(01:21):
All right. My friends. So today is Monday morning. I believe it is probably about the 28th. So warning in advance, I am going to speak politically or rather ideologically about COVID one time, one time today. And I’m going to say everything I think. And then I’m not going to talk about it from that perspective anymore. Okay. So here’s the deal. There’s this massive controversy about wearing masks. Okay. There’s this idea that forcing you to wear a mask is infringing upon your personal freedoms and your rights. There’s an idea that forcing you to wear a mask is somehow an American. There’s an idea that if you’re sick, you know, the words quote too sick to wear a mask that you don’t have to wear a mask. And you don’t have to explain why you don’t want to wear a mask. There’s the idea that it’s my personal choice.
(02:59):
Whether or not I wear a mask. There’s this idea that, well, the president doesn’t wear a mask. There’s this idea that well, fill in the blanks. Okay. So I kind of went off on somebody this morning because I’ve really, I thought I’ve had it up to here a few weeks ago. It’s intensified. Okay. Why has it intensified and why does it make me even more mad than it did a month ago or two months ago or three months ago? It’s because guess what? People, you stay home. You wear a mask, you wash your hands, the virus diminishes. You go out, you go to the bar, you don’t wear a mask. You don’t socially distance, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We have what we have now, which is that we started to pack up the hoses. We started to turn off the water. We started to go back to the fire station before the fire was out. And guess what? We didn’t realize that one thing that was in the area that we forgot to check was gasoline. And now the fire is going to come roaring back. Okay. Alright. So let’s just talk about logic for a moment. Okay. Let’s talk about, well let’s before we go to logic. Okay. Cause logic, we have to build up to let’s talk about your opinion, right? Because what got me going this morning was when I saw somebody. Right. Well, that’s my opinion.
(04:51):
Okay.
(04:53):
That’s your opinion. I feel like judge Judy. Okay. That’s your opinion. What is your opinion based upon, is it based upon what you learned in medical school? Is it based upon what you learned when you were getting your PhD? Is it based upon your many, many years of clinical practice or research in biology? Or is it what you watched on Fox news
(05:28):
Or MSNBC or CNN or the Flintstones. Okay. Because there are certain things that are not opinion based. Okay. Do you like chocolate or vanilla better? I like vanilla. That’s my opinion. That’s my personal preference. Whether or not a mass protects you and reduces the risk of virus. That’s not an opinion. People that’s called science. And if your opinion contradicts the science, then guess what? You’re wrong. And you should reserve your opinion because it’s wrong. And it’s adding to the problem. It’s like, if you still think the earth is flat, well, that can be your opinion, but it’s wrong.
(06:27):
It’s that simple. Okay. Now here’s the thing. Now here’s where we get political. Now here’s where we get ideologic okay. It seems to me that many of the same people who are pro or anti mask, right. They’re anti mask, because that takes away their choice, that takes away their personal freedom. Right? So it’s your choice, whether or not you wear a mask. So when it comes to mask wearing your pro choice, I’m just making sure I understand it. Okay. I just want to make sure I don’t miss quote your opinion because I want to make sure that we’re all on the same page. So when it comes to wearing a mask you’re pro choice, I have a choice to wear a mask or not. Right. Even though me not wearing a mask could kill you. Even though me not wearing a mask could kill your mother.
(07:41):
Even though me not wearing a mask, could kill your father or your sister or your brother or your children or your grandparents. Okay. So here’s the thing. Okay. So when it comes to wearing a mask, your pro choice, what about reproductive rights? Are you also pro-choice because that would be consistent. That would be consistent. You stand for personal liberties. You don’t want the government or anybody else telling you what to do. That would be consistent. I can buy that logic. I don’t believe the government should tell me what to do in any way, shape or form. If I don’t want to wear a mask, I don’t wear a mask. If somebody chooses to end the pregnancy, because they, you know, for whatever reason they should have that choice. But I Ronica glee, many of the people, okay. Many of the people who are pro choice when it comes to mass or pro-life when it comes to reproductive rights, now here’s where things get tricky. Right? So let, let me just make sure I check off all the right boxes. So you’re pro choice mass pro-life reproductive rights, but here’s something that you may not have thought of, or you may not have realized, or you may not have learned, you know, or, or maybe you’re just in denial. Okay.
(09:17):
But wearing a mask or not wearing a mask. Okay. Or actually I should say the choice not to wear a mask is actually anti pro-life it’s anti-life pro-life is wearing a mask. Pro-Life is wearing a mask. Okay. And I do realize I’m preaching to the choir. I recognize that. Okay. But I want to get it out there. And I want to give you guys something to say, when you’re having an argument with people, which you really shouldn’t even be having an argument, because guess what? These opinions for most people are set in stone. Now let me say something else. Okay. Let me say something else. Okay.
(10:07):
Many of the people who are anti mask, because it infringes upon their personal freedoms are also pro gun. Yeah. Let’s get it all in today. Let’s get it all in pro gun is anti-life. So, which is it, which is it, which is that. So here’s the thing. Okay. And believe me, I consider myself to be a staunch, staunch, humanitarian, but here’s the thing. If your bad choice puts my family at risk. Well, I can’t support that. Let me tell you some of my jobs that I’ve had. I’ve gotten nearly 30 years as a cardiopulmonary rehabilitation specialist. I’ve got nearly 20 years as an EMT, working EMS in New York city, including at the time of SARS. When I worked in the hotbed of Queens, New York, I’ve been a lifeguard. I’ve been a rescue diver. Okay. So here’s the thing. If your choice puts everybody at risk, well, that puts everybody at risk.
(11:33):
If you make bad decisions for yourself, that would be fine. If you don’t know how to swim and you drown in your, in your, in your swimming pool at home, then by all means, okay, that doesn’t affect anybody else. But if you go onto the public and you swim out and now other people have to get involved in the rescue in a dangerous situation, well guess what? That is a problem. Okay. That’s a problem. So let me tell you about one time. The only time in my life where I actually thought I might die, not that I might die, that I was probably going to die.
(12:21):
I was in Cancun, Mexico, and I wanted to go diving at night. And because I’m a professional scuba diver and a professional rescue diver, one of the things that I do when I go onto a boat is I check everybody else out. I look around the boat, I watch how people are acting. I watch how they’re conducting themselves. I watch them set up their equipment. I watched their etiquette on the boat because all of these things will tell me how somebody will perform underwater. And I like to know upfront who might be a problem underwater. So on this particular night, I went, I went scuba diving and I see this guy setting up his gear who literally must have bought every piece of gear by price. He literally had the most expensive piece of each piece of equipment. And I started talking to him and all of it looked brand new.
(13:32):
And I said, have you done much diving? And he said, no, this is my first time diving in the ocean. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, I got certified in a quarry six months ago. I said, well, why would you choose a night dive for your first dive in the ocean? Because guess what? I know people who have died. I’ve been diving in the ocean for years. It’s a lot different at night when it’s dark out there. So anyway, this guy said, he came earlier in the day. They didn’t have any spots left on the boat. Now to me, if I own that dive company, I’m not letting somebody, I’m not letting somebody go out. Who’s never dove before in the ocean. Okay. It’s just stupid. But their thinking is, well, he’s a certified diver, right? Well, he’s certified. Okay. So me, I say to the guy, you know what, why don’t I buddy up with you? Thinking that if this guy gets into a jam, I can help him. Now, what happens? We’re supposed to go on a 45 to 60 minute dive and it’s called a drift dive. And what a drift dive is is you get dropped in the water. You just drift with the current and then the boat picks you up
(14:50):
Awhile. Okay? Now the beauty of this is that you don’t have to use a lot of air. So you get a nice, relaxed, a long dive. Okay. And that’s it. So they tell us, you know, one of the things they told us was that there was a bull shark on the reef earlier in the day. So this guy goes down. So the plan is, okay, you go down. When you come up, we will pick you up. And we are going to we’re going to pick you up and this should last 45 minutes to an hour. Right? Okay. We go down literally 15 minutes into Paul, please do, please send me the email on masks. And I’ll be happy to share that with you. P S how you doing Paulie? So the idea is 10 minutes into this dive, this guy is giving me the signal that he’s almost out of air, right?
(15:49):
So I’m like, we’re 15 minutes in. How is it possible that this guy’s out of air? I look at his thing and sure enough, he’s out of air almost. Okay. Why? Because he was so nervous that he was, he was going, he sucked all the air out of his tank in 10 times, the amount of time in actually one 10th of the time, it was supposed to last. So I go to the people in charge and I say, look, this guy’s out of air. I’m going to take him upstairs, not upstairs, above, above. So they’re like, how could he be out of air? So I say, I know it’s crazy. So I come back to the guy. Now, the guy’s regulator is out of his mouth. Okay. His eyes are closed and I see him swallow what? Must’ve been about five gallons of water. And then he throws up underwater.
(16:41):
Okay. So now I have a rescue on my hands. Everyone has already gone that way. It’s just me and this knucklehead. So I take all the air out of his BC. I get him ready to take him to the top. Okay. Put his regulator in his mouth, trying to give him as much air as I could give him on the way up and still not get hurt myself. Okay. We come to the surface, I inflate his BC. So now he’s floating. Okay. I give the guy one rescue breath, and now he’s up in awake and he gets up and he starts screaming, screaming, screaming, screaming, and throwing up. So he’s screaming and throwing up screaming and throwing up. So I take my glove and I smack him in the face as hard as I can. And I said, listen, you got to focus right now.
(17:33):
We’ve got to pay attention. Okay. So now I’m in the middle of the ocean pitch black. Okay. And there’s been a bull shark in the area. This guy’s chumming the water with his vomit all around me. And I could see the lights of Cancun and there’s no boat. There’s no boat. Okay. So now I am sitting there floating on top of the water. I say to him, take your fins off. If you feel anything from below, just tick your feet as hard as you can. We shine our lights down and we wait. Okay. It was an hour and 20 minutes before we got picked up. But let me tell you, it felt like a few weeks. And the thought I had to myself was, wow. I’m so, so, so careful all the time. I’m so careful to make sure that my skills are sharp. I’m so careful to follow safety regulations and even more. So hold on one second. And I’m thinking to myself, here I go, that’s a wrap. Okay. Now I’m going to die And I’m going to,
(18:59):
I’m going to die. Not because I made a mistake. Not that it’s wrong to make a mistake. Not because I didn’t do the right thing. Not because I was mean, cause I was trying to help this guy out. Okay. But I was going to die because somebody else made a bad choice. He made a bad choice to go out on the ocean for the first time. After not having dove in six months, he made a bad choice to go out on a night, dive the company, made a bad choice by letting this guy go. Okay. and there’s that? Okay. So that’s kinda like what this is like. So was I glad that it was me versus any of the other divers? I was glad, but not if I died. Okay. So I was glad I was there to help the guy. But if I died, then I would have rather he died.
(19:52):
Sorry to say it like that. But I would have rather with someone else, I mean, because you know, I have a lot of things. You know, I don’t take those kinds of risks with myself. Sometimes in my work, I have to put myself into a position of risk to help somebody else. But what I’m trying to say is help us, help us, help you. So help the medical community, right? Who you say, you have thoughts and prayers. You want to send your thoughts and prayers to the doctors and the nurses. And you want to go out on your roof and bang your pot and say how much you appreciate them. Okay. But the way you show appreciation is by being careful. Okay? The way you show appreciation for the coast guard is by not going surfing in a tornado. Okay? The way that you show appreciation for doctors and nurses is by doing everything you can.
(20:47):
And for us doing everything that we can as a community, as the human race and as citizens of the world to minimize the risk for everybody. Now I know at the beginning, and I know it because I heard people actually say it say, well, it’s happening in the cities. Right. I know a lot of people don’t like new Yorkers. It’s okay. We don’t mind. Okay. I’m a Brooklyn boy. I know. I take some getting used to, okay. But here’s the thing. We shut that shit down. People. We shut it down. And the virus when underground, okay. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen now because I’ll tell you this. I walk in the street. I see many, many, many people doing things that in my opinion are risky. Okay. I said, in my opinion, not in my opinion, they’re risky. Okay. so we may spike again, but for those of you that don’t want to wear a mask, just don’t wear a mask.
(21:48):
Don’t wear it, get together with all your friends who also don’t want to wear masks, but just don’t talk to me all day every day about how it’s affecting your personal freedoms. Right? Because that’s infringing upon my freedom to live. And the last thing I’m going to say about that is if we’re in the street and we see each other and you’re not wearing a mask and I am wearing a mask, as much as you respect your own, right. Not to wear a mask, please respect my right to wear a mask and my right to socially distance. So don’t come right up to me without your mask and try to tell me about how that’s your right, because I also have some rights and they involve my foot in your part of choice. Okay. So again, that was a crazy political ideologic rant. And I would say, I’m sorry for it, but I’m really not.
(22:51):
Those are the facts, people, those are the facts. Okay. And now, you know, I thought that when it was just the cities that people would be like, well, it’s just the cities. It’s not going to come to our town, but shit, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Carolinas. I mean, those aren’t all cities, people, those aren’t all cities. So here is a great opportunity for us. Here’s a great opportunity for us to look at ourselves and say, what’s more important to me whether that guy likes red or blue or whether we all live or die. Cause that’s really what we’re talking about. Okay. Have a great day. My friends after that, very, very uplifting speech And stay safe. All right. Have a great day.