When really on sunny days we need to be more outdoors, because the sun gives us our Vitamin-D, which here in North Dakota we don’t get enough of it the way it is. And as I see it, someday soon, all places of business’s will require their customers to wear a mask before coming into their facility. Will they also have a changing station for them to shower and put on clean clothes too, as that area of themselves is fully contaminated that no matter what type of mask you’re are wearing, you are still contaminating the places you are shopping.

I’m not trying to be one that has the solution to the problem, but one that wants a solution to the problem that would really work for all of us from COVID-19.