America’s first real reckoning with the coronavirus pandemic came on March 11 when Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive for COVID-19 and the NBA immediately shut its season down. Other sports leagues soon followed, and the coming days saw the rise of life in quarantine as states issued stay at home orders and tried to limit the spread of the virus.
Another big coronavirus news item that night was that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson both tested positive for the virus while filming a movie together in Australia. It was shocking news for a public coming to terms with what life would be like, and months later it may be difficult to remember how harrowing the news of their battle with COVID-19 was.
Which perhaps is why Wilson simply doesn’t understand why the concept of wearing a mask to help limit the spread of coronavirus has become a political issue in the United States. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Wilson dismissed those who question whether they should wear a mask to limit the transmission of COVID-19 both for the wearer and others around them.
“Why wouldn’t you wear a mask if it’s good for your health?” Wilson said Friday in an interview with Gayle King on CBS This Morning. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Wilson detailed the various symptoms she dealt with while battling COVID-19, which included a 102-degree temperature, extreme fatigue, body aches, irritability, discomfort, and the loss of her sense of taste and smell. The ordeal was enough to make her very vocal about mask wearing and other preventative measures in the months since, and her personal experience is something she clearly doesn’t want to see repeated in others.
“I don’t understand why something that’s so easy to do has become an issue or something that people are coming up against,” Wilson said. Perhaps it was King that was most direct about the situation in her interview, though.
“You know the mask is uncomfortable. But you know what else is uncomfortable?” King asked. “Dying.”
[via THR]