Political Gumbo: Masked Solutions

A lot has happened since the last pot of gumbo was served. 

Victor Gordo is now mayor-elect.

Nationally, Joe Biden also has the word elect behind his new title. Damn glad to see that.

But earlier this week, in a split vote by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, county health officials prohibited in-person dining as part of the latest effort to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Truth to tell, I think they should have started with enforcing the mask mandate. It doesn’t matter how many businesses are closed and how many health orders are written because we are not getting out of this if people do not wear a mask. 

It’s time to move past the idea of closing restaurants and businesses as a scattershot solution to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Instead, it’s time to bring people into compliance by levying fines if they don’t wear the mask. 

I can hear you screaming, “How can you fine people during a pandemic when they are not working?” 

The answer is, if people put on the mask, nobody gets fined and some of those jobs will come back. Even better, much fewer people would get sick and/or die.

According to a study by Johns Hopkins University and UC San Francisco, researchers found fewer fatalities and increased rates of milder infections due to COVID-19 in settings that adopted population-level masking.

Enjoy the above. It’s the only science you are going to get out of this column. The rest of it is a trope to the people who think their world is going to end because they have to put two pieces of elastic around their ears attached to a piece of cloth that covers their nose and mouth.

You don’t lose your rights by wearing a mask. Instead, I honor your rights to be safe and healthy by wearing a mask,  and you honor mine if you do the same.

Yet, YouTube is full of videos of people in stores screaming about their rights being violated when they’re asked to mask up.

Maybe they’re angry because it makes it harder to steal a couple of grapes from the produce section. I don’t know.

But what I do know is that wearing a mask is the quickest way to get out of this thing. If everybody were just to mask up, social distance and use some common sense, we all could move on.

Of course, common sense is not to be expected from people who believe the virus is a liberal hoax. 

These are not the best sources of information. Many of these same people have repeatedly claimed over the past four years that John F. Kennedy Jr. is alive and would replace Mike Pence on the Republican ticket. I kid you not — they believed that.

As an aside, I don’t know why they picked JFK Jr. Either way, he’s dead, and yes, the virus is real. 

This is the part where I would usually say, “I get it, yada, yada, yada.” 

But this time I have to say, “I just don’t get it.” 

Millions of people have died around the world, millions of jobs have been lost, the economy is shot, and kids are going to school at home.

As someone who counts casualties, interviews survivors, first-responders, and caregivers, and reports on efforts to stop the pandemic, I am telling you this is not a hoax. 

It’s very real and very deadly.

Now put on the damn mask.