Stanislaus leaders’ mask-wearing suggestions are failing. It’s time to mandate them

In the three weeks since Stanislaus County began reopening our economy, COVID-19 numbers here have dramatically increased.

Rather than pump the brakes on reopening, county leaders are revving the engine. At a special meeting Monday, county supervisors voted to bring back gyms, bars and several other business categories as soon as Friday.

It’s very clear that supervisors are worried that too many of our people, idled in the shutdown, are suffering from lack of income. That’s a valid concern.

If our leaders insist on ignoring the mountain of evidence that the coronavirus is picking up steam, the least they might do is strengthen our most simple protection by mandating masks in many public places.

What mountain of evidence?

• When Stanislaus began reopening businesses, 3.2% of COVID tests came back positive in the first five-day span, May 20 to 24. In only three weeks, the positivity rate has nearly tripled to 9%.
• Tuesday’s one-day positivity rate was a ghastly 14.1% — our absolute peak since the pandemic began.
  
  
• On May 20, Stanislaus had detected 598 total COVID-19 cases. Now it’s up to 991. That’s a 66% increase in just three weeks.
  
  
• State health officials are so worried about the Stanislaus spike that they put us on a 14-day monitoring watch, meant to serve as a major wake-up call. It’s partly because our COVID hospitalizations doubled in nine days, from 13 on May 29 to 27 on Sunday.
  
  

• Stanislaus recorded a daily average of 35 new cases in the most recent five-day span — more than triple the mark of 10.6 per day from May 20 to 24.
  
  
• County leaders like to point out that we’re getting more positive results because we’re doing more testing. We get it, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Positivity rates are a key indicator of the virus’ spread and monitoring them is a scientifically honest way of keeping track. Ours has dramatically increased right along with the rise in testing. Those numbers don’t lie.
  
  
• Numbers are likely to increase as the incubation period matures following large crowds gathered to protest the police-custody death of George Floyd. They began in earnest here 11 days ago, often with little social distancing.
  
  
• Arizona, which reopened before California, has had such a run on hospital beds from new COVID cases that its state health director recently told all hospitals to fully activate their emergency plans.
  
  
• About 19 other states are reporting upticks in COVID cases. Experts predict tens of thousands more deaths across the United States.
  
  
• Some places in California are seeing troubling spikes as well. Thirty-three people with COVID-19 were in Sacramento County hospitals on Tuesday, up from only eight on May 27, two weeks earlier.
  
  
• Our neighbor to the north, San Joaquin County, would be on the road to recovery with about 200 positive cases for every 200,000 people, and they were meeting that goal as late as May 19. A spike since has sent its caseload soaring and it now hovers close to 350. Like Sacramento, San Joaquin now finds itself on a list of nine counties about which state health experts are most worried.
  
  
• Our neighbor to the south, Merced County, on Monday reported its sharpest increase since the pandemic began.
  
  
• California’s highest daily increase came Friday, with cases statewide rising above 125,000.
  
  

Yet Monday, Stanislaus leaders saw fit to accelerate reopening for 12 more sectors, including gyms, bars, wineries, hotels for tourism, family entertainment centers, museums, card rooms, campgrounds and some outdoor recreation.

Meanwhile, any foray to nearly any store in Modesto and surrounding cities — except for the few where masks are mandated by the business — reveals a stubborn resistance and a disappointing disregard for others, even among employees.

Shoppers packing into Costco have proved that mandating masks does not kill business. Many have remarked that they feel safer in that store because it’s one of the few places they know they’re safe.

Dr. Julie Vaishampayan, the county’s public health director, points to “messaging and behavior change” as keys to reopening. But two months of messaging — urging face coverings — has not changed behavior enough to protect everyone, especially our more vulnerable seniors.

Stanislaus supervisors can demonstrate that they care more about people than about money and politics by requiring masks — not merely suggesting them — wherever we cannot maintain 6-foot distances, particularly stores.