By Brian Aust
As a resident of the Mad River Valley for 18 years with 12 of them being in Waitsfield, I am incredibly disappointed and rather distressed that the resolution to enact a mask mandate ordinance was voted down. I’d like Paul Hartshorn, Darryl Forrest and Kellee Mazer to explain how exactly is it that Waitsfield benefits by not aligning itself with Warren and Waterbury and instead allowing people to use their best judgment with regard to wearing masks in public places. A cursory look at the news from the rest of America is all that’s needed to see, unequivocally, where the best judgment of the populace has gotten them.
Let’s get some facts straight here. The novel coronavirus can spread through aerosolized droplets. Masks have been proven effective at reducing both the spread of the virus by people who are infected and the chances that someone can be infected via airborne virus particles (for one of many studies, see the British Medical Journal’s report at https://reliefweb.int/report/china/reduction-secondary-transmission-sars-cov-2-households-face-mask-use-disinfection-and). Anyone who walks in without a mask on sends their pulmonary microbiota into the room, to circulate for hours while staff work their shifts and others visit. This is now accepted science. Requiring a mask greatly reduces or eliminates the potential for active coronavirus to get into the circulation system of a store or business.
Just like the virus and its high potential for severe debilitation (20% of cases) or death (somewhere between 1.4% and 3%) are real, Vermont’s success at suppressing infections and deaths via public health measures thus far is also real and, apparently, making people complacent. With reopening comes visitors from all over the country to Waitsfield. This is especially true now that few other countries will let Americans in due to their inability to be trusted to follow basic virus-prevention procedures, first and foremost being wearing a mask. People get upset over their individual rights, and then gripe about mask-wearing requirements. The virus has not read the Bill of Rights, let alone the Constitution and is incapable of caring for anyone’s insulted ego, and that is why more than half the United States presently have out-of-control infection rates.
USE SCIENCE
Please, use science as your guide, rather than your interpretation of the Constitution, because human rights only apply to what humans do to each other, not how viruses behave. With tourists arriving from all parts of Vermont and current state guidance on quarantining easily circumvented, it’s a matter of time before the virus returns. The right thing to do here for public safety is clear, although perhaps not readily apparent or believable for those who only think for themselves rather than the greater good. Requiring masks in commercial businesses until the virus is under control would reduce confusion, arguments and ambiguity. I was told this week to “drop my mask” in a local business so the cashier could visually determine whether I was of age to buy beer. Given that she and four others in the store at that moment were not wearing masks, I refused and offered my driver’s license instead. This type of confrontation could be avoided or at least reduced with one uniform policy rather than every store owner deciding for themselves whether or not to require masks indoors.
As a biologist and a concerned Mad River Valley resident, I ask the select board to please reconsider this vote. A town ordinance would add another layer of protection to workers in the business establishments and to those wishing to frequent them. The more layers of protection from contracting COVID-19, the better. No one can issue tickets without state mandate, but store owners and employees would then have legal cause to refuse service (and would all be on the same page regarding mask wearing themselves). For those concerned that people will boycott, this blade cuts both ways as a great many of us are already boycotting those stores whose employees don’t wear masks.
DO THE RIGHT THING
Do the right thing, for the protection of your neighbors. Do it for public health. Comparing a mask mandate to “communism” is meaningless because the virus is not human and anthropomorphizing it doesn’t change the science. Politicizing this virus in such a way is self-defeating and completely beside the point of protecting public health. It is so easy and such a little thing to wear a mask for a few minutes or maybe a half-hour to buy some items when compared to the devastation the virus can cause.
The notion opined by Paul Hartshorn that people are "breathing in carbon dioxide all day long" or that there are any "long-term health issues" is categorically and absolutely false, as any doctor or nurse or other health care professional who has to wear a mask for a 12-hour shift can attest. That claim is instead part of the larger debunked "plandemic" conspiracy which has been tearing our country apart with misinformation (and was consequently banned from social media platforms). My wife has worn her mask eight hours a day, four days a week at Hunger Mountain Co-op since early March, where masks are required. I guarantee you she and her coworkers are just fine, as am I wearing my mask eight hours a day working in our state parks. There are numerous pieces published detailing the proof of this, I'll offer this Associated Press article for a starting point: https://apnews.com/280e3742a4d27b9a550ad1c03fba2d6d
Mixed messages from the top of America's political food chain about the novel coronavirus regarding everything from masks to its diagnostics and severity as well as effective mitigation has scrambled the country's response to it. One hundred forty thousand have died from COVID-19, the same number that died in the four months since the detonation of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. This virus is coming for Waitsfield and everywhere else, and the only way we can stay safe when going about business is if the vast majority of people wear masks. Japan has proven this can be done: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53188847.
Brian Aust is a Moretown resident.
