Sarah, who has co-owned Antique Sugar with her friend Annamarie Sanchez for the past 10 years, told Bored Panda that she never imagined that the sign she came up with would blow up the way that it did.

She said she expected only the people who come into the shop to see it. However, she posted a photo of the sign on her personal Facebook page where she asked people if they thought it was too dark. “It was immediately shared several times, and from there someone posted it on Reddit and it took off.”

Sarah confirmed that they’ve been getting lots of hate mail. “From what I’ve seen in some of the hate mail we’ve been receiving, the most vehement anti-maskers seem to be far-right politically. They seem to have the ‘don’t tread on me’ mindset. They really don’t want to be told what to do by me, or scientists, or the government, or the media. Which is fine, but in the same sentence, they threaten to report us for violating the ADA.”

She revealed that in her opinion, she doubts that she changed the mind of anyone who had a solid opinion about mask-wearing before she posted the sign. “But I also haven’t had any non-mask-wearing people in the shop since it went up. So I’m declaring my personal battle a victory.”

There have been over 11.4 million cases of people infected with the coronavirus worldwide; more than half a million people have died from the illness. The United States has more than 2.89 million cases, the most in the entire world. Brazil is in second place with over 1.6 million infected while India has nearly 698k cases.