One of your readers suggested Sunday that mask mandates should be eliminated.
This opinion, which is at odds with that of virtually every trained epidemiologist in the world, appears to be based on a belief that mask mandates are ineffective since few people follow mask wearing guidelines perfectly.
Recent infection increases in Hawaii, the Philippines, and Clallam County are cited as evidence, but without justification that the increases are mask related or, in the case of Clallam, without consideration of factors such as attendance at group gatherings that local public health officials do cite as a factor in the increase.
Yes, masks would be more effective if everyone followed mask wearing guidelines perfectly but that doesn’t mean that we should not wear them because they are something less than 100 percent effective in the real world.
Let’s look at the big picture here.
There is a reason why Washington, one of the first states infected and which had to respond when medical science was very early in its learning curve on COVID-19, is in the bottom 20 percent of states in per capita infection rate.
It is because Gov. Inslee paid attention to medical science better than his counterparts in, say, Florida, Georgia, and Texas and put in place a variety of preventive measures, including the mask mandate.
David Given
Port Townsend