To the Editor:

In Hannaford this morning, I noticed a woman shopping without wearing a mask. Every other person in the store had their face covered as mandated by Governor Cuomo in April.

It is possible this woman had a medical condition that would exempt her from that order but I think it more likely she just didn’t want to muss her make-up. Or perhaps she was choosing to assert her freedom to do as she pleased.

None of us like to wear face coverings. It is uncomfortable.

Ask the front-line health-care workers or the grocery-store employees that have to cover their faces for hours at a time. It is not too much to ask that shoppers wear a mask for the half-hour or so they are in a store.

We all need to do our part to protect others as well as ourselves. It is just plain disrespectful and arrogant to do otherwise.

To quote Eleanor Roosevelt: “Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”

Donna Lansing Baker

Guilderland