Most Leader readers probably prefer we columnists avoid four-letter words in our opinion pieces, but we’re going there today, with plans dead ahead to use two four-letter words in tandem – eight letters, in all – which many of you might find obnoxious, if not odious.
Cover the youngsters’ eyes, please: You’ve been warned.
“Face mask.”
Whew. That actually wasn’t as hard to type as I thought it would be. Maybe that’s because I don’t personally view those two words as an epithet, a signal of political affiliation or an illustration of misinformed manipulation.
Here’s my confession: I wear a face mask in public settings, and I really want you to do the same.
You’ve heard the reason a bazillion times: Prevailing evidence shows that masks reduce cases and save lives in our global fight against COVID-19.
Admittedly, messaging on masks has been confusing. First we were told masks weren’t necessary for the general population and that we didn’t want to keep them from health care workers, and then were told that wearing a mask helps other people more than it helps you.
But we are learning more about the virus every day and new studies are showing significant benefits for everyone if masks are worn.
It’s estimated that COVID-19 transmission could be cut by 50 percent to 85 percent if everyone just wore a mask in the right way and in the right places (in public, where social distancing is not possible).
On July 15, Robert Redfield, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, weighed in during an interview with the medical journal JAMA.
“I think if we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I think in four, six, eight weeks we could bring this epidemic under control,” he said.
Look at the numbers in countries where mask-wearing is the go-to: for example, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and other Asian nations. They are managing the virus phenomenally better than the U.S., which has 4 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the global cases and deaths.
Resistance here to wearing masks is at least part of the reason.
Even in the U.S., we are starting to acknowledge the obvious. At the time I wrote this, 39 states had mandatory mask orders in place. Missouri was listed among only seven that were still only recommending masks in public places, not requiring them. (Iowa is the real outlier, without any mask guidance on the state level.)
Walmart, Target, CVS, Schnucks and other large retailers with multiple stores have decided customers will have to wear masks to shop. Others will join in.
That’s because mask-wearing makes sense.
There’s a lot to disagree and argue about when it comes to COVID:
We can fuss about how numbers are calculated for virus cases and deaths, about whether COVID is really worse than the flu, about how our government has handled the crisis and about who’s to blame for all of this.
But I think there’s one thing most of us agree on: We’d rather not catch the dang thing.
Masks assist in that goal. I offer a personal piece of evidence. Typically, I catch four or five bad colds a year. I’ve been following recommendations to avoid contagion and haven’t been sick, at all, since December.
Yet, a lot of my fellow Missourians – including, I suspect, a fair number of Jefferson County residents – abhor talk about a mandatory mask rule (although St. Louis city and county have one in place).
A story published on July 15 by USA Today identified our state as the sixth-most “anti-mask” in the country, behind (in order of aversion) Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Idaho and Maine.
The Survival at Home website quoted in the story analyzed social media to come up with the rankings, so Missouri might actually deserve a higher spot, since a lot of us in the Show-Me State also are averse to Twitter and hashtags.
Jefferson County Health Department Director Kelley Vollmar knows this is a flashpoint subject. She reported getting threats for daring to suggest that her board talk about a mandatory mask requirement here. The topic was set to be discussed at a meeting on Tuesday (after the Leader’s deadline), so I don’t know how much fire and brimstone rained down.
The county’s COVID-19 numbers are worsening day by day, with now nearly 1,000 cases and at least 25 deaths. At first, nursing homes were largely the source of our caseload, but now younger people are getting infected, taking the virus out into the larger society, where vulnerable victims can be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Case in point: In recent days, four COVID-positive employees of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and an attorney may have inadvertently exposed numerous people at the County Courthouse to the disease. On Monday, county government started a mandatory mask rule at all county buildings.
We know what to do here and must stop debating it. Let’s get real instead.
Masks help. Let’s wear them.
