When you politicize knowledge, regularly replace the truth with "alternative facts" and turn educators into enemies, you end up with a populace who cannot think critically enough to protect themselves.

Case in point: this Kentucky woman who sliced a slit up the center of her protective face mask to make it "easier to breathe" and didn't see why that was a bad idea.

The video is bouncing around social media, and people are baffled.

Listen to the cashier in the video.

The sheer fascination and disbelief in their voice is evident.

Woman Cuts A Hole In Her Face Mask As It 'Makes It Easier To Breathe' www.youtube.com

We've collectively dubbed people like them "covidiots"—folks who don't have enough understanding, common sense, awareness or are just downright too arrogant to abide by health guidelines.

They do things like crowd together, wear their face masks on their foreheads or below their noses, carry their gloves in their hands rather than actually use them (if you're going to just hold them, why do you even have them?) and cut their face masks to bits and render them useless.

Calling them "idiots" of any kind might just be simplifying the issue, though. They are exactly what their leaders have equipped them to be—and that's an issue.

When your leaders tell you the pandemic isn't real, isn't happening, isn't that bad, is just a flu ... this sort of thing is bound to happen. Still, it's shocking when it does.

The cognitive dissonance it takes to not understand that facemasks shouldn't be sliced open, particularly mid-pandemic, is jarring. How does this woman not grasp that cutting it makes it useless?

Of course it's a little uncomfortable and harder to breathe, it's filtering the air trying to keep you safe. Cutting it open makes it easier to breathe because it's no longer there.

Like we said, social media is baffled.

Please be safe, fam.

Education isn't the enemy. Even if you think you've got it down, go ahead and brush up on how to properly wear a face mask and what mistakes to avoid.

We're pretty sure whoever wrote those instructions never considered having to tell someone not to cut it open, yet here we are.

2020 is bonkers.

The documentary We Heard The Bells - The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 is available here.