Confused about masks? Join the club -- Feb. 10, 2022 column

By MARSHA MERCER

We went to dinner indoors at a restaurant last week.  

It was a milestone -- the first time in ages we hadn’t gotten carryout or sat outside, and we met friends we hadn’t seen in months. We were all vaccinated and boosted.

Life seemed almost normal. Except that the reservation was for an early 6 p.m. on a Friday, I asked for a table away from other diners and the restaurant was nearly empty when we arrived wearing masks.

We were told we could take off our masks while seated, but the menu requested we wear them when talking with the wait staff, all of whom wore masks.

We enjoyed a leisurely meal and put on our masks to leave, this time passing a boisterous crowd of customers packed in booths. All the customers were maskless, even around wait staff.

This new normal was mildly confusing. We were glad to see the locally owned business with a good crowd, but . . . While we were happy to comply with the restaurant’s rules, others evidently were not. And why wear masks standing up but not sitting down?

It’s not as though the pandemic is history. While numbers of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations nationwide have fallen, an average of more than 225,000 new virus infections are reported daily and an average of 100,000 people are hospitalized daily with COVID-19. On average, about 2,600 people die of COVID every day in the United States.

We all yearn to get on with life, and politicians are responding. California, Illinois, New York and other states with Democratic governors who once were wary about lifting restrictions now race to drop various iterations of statewide mask mandates.

But more people are rightly confused and frustrated. Those who have followed public health guidance to get vaccinated and boosted wonder what we should do now to keep safe ourselves, friends, family members and those whose jobs require them to meet the public. Mask or no mask?

It should be easy to find out, but when I searched the Virginia Department of Health site for guidance, I found the experience frustrating. Clicking on tabs often brought me right back to the same page. A friend had the same experience.

I had better luck with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site, which is sticking for now with familiar guidance. Those up-to-date on COVID vaccinations should wear a mask indoors in public “if you are in an area of substantial or high transmission.” That includes all of Virginia. 

And almost everywhere else: 95% of U.S. counties have high or substantial virus transmission, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, CDC director, told reporters Wednesday. High transmission is when there are 100 positive cases per 100,000 people per day, and substantial is 50 cases per 100,000.

“Our hospitalizations are still high; our death rates are still high,” she said. “We are not there yet.”

Oft-changing messages have led many people to tune out public health guidance, leading to more confusion.

“Confusion is now the most common reaction to shifts in public health guidance: 60% of U.S. adults say they’ve felt confused as a result of changes to public health officials’ recommendations on how to slow the spread of the coronavirus, up 7 percentage points since last summer,” the Pew Research Center reported Wednesday in its latest survey.

About half those surveyed said the CDC and other agencies are doing a good or excellent job responding to the pandemic, but half said they are doing a fair or poor job.

It shouldn’t be this way. The CDC has changed its recommendations as the pandemic has changed, but its messaging hasn’t been clear.

For people to make wise decisions, the CDC, state and local health agencies need to ensure their guidance is easily available, science-based, understandable and up to date.

As politicians sprint toward normalcy and a mask-free society, no matter the science, we can still choose to wear masks indoors to protect those who are immunocompromised or have other health conditions that preclude vaccination.

Don’t toss your masks just yet.

©2022 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

No holiday from masks, tests as omicron surges -- Dec. 23 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

As omicron tightens its grip, the mayor of Washington, D.C., Monday declared a state of emergency.

Once again, masks are required indoors in such places as churches, gyms and grocery stores, regardless of vaccination status. Masks are not yet required in restaurants and bars in the nation’s capital, as they are in New York and Los Angeles.

“I think we’re all tired of it. I’m tired of it, too,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said, announcing the mask mandate will last until Jan. 31. “But we have to respond to what’s happening in our city and what’s happening in our nation.”

The mayor is correct. What’s happening is nearly three-fourths of the new coronavirus cases in the United States are now from the highly transmissible omicron variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. Coronavirus daily case totals are at their highest level since last summer.

There is no statewide mask mandate in Virginia, but the Virginia Department of Health recommends masks be worn indoors in communities with substantial or high COVID-19 transmission.

More than 800,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19. Public health officials knew the coronavirus mutates and new variants were likely. Still,  fast-spreading omicron caught nearly everyone by surprise last month.

Much remains unknown, including whether the illness omicron causes is less severe than the delta variant’s, and what the long-term effects of even a mild case may be.

The first death in the United States related to omicron was announced Monday. The victim was an unvaccinated man in his 50s with an underlying health condition in Houston, authorities said.

So, while we all feel coronavirus fatigue, we find ourselves on the verge of another  New Year having to rally again to fight an insidious, unpredictable virus.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who died this year, once said you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might wish you had.

It’s wrong that Americans have had to stand in line for hours for coronavirus tests, as they have in some parts of the country. Other nations have long been able to supply their residents with free, at-home test kits.

The Biden administration is now rushing to make available, starting next month, 500 million free, rapid, in-home coronavirus test kits. The government is opening more testing and vaccination sites, deploying military medical teams to overwhelmed hospitals, and plans to expand hospital capacity.

These are important changes that remind us we are not in the same place we were a year ago. Last year during the holidays we glimpsed the hope of vaccinations as the end of the pandemic. This year, we known the pandemic is still with us, and we are lucky if all we must endure are its inconveniences.

Mask and vaccination mandates cannot be partisan when the virus is bipartisan. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, who both are vaccinated and boosted, tested positive for COVID-19, as did Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, and a cancer survivor.

Breakthrough COVID-19 cases are common. President Joe Biden, 79, sat near someone on Air Force One the other day who later tested positive.

Most breakthrough cases seem to be mild, which is why Biden is urging every eligible American to get fully vaccinated and boosted.

And yet, when former President Donald Trump said Sunday in Texas he had received a booster, some in the audience booed. That’s a sad commentary on the misguided, ill-informed, anti-vax crowd.

Fortunately, there are no plans for lockdowns or a widespread return to remote schooling. We are learning to live with uncertainty.

Wearing an effective mask, such as the N95, getting vaccinated and boosted, and tested if we feel sick or are exposed to someone with COVID-19 are steps all of us can take to protect ourselves and others.

Those who feel their personal liberty is abridged by mask mandates can do something about it: They can stay home, off public transportation and out of public places.

As much as we Americans don’t like rules or mandates, especially rules that change, we must live in the real world. We all want the pandemic to end. We also want our families, friends and ourselves to be around next year. Be vigilant.

©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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