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To the Editor:

I couldn’t decide whether to scream or laugh when I read Peter Kapuscinski’s letter to the editor in the Dec. 22 issue of the Herald. In it, he equated mandating wearing masks in public spaces to protect others from COVID to the social conditioning forced on the Chinese population during the Communist Revolution.

If he wants to make historical comparisons, I can think of two better ones that describe the effect of people going unmasked in public spaces in a time when over 800,000 people have already died of COVID just in the U.S.: colonists infecting and wiping out some Native American tribes with smallpox and armies launching animals diseased with the bubonic plague over castle and town walls.

Those who refuse to wear a mask in public during this pandemic are not exercising individual choice; they are weaponizing their bodies to kill fellow Americans. Does Kapuscinski really want to encourage citizens’ using biological weapons against each other?

In a better world, there would be no need for mask mandates. People would willingly and gladly do everything they could to protect their families, friends, neighbors and even strangers.

Robin Smith

Farmville