Desmarais: Make Face Coverings a National Mandate
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The Guidelines for Opening up America Again recommend individuals “strongly consider using face coverings while in public, and particularly when using mass transit.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain ... especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.” All logic dictates that the recommendation must now become a national mandate. We know that there are significant numbers of asymptomatic coronavirus carriers that can transmit the virus to others when in close proximity. Randomized controlled trials demonstrating the effectiveness of therapeutics will not be available likely until early summer. Effective therapeutics is not a given; it took over ten years to turn HIV into a chronic illness. We will not likely see an effective vaccine until next year and that is not guaranteed. Masks have been shown to decrease the number of viral particles in the ambient air of users but do not provide complete protection. Maximum possible protection in a public place is attained only through universal mask usage. Individual citizens and local governments have varied greatly in the establishment of and compliance with pandemic control measures. We must plan for subsequent waves of COVID-19 which may be coincident with the influenza season.
As this is written, several states have reopened without mandates to use facial coverings. More than any other concept, perhaps, freedom defines us and we loathe having it trampled. But the right to freedom includes the freedom from the fear that grips the vulnerable and the danger they face when they must enter the public to obtain goods necessary for their survival. Also, it includes the right to work safely. To deprive others of these freedoms by not requiring facial coverings is itself a form of tyranny.
Rene Desmarais
MedChi Eastern Shore Trustee