Anyone who has been out and about the past few weeks surely has noticed the dwindling number of masks in public, even when indoors, and a growing abandonment of social distancing efforts.
Almost anywhere you go, you’ll see unmasked people socially congregating in groups – often face-to-face in close proximity – or seated at tables with friends, co-workers and clients.
Beaches, retail stores and churches again are crowded. Barber shops, hair salons and gyms are busy. Golf courses, tennis courts and pickleball complexes are buzzing with activity. In many cases, if the servers in bars and restaurants weren’t wearing masks, you’d think the pandemic had passed.
And that’s how too many of us are acting.
“The compliance seems to have slipped,” said County Administrator Jason Brown, who wore a mask for the first time at last Friday’s coronavirus news conference and carried a 6-foot-long wooden pole he used as a prop to demonstrate the Florida Department of Health’s social-distancing recommendation.
“Our absolute numbers aren’t very high,” Brown said, “but the trend is not positive.”
“Unfortunately, as we’ve reopened our economy, some people began thinking: The shutdown is over. We can go back to normal,” he added. “But we can’t go back to January – to what was normal before COVID – because the virus hasn’t gone anywhere.
“We can keep businesses open, but we still need to take precautions, and that means wearing a mask in public, especially when you can’t socially distance.”
Complicating matters is the concocted politicization of the decision to wear or not wear masks, which, in today’s America, have become as polarizing as your choice of cable news outlets. I’ve heard numerous stories of people in our community – on both sides of the issue – confronting or making snide remarks to strangers in public.
To disparage someone for wearing a mask during a pandemic, though, is as wrongheaded as it is ignorant.
As Brown put it: Wearing a mask in public is an “act of economic patriotism,” because it serves as a tool that allows the economy to reopen and remain active while reducing the threat of infection from the virus.
“Wearing or not wearing a mask shouldn’t be a political statement,” Brown said. “It shouldn’t be a divisive or even controversial issue. Wearing a mask is something we all should agree on, despite our political views.”
He said people who wear masks in public should be “admired and respected, because they are going the extra mile to reduce the chance that they infect someone else.”
But is anyone listening?
According to FDOH’s local administrator, Miranda Hawker, the number of COVID-19 cases in the county increased by 55 percent over the past two weeks. In the five weeks since DeSantis reopened the state, the percentage of people testing positive for the virus here has crept upward to 3.6 percent last week, while the median age of those infected dropped to 50.
“Our demographics are shifting to a younger population,” Hawker said Friday. “Everyone needs to be careful.”
Clearly, not everyone is.
But the recent spike in cases grabbed Brown’s attention: He said he has “pressed the pause button” on plans to further open some county facilities, including the Intergenerational Center, and services.
Brown said he has no plans to take the county back into shutdown, however, regardless of the increase in cases. He said he’s prepared to make adjustments if necessary but sees no reason to divert from the governor’s strategy and impose more stringent restrictions.
“I have the authority to make changes if it came to that, but there’s no set numerical threshold that would prompt me to act,” Brown said. “I can tell you we’re not at that point now. We’ll continue to watch what happens, evaluate the data and make adjustments as we go forward.
“Otherwise, the governor has taken the lead and we’re going to follow his orders.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis, who on May 4 embarked on a phased-in reopening of the state, last week announced Florida’s public schools – as well as state colleges and universities – would reopen in the fall.
He also successfully lobbied the Republican National Committee to bring President Donald Trump’s nomination-acceptance speech and celebration to Jacksonville.
The Washington Post reported Jacksonville public safety experts, business leaders and local officials “expressed anxiety” over the event coming to their city because it will “needlessly endanger the health of participants and state residents already grappling with a record-high number of new coronavirus cases.”
Maybe, when COVID-19 is no longer a threat and we know far more than we do now, we’ll look back and say DeSantis made the right call – that the economic damage done by the shutdown was greater than the health damage done by the virus.
Or maybe the virus will continue to spike, and the body count will soar, forcing the governor to get serious about the science and make an even tougher decision.
What’s baffling, though, is that so many folks here don’t seem to be worried, or even concerned, as the infection numbers continue to go the wrong way at an accelerating rate.
