The most powerful response to the spread of COVID-19 is to wear a simple facial covering or a mask. Unfortunately, Governor Sununu claims his public health experts have “determined a mask order is not appropriate now.”. That’s just wrong.
I recently hosted a Zoom town hall with public health experts Nora Traviss, PhD., an environmental health professor at Keene State College, and Richard DiPentima, former New Hampshire chief of communicable diseases.They shared that we can shut down the virus if four out of five people wear masks.
The best way to enforce the wearing of masks is to require businesses that open during the crisis to refuse to serve members of the public who do not wear a mask.
With Governor Sununu opening up our malls and other businesses, we expect hordes of people from both New Hampshire and Massachusetts to flock to shops. So we need to be even more careful to limit the spread of the virus.
This isn’t a partisan issue. Seven states have now required masks for customers and workers in businesses, including Maryland, which is led by Republican Governor Larry Hogan.
Retail workers are being asked to endanger their lives so that shopping malls can reopen. I don’t agree with this decision, but the least we can do is make the retail stores as safe as possible for all of us.
