Prime Minister Scott Morrison was widely criticised for comparing COVID mask mandates to forcing people to wear sunscreen during his Wednesday appearance on the Today show. Image: Nine
I caught sunburn the other day. As I was out walking on a grey afternoon, the heavens had opened to a torrential downpour the like of which only Noah had seen. Hood up, face down, I looked in vain for the sun to appear.
I sought refuge in a cafe, and there a few tables away, being socially responsible, were a group of dark-skinned Caucasians. Their skin glowed with golden brownness. This, dear reader, was my misfortune.
No one was wearing masks. They, and I, didn’t have to. So we didn’t. I pulled the hood down, lifted my face to the air and enjoyed the caffeine hit of freedom. It didn’t take long though and a strange sensation started to creep up my arms from the fingers to the shoulders, around the neck and onto the face. It was a tingling, the like of which I hadn’t encountered.
I took my leave and hurried home without nary a goodbye or hello to anyone. And there in the mirror was a changed man. My skin was tanned. Despite the seeming absurdity of it, I could only conclude that I had caught sunburn from that table. Which one of them had been the carrier? I didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
But this was the new reality. Who knew sunburn was contagious? I had gone through years and years of surfing and swimming, playing soccer and cricket without a blemish received from my fellow men and women. But what evil has now come my way?
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It must be a solar variant, possibly from a galaxy far, far away, that had seeded itself into civilisation. And yet barely an iota of communication, warning or caution has been issued about it. The next morning, I turned on the television and there was the Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and even he seemed blase about it.
“We don’t have to mandate people wearing sunscreen and hats in summer,” he declared.
What?
Did he not know what must be happening out there if this just happened to me? Could this not be a pandemic? But this troubled me, why must we mandate sunscreen and hats, and why just in summer?
Surely it must be all year, until all the brown people had lost their golden glow and were pale and wan, white as the moon. Surely we could not leave this to personal responsibility, too many people would suffer the torment of burnt skin, of uncontrollable itchiness and then the inevitable peeling away of the dead bits.
Our skin would turn red, then pink, then white again, until the next infection. And what about the little ones at school, surely they need protection.
Would protesters take to the streets, without sunscreen and hatless, to protect their rights to not do so while the arms and faces of innocent men, women and children could be infected? And what if it were already too late?
Mandating sunscreen SPF50+ and a broad-brimmed hat may not be enough, but it may be something. Who would imperil the skin of others to so recklessly say mandates are not necessary – for look what happened to me, the sunburn jumped from one person to another – indoors. I did not want to be sunburnt, and now it has left its mark.
I wait with dread for the itching to start.
