WASHINGTON POST
Parsell need not worry: Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has not made mask-wearing mandatory here in Florida. That’s in sharp contrast with what’s happening more than 2,000 miles away in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Thursday reacted to rising caseloads by making mask-wearing mandatory.
In this sprawling, heterogeneous country, the pandemic has become yet another thing on which Americans are divided. Mask-wearing for some people is an identifier of broader beliefs and political leanings. Like so many issues rooted in science and medicine, the pandemic is now fully entangled with ideological tribalism. This has played out before: helmets for motorcyclists, seat belts in cars, smoking bans in restaurants. All of those measures provoked battles over personal liberty.
“I don’t like to see people out in bars congregating without masks right now,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview, but he added, “We may have mayors and may have governors who are saying the right thing, but because of the individual spirit of our country, we don’t listen to authority. You go to Korea, you go to Japan, when the authorities say something, man, it gets done.” The independent American trait can complicate public health measures, he acknowledged. "When you’re dealing with infectious diseases, a small percentage of people who don’t comply can have an impact on the entire population,” he said.
The United States has far more coronavirus infections than any other country. It has the most covid-19 deaths.
In Wisconsin, the Republican state legislature successfully sued to strike down Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’s stay-at-home order, which many local leaders declared they would ignore. And in several states with Republican governors, including Arizona, Arkansas and Oklahoma, Democratic mayors have expressed frustration with a lack of aggressive action to halt the viral spread.
In Orange County, Calif., the board of supervisors said it would no longer enforce mask mandates locally, going against the wishes of health department officials. In Nebraska, Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) told local authorities in his state not to mandate masks in municipal buildings — unless they wanted to lose out on their allocation of money from the federal Cares Act.
AMC, the sprawling movie house chain, made a proclamation of its own earlier in the week, declaring it would not mandate masks so as “not to be drawn into political controversy” — thereby drawing itself into political controversy anyway. But by Friday, reflecting the fluid nature of the pandemic and the decisions enveloping it, AMC had reversed course, announcing that it would insist on mask-wearing after all.
Compared with most countries, the United States has been quick to reopen, according to researchers at the Oxford University Blavatnik School of Government who have crafted a Stringency Index that tracks government shutdown orders and other interventions. But multiple states, particularly in the South, Midwest and Southwest, are experiencing spikes in infections.
Adding to that confusion is the fact that successful public health measures, including shutdowns and mandates to wear masks, can appear to be unnecessary. There is no easy way to calculate what might have happened if the measures hadn’t been imposed.
Memorial Day weekend facilitated an explosion of self-determination, as pictures of packed pools and overflowing clubs — all enjoyed by people bereft of masks — left public health officials wringing their hands. Pictures of crowds packed into a pool at Backwater Jack’s, a beloved local spot at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, drew national attention.
So far, health officials in the state say they do not think the gathering resulted in the catastrophic spread of the coronavirus that some predicted.
Since Memorial Day, at least 10 states have seen covid-19 hospitalizations rise at least 10 percent, according to a Post analysis of data.
Not all states report covid-19 hospitalizations, so the list may be longer. Florida, for example, is experiencing an explosion in cases but does not report hospitalization data.
In Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey (R) succumbed to pressure from local leaders and revised an executive order that had barred city leaders from instituting their own policies on face coverings.
Within 48 hours of Ducey’s reversal, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego (D) had announced a mask mandate would be on the next city council agenda. Tucson Mayor Regina Romero (D) announced an executive order mandating masks in her city, too.
Montgomery, Ala., has emerged as a virus hot spot in recent weeks, with cases increasing 73 percent in the surrounding county during June. Hospitals in the region are experiencing a strain on intensive care units and other resources. But when the city council voted on a measure that would have mandated masks in public among groups of 25 or more, the measure failed.
A day later, Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed (D) announced he would sign an executive order mandating masks in public anyway.