So, what’s it going to take?
How many more of our friends and neighbors must become infected and get sick before our local elected officials stop playing politics with the community’s health and get serious about a worsening coronavirus pandemic?
How many more people must die here before our Indian River County commissioners and Vero Beach City Council members embrace their responsibilities to act in the public’s best interest and find the fortitude needed to make the tough decisions during a time of crisis?
How many new COVID-19 cases must be reported daily to convince our local leaders to require everyone – excluding those with documented medical exemptions, of course – to wear masks in indoor public places?
We had 104 new cases reported last Saturday. Was that not enough? What’s the magic number?
We had a whopping 470 new cases reported from Sunday through Sunday, July 19 to July 26. Did that get their attention? What about the 11 virus-connected deaths during that same span?
Surely, by now, everyone knows this pandemic isn’t going away anytime soon and that there’s a real chance we’ll be forced to endure its consequences until a vaccine comes to our rescue.
We know – because the medical experts at Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital keep showing up at County Commission and City Council meetings and telling us – that wearing masks helps slow the spread of infection.
We also know merely asking and urging people to wear masks doesn’t work.
How do we know that?
Because small-but-passionate groups of anti-maskers also keep showing up at these public meetings, marching to the podiums, spewing nonsense about their “individual liberties” and telling us – in no uncertain terms – why they don’t and won’t wear masks.
We also see too many unmasked people in too many places around town, even in business establishments that claim to require customers to wear face coverings when they enter the premises.
True, the must-wear-masks signs probably prompt more customers to wear them, but in some places the policy isn’t enforced any more than social-distancing requirements, which are widely ignored and seem to have gone the way of the pay phone.
When confronted, anti-maskers simply can say they’ve got health issues, and no business owner is going to challenge their claim and risk being sued. A government mandate, however, would allow such matters to be handled by local law enforcement agencies.
And, contrary to what some city and county officials have said, such a mandate would not be difficult to enforce: Wear a mask or pay a fine.
In addition, a mandate also would decrease the likelihood of potentially violent conflicts between those who wear masks and those who refuse by removing the need for the parties to publicly confront each other. They can call the police.
Another concern is that some employees, too, are not masked – or they’re covering only their mouths – claiming health issues prevent them from wearing masks or wearing them properly.
Yet, as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to climb at an alarming rate and the death toll rises, three county commissioners and two City Council members have chosen to do nothing to slow the spread of infection.
Their arguments are as feeble and wrongheaded as they are gutless and reckless, but their opposition was enough to prevent the county and city from requiring that masks be worn in indoor public places, at least when social distancing isn’t possible.
Watching the City Council’s meeting last week was especially frustrating, particularly listening to Joe Graves’ hypocrisy as he strongly encouraged all of us to wear masks but, at the same time, questioned their effectiveness and scrambled to find any excuse to not support a mandate, citing cherry-picked articles to back his argument.
One minute, he was saying there was “nothing definitive” and no “scientific certainty” that masks significantly slow the spread of infection. The next minute, he was proclaiming that he was “all for wearing masks” and saying, “We should do all that we possibly can.”
But neither he nor his fellow councilman, Robbie Brackett, would endorse a mask mandate. Nor did either of them address the flaw in their passive position on masks:
What about the folks who refuse to wear them?
Fact is, not everyone in our community cares enough about their neighbor to voluntarily do what’s right. Some people are selfish. Others are misinformed, ignorant or – as we’ve seen at these public meetings – delusional.
We’re in a state of emergency. Local medical experts and health officials are imploring our elected officials to act. We need our city and county officials to force people to put first the well-being of their friends, neighbors and communities and serve the greater good.
It’s not asking much.
“We cannot do nothing,” Vero Beach Mayor Tony Young said. “Doing nothing is negligence.”
Yes, it is.
All five of the local elected officials who refuse to make masks mandatory – Graves, Brackett and county commissioners Tim Zorc, Joe Flescher and Bob Solari – say they believe masks will slow the spread of infection.
They know the longer we go without a mask mandate, the more this virus will spread, making people sick and, in some cases, killing them.
They say they want to protect the public health and our local economy.
So, what’s it going to take?
