Editor, Gazette-Journal:

We all have a personal responsibility to protect ourselves, but not others. If you want to protect others, that’s a personal choice as well, but as a courtesy, not a mandate. There is no great societal requirement that we go out of our way and give up our freedom for a “greater good.” The greater good is just how politicians fire up their base to give up their freedom.

In a recent letter to the editor in this newspaper, the author spoke in favor of masks in order to keep himself from getting sick and others. That’s not how any of this works. Masks were just a reaction to the early days of the Covid where there was no treatment and no vaccine. Now, according to USA facts.org (https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/state/virginia), 84 percent of Virginians are vaccinated and 72 percent are fully vaccinated.

Masking was designed to buy time when there were no treatments or options other than staying away from each other. And thi...