ANTHRAX's FRANK BELLO Urges Everyone To Wear Masks: 'I Wanna See People Survive'

In a new interview with the "Dabghanistan" podcast, ANTHRAX bassist Frank Bello spoke about how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the songwriting sessions for the band's long-awaited follow-up to 2016's "For All Kings" album. He said (see video below): "We can't do anything [in person] right now, because nobody's gonna fly… I'm not flying anywhere. Look, when I see these videos on these damn newscasts of people walking in the aisle of an airplane, as we do, with no mask, and they're sitting next to a person with no mask… Dude, I have a kid, I have a family — it's not worth it for me. And it shouldn't be worth it for anybody, unless you have to be on that plane.

"For me, wear a mask," he continued. "That's all it takes. If you wear a mask, I'm good. And I hate to sound like I'm preaching. But dude, just save lives.

"Maybe 'cause we've been scarred from [living in] New York — the New York [number of infections and deaths] was so bad, and I pray it never gets to everybody… But now I see the rest of the country, unfortunately, going through this. But then when you see these pool parties go on…

"Live your life — I get it. But it's a different time. It's not 'party hearty' time. Now it's escalating to a really bad place. I'm no preacher, but people have families. I wanna see people survive.

"It's worse now [than it was at the beginning of the pandemic]," he added. "I can't believe it's worse. We had 50-something thousand new cases yesterday. How does that work?

"I sound like a public service announcement, but it's true — unless you wear a mask, the longer we're gonna wait. Bottom line."

U.S. officials have repeatedly urged Americans to heed what federal, state and local officials are asking of them in order to curtail the spread and dampen the impact of the virus on the population.

Lawmakers have been pushing harder for their constituents to wear face masks to limit the spread of coronavirus. Months after his own advisers recommended it, President Donald Trump finally wore a mask in public less than two weeks ago during a visit to wounded service members at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, thousands of concerts and festivals have either been postponed or canceled, as social distancing and self-quarantining make performing live music and attending live shows all but impossible.

More than 14.5 million coronavirus cases have been reported worldwide and more than 606,000 deaths so far, putting public health systems and emergency services under immense pressure.