To the editor:

So, only people 50 years and older, especially those old-timers 70 years-plus, are recommended to wear masks “whenever they leave the house,” says your May 28 editorial, “Right in time.”

Your editorial prescription is a placebo. As you undoubtedly know, the type of mask available to most of us functions mainly to protect others from picking up the virus from the wearer. It doesn’t really do much to protect the wearer. Safety – physically, economically, ethically – only results when most people wear masks, and protect one another.

Why not recommend that every adult wear a mask outside the house, as well as for all to “religiously practice physical distancing?” Aren’t we all in this together?

-Tom O’Neill, Alexandria