About Us

The idea for the Wear A Mask – Save A Life website was the result of the desire of its founder, Richard Harpster, to protect his family and in particular his Godson who had special conditions that put him at great risk if he became infected by the COVID-19 virus.  Due to Mr. Harpster’s thirty-three years of helping companies manage risk, he knew that the key was preventing the infection or hundreds of thousand if not millions of Americans would die.  He began to study the virus.

He knew the country could not wait 18 months for a vaccine.  The number of infected required for “Herd Immunity” would require way too many deaths.  The only hope for prevention seemed to be a seasonal change that hopefully would make it difficult for the COVID-19 virus to survive.

When things started to look hopeless, Mr. Harpster’s studies uncovered the fact that most people who became infected were infected by people who had no symptoms.  The United States CDC had ordered everyone who did not have symptoms to not wear masks so they would be available for health care workers.  The COVID-19 virus had been given free access to the country.

To confirm his hypothesis, Mr. Harpster studied South Korea.  South Korea was held up by the United States as an example of how to manage the COVID-19 virus.  Their testing efforts were lauded as the key to their success.  A review of the details showed something totally different.  By March 31, 2020, South Korea had only tested 0.46% of their 51,470,000 people.  Clearly testing could not be reason for the success.  A review of the number of South Koreans’ wearing masks revealed it had grown from 19% when the virus was first detected to 89% in 25 days.  The South Koreans were preventing infection by people without symptoms.

The masks the majority of South Koreans were not medical grade N95.  They don’t have to be when you are trying to contain the viral droplets at the source.  Because of their lower grade, many of the masks were washable.

The question was obvious.  Why not do the same thing in America?  WearAMaskSaveALife. com website was created.