Mask mandate is needed, KC health director Rex Archer says: ‘We have to do more.’ And soon
Amid this second wave of COVID-19, Kansas City Health Director Rex Archer said in an interview that there is going to have to be a local order from him or the mayor mandating masks inside public places: “That way we can slow the spread a lot.”
Mayor Quinton Lucas has not made any final decision on such an order, his spokeswoman said. Health directors from nine area counties are expected to issue some guidance on next steps Thursday, and “the mayor’s waiting to see what they advise,” said Morgan Said, Lucas’ communications director.
Archer said other details, such as at what age children would be required to wear a mask, still have to be worked out, too. And “we’ll likely give people a couple of weeks before they’d be barred” from local businesses without a mask.
But it’s going to have to happen, Archer said, because “we’re going to have to do something” to slow the transmission of the coronavirus. With studies showing that masks can slow the spread by more than 50% and COVID-19 surging in states where masks are not required, this is not a hard call, or shouldn’t be.
Kansas City has had a series of triple-digit increases in new COVID-19 cases this month, adding 194 new cases on Wednesday alone. Also this week, the country had its highest number of new cases in one day since April, with 34,700. That’s the third-highest single-day spike since the pandemic started.
“When the states opened back up,” Archer said, “we started seeing an uptick in cases and we’ve now had as many deaths — 16 — in the second wave as in the first” in Kansas City. “That’s why we have to do more.”
He said his office has been hearing from many front-line workers worried that unmasked customers are putting them in danger: “We’ve been getting a lot of complaints.”
Lucas tweeted on Thursday that a local order on masks is under consideration: “As we consider a mask requirement in Kansas City, it is clear from experience and data how important wearing masks is to stop the spread of #COVID19, particularly in close settings like salons and restaurants.”
Yes, it is. The sooner we do this, the more lives will be spared.
Requiring businesses to either give or sell a mask to everyone who enters is the right call for the economy, too. We can’t stay wide open and also ignore safety precautions such as masks and social distancing in the middle of a pandemic.
Asked about Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s recent comments that he’s no more responsible for the spike in COVID-19 cases than the average person, Archer said that’s certainly not how he sees his own leadership role: “Even when I’m denied resources, I feel responsible for these deaths occurring on my watch, and I would hope most leaders would own up to how they can influence or change things.”
They don’t, though. At Wednesday night’s GOP Kansas U.S. Senate debate, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said that what the whole push to get people to wear masks shows is that “the core of the Democrat soul is controlling you, controlling this country.”
Well, no. The completely non-political point of a mask is to not to control you, but to control the coronavirus, in the hope that as many of us as possible survive to argue about politics another day.
This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 3:27 PM.