I still wear a mask and it helps me feel safe. But other selfish people refuse to do the same… despite my efforts. Am I wrong? BEL MOONEY imagines

Our brilliant advice columnist Bel Mooney has responded to thousands of reader letters over the years. But what if the rich and famous turned to her for unrivalled advice on their own problems?

Each week, we invite Bel to look behind the headlines and reflect on an imaginary celebrity dilemma that we have invented for her (with irony). In turn, Bel will take the letter at face value, just as she does with everyone who joins her famous column each week.

She’s going to give a candid answer, so celebrities and politicians, listen up! This week, we imagine what Violet, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s daughter, might write in a letter to Bel.

Dear Bel,

I’ll get to the point. Four years after the distribution of the vaccine and one year after the World Health Organization I declared that the Covid pandemic was over, but I still wear a mask. What’s more, I want others to wear one too. In fact, I think that oughtFrankly, I think it is antisocial and selfish to refuse to wear a mask.

I know that people like me are often looked upon with pity and some even label us as delusional. Many people have questioned the effectiveness of masks and the debate has almost become part of the culture wars.

But as someone who contracted a post-viral illness in 2019, I’d rather be safe than sorry. I saw firsthand that medicine doesn’t always have answers for the consequences of even minor viruses.

Wearing a mask helps me feel safe. People who disagree with me remind me (in a polite way) that the pandemic is over, but they are fools if they don’t realize that the chances of contracting COVID and other viruses still persist.

So I can’t understand why other people refuse to wear masks, particularly in medical settings, where I think they should be doing people like me the courtesy of keeping them safe. Is it really that big of an imposition?

VIOLET

Bel Mooney responds: Since you are only 18, I feel I should be tolerant and kind, and yet I find it quite difficult.

It’s not just that I disagree with your obsession with masks, or with the fact that many experts have told us that masks were pretty much useless in containing the spread of Covid. All the facts and figures on this are on the internet, so I’m not going to cite them here.

Your obsession worries me because it seems unnatural to me that a young woman of your age would want to cover her face all the time. What are you trying to hide?

But my real problem with you is authoritarianism. Yours, I mean. I wonder why you think you have the right to tell other people – and in no uncertain terms – what they should and shouldn’t do. An 18-year-old is an adult and should learn to listen to other people, as well as express her own opinions. But I’m afraid you sound like a privileged, protected, entitled Hollywood princess.

They want “mask mandates” imposed in medical facilities and are calling for an end to all “mask bans,” in an impassioned plea to the Los Angeles County governing body. They say, “I demand availability of masks, air filtration, and far-ultraviolet light in government facilities, including jails and detention centers, and mandatory mask wearing in county medical schools.”

To be fair, many people may feel safer wearing a mask inside a hospital or medical facility. Inside a hospital or medical facility, if I was told to wear a mask, I would. However, in 2020, as a 70-year-old woman with a history of asthma and bronchitis, I was adamant that I would wear a mask as little as possible. Believing passionately in the freedom enshrined in the American constitution, I thought then, as I do now, that lockdown and mask-wearing should be a choice.

Stay home if you want, but don’t lock me in. Wear a mask if you want, but don’t make me wear one of those horrible things!

You justify your demands by saying: “I contracted a post-viral illness in 2019. I am fine now, but I saw firsthand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses.”

So you got sick before Covid: Do you question medicine’s ability to “have answers”? Do you still think masks are the answer? It’s not logical.

Last year you were also photographed without a mask. And in these snapshots, when you are wearing it, the people around you are not wearing one. What is going on?

I have my own deep suspicions, which you actually find sympathetic. Like many young people (and no, I’m not being condescending), you think you have the answer to all the world’s problems. The problem is that you have chosen masks as the solution.

You have said that Covid-19 “may exacerbate our homelessness crisis, as well as the suffering of many people in our city. It hits communities of color, people with disabilities, seniors, trans people, women, and anyone who has an essential job in the public sphere the hardest.”

So, with the same simplicity as any sectarian or convert, you “demand” masks BY ORDER. In this way, you seem to believe that all the problems you identify will disappear and people will be safe.

It’s as unreal as unicorns frolicking on the Golden Gate Bridge. There’s so much pain and fear behind all your public statements, that people might not listen (sorry, but it’s true) if you weren’t the daughter of those parents.

No one is ever “safe” this side of the grave. Some people might (sadly) deduce that your father’s affairs must have been painful and even embarrassing, and that a girl your age who wears a mask in public and makes imperious demands of the authorities does so… why? Because she desperately craves attention.