We welcome Gov. Laura Kelly’s mandate to wear face masks beginning Friday.
If it helps us keep our doors open safely, we’re all for it.
Those are our priorities: Public safety and staying open for business.
The mandate also lets us go about our affairs with additional peace of mind. A room full of face masks not only lends a sense of security but also of community. Because the masks primarily prevent you from spreading your germs, it’s a great way to show you are putting others first.
NOT EVERYONE sees it this way.
The minute the Governor announced the mandate, the whining began.
“The pandemic is a hoax!” they claim.
The families of the 500,000 claimed by the virus likely would disagree. And you wonder, how many deaths will it take to convince the doubters that this pandemic is for real? A million? Unfortunately, that is not out of the realm of possibility. Nationwide, coronavirus cases are up 80% over the past two weeks. If this keeps up, we’ll be averaging 100,000 new cases a day, according Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s infectious disease expert.
“Wearing a mask goes against my civil liberties!” they bemoan.
Those liberties come with responsibilities, affirmed U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran when he was in Iola last week, including doing everything we can to keep the virus from spreading.
“COVID-19 is a plot by Democrats to defeat President Trump!” they say.
That the pandemic became a partisan issue almost from the get-go says much about U.S. society today. President Donald Trump could go a long way toward not making this a divisive issue by following the advice of his public health experts and wearing a face mask in public. Instead, he lends credence to the hoax myth by defying their advice, taking loyal Republicans with him. But even top members of his party are now urging him to be a role model for the country by wearing a mask.
OVER the weekend, Kansas saw an increase of 905 COVID-19 cases, returning us to our peak rate of infections. Clearly, we took advantage of recently relaxed policies and went back to our pre-pandemic ways.
The same story is being played out across the South.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott recently closed bars and ordered restaurants to maintain 50% capacity. On Tuesday, he took the drastic step of ordering the suspension of elective surgeries for many community hospitals because they are filled to the brink with COVID-19 patients.
That same afternoon, Saint Luke’s Health System — the very system that assumes management of Allen County Regional Hospital in Iola today — announced the closing of its hospital in Leavenworth precisely because of the revenue lost from suspended elective surgeries due to the demands of the pandemic.
