Opinion: Anderson Should Reconsider Rejecting Mask Ordinance

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

Last week the City of Anderson declined to join most of the state’s other sizable cities in implementing a requirement to wear a protective mask in at lease some public locations. 

Fifteen of South Carolina’s 20 largest cities (the City of Anderson ranks seventeenth) now require masks in many public places. Many other small towns also have approved similar laws, with most issuing a $25 civil fine for non-compliance. 

In the Upstate, Greenville and Spartanburg now require some form of face covering in grocery stores and pharmacies. Central and Clemson require a mask in all public locations.

The reason? Our friends and neighbors, especially senior citizens and those with health issues are in danger.

South Carolina is among the fastest growing states for COVID-19, with an average of more than 1.200 new confirmed positive cases per day over the past month. With 70 percent of the hospital beds in now occupied, health officials are taking notice and making arrangements to implement their surge plan to add an additional 3,000 beds in hotels, closed hospitals and gymnasiums if the current trend continues.

So why the reluctance by local officials to do their part in slowing the pandemic?

One reason the city gave for not implementing mandatory masks requirements is that they would be difficult to enforce. Our neighboring towns and cities don’t seem to agree, and with good reason: it would not be that difficult to enforce. 

The City of Anderson just this year implemented a new law banning all forms of smoking downtown, including vaping. A mask ordinance would be no more difficult to enforce that this new law.

Smoking is a hazard both to the smoker and those around them, and this is a clear parallel to wearing masks.  

City officials seemed to echo the remarks of S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster who has insisted that he “trusts the citizens in this state know what to and to do it.” 

Then why are their seatbelt laws? Speed limits on roads? Weight limits for vehicles on some bridges? (this list could go on and on) 

The reason for such laws is that people don’t always behave in a way that is in their best interest and the best interest of others.

To suggest otherwise, that our individual opinions and options carry more weight that scientific study, is shorted sighted.

There are two main reasons to wear masks. While there is evidence of protection for the wearer, the stronger evidence is that masks protect others from catching an infection from the person wearing the mask. Infected people can spread the virus just by talking, and those who are in places where singing is part of the meeting, especially churches and other places with choirs, spread the virus in even more profound ways.

Linsey Marr, a researcher at Virginia Tech who studies the airborne transmission of viruses, recently told NPR: “You're talking, when things are coming out of your mouth, they're coming out fast. They're going to slam into the cloth mask. I think even a low-quality mask can block a lot of those droplets.”

There is also evidence that universal mask use, even if worn by people who are feeling healthy, according to another study by BML Global Health, which examined those in Beijing with COVID-19. In China, which already had a culture accustomed to wearing masks, the  study found that in households where all wore face masks indoors as a precaution before they knew anyone who lived there was sick, the risk of transmission was cut by 79 percent. 

The Center for Disease Control has strongly recommended the wearing of masks since the beginning of the pandemic.  

From the CDC website:

“Cloth face coverings are recommended as a simple barrier to help prevent respiratory droplets from traveling into the air and onto other people when the person wearing the cloth face covering coughs, sneezes, talks, or raises their voice…this recommendation is based on what we know about the role respiratory droplets play in the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19, paired with emerging evidence from clinical and laboratory studies that shows cloth face coverings reduce the spray of droplets when worn over the nose and mouth.” 

The website references 19 recent scientific studies which conclude masks can help at least slow the pandemic.

Sadly, the wearing some form of masks in public has shifted from a safety debate to a political statement over the past two months. This despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientific studies on masks, including current and past studies on their efficacy, conclude that masks at the very least can slow the spread of virus germs.

What started as largely maskless protests against shutdown orders has spiraled into far wider anti-mask sentiment. As states have began to reopen their economies, many national chains and local businesses are requiring customers to wear face masks when in stores leaving the businesses and their employees on the frontlines of the debate. 

Stores with strict about masks have reported angry customers (search YouTube for examples) who grow aggressive when attempts are made to turn them away for not wearing masks. These confrontations have led to violence and even one shooting across the country. 

The rhetoric on masks and temperature checks have featured accusations of "trampling constitutional rights" and mask burnings in protest. Some question the science, often referencing some individual doctor, nurse or other “expert” who challenges the bulk of scientific evidence. Others have even suggested masks are dangerous to one's health, a conclusion not supported by research. 

Still others express another viewpoint, one which does not outright deny the evidence that masks slow the spread of the virus, suggests that it’s all up to God and his will concerning whether they die or not. (Little is said about the decision leading to the spreading the virus to those around them who may not share their theological convictions). 

Then there are also those who follow the leader, President Trump, who has through word and deed made it clear he is not going to wear a mask even around those who have tested positive. His recent rallies in Oklahoma and Arizona found few supporters not following the president’s lead to go militantly mask-free. But the good news is even the Trump campaign is now encouraging masks at the upcoming rally in New Hampshire this weekend where masks will also be made available. 

And while masks are certainly not a cure-all for COVID-19, areas both at home and abroad which have required masks as part of a comprehensive health response have managed to get the pandemic under control. The scientific community around the world is accelerating work on a potential vaccine, which will be most effective in areas not still spiking virus numbers. 

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams suggested recently the wearing of masks is akin to the effectiveness of any vaccine.

“Ultimately it is a choice we make, and I hope it’s made based on the best available/current science, and a desire to do all we can to help others and ourselves/our communities,” Adams wrote. “Like vaccines, the more who participate, the greater the impact.”

He’s right, and it would be in the best interest of everyone in Anderson County for local governments to work together on a comprehensive ordinance requiring masks, at least in critical places such as grocery stores and pharmacies across the county. 

The City of Anderson should reconsider their recent decision and take the lead in this movement to require masks in some public places, creating a template for other towns in the county to follow.