I'm noticing a disturbing trend during this global pandemic. At grocery stores, big box retailers and numerous public-facing venues, I see person after person with a facemask hanging below their chins or none at all...

Five complete strangers just got on an elevator together. All had masks, but nobody was using them. You're in a confined space and if there was ever a place to be wary of, that's one. The girl getting on the same elevator with her baby in a stroller, no protection at all. At Dunkin' Donuts and Subway, I had to remind the worker making our sandwiches to use PPE. In both cases they obliged, but it made me wonder how long they'd been working like that before I spoke up?

I just had some kid with his fancy temperature gun eager to scan me, with his mask dangling off one ear. With people still dying everyday, this idiot wants to get close to me without any barrier at all. After I chided him, he sheepishly reattached his facemask. This teenager deals with the public all day long, so God only knows if he may be infected, yet asymptomatic.

It's almost as if these people are living in some alternate reality where COVID-19 never happened. Just as I suspected, they opened up too soon. States are now seeing a rash of new infections after pressure to reopen from advocacy groups. Remember those armed gangs that stormed into statehouses demanding a re-opening while brandishing weapons. Some of them got what they wanted, but at what price?

This may very well prolong the crisis that was mishandled to start with. We need to learn the lessons of the Spanish Flu. The people that aren't taking coronavirus seriously are endangering those of us who are. I don't know anyone who's been infected, and maybe that is giving some a false sense of security that it can't happen here.

Have you run into reckless people like this? How many times do we have to read reports of folks attending group functions, sleepovers and church gatherings, then realizing they've been infected? We've had hundreds of deaths in our county, but I think until these "covidiots" feel the loss of someone close to them, they'll continue playing with their own lives and others.