Don’t be a COVID clown. If you’re grocery shopping in SLO County, you should wear a mask

They’re awkward, uncomfortable and a general pain in the neck. On top of that, medical experts are still debating how effective fabric face masks are at preventing the spread of coronavirus.

But as San Luis Obispo County Public Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein has said many times, masks are “another layer of protection.” And since grocery store employees are pleading with customers to cover our faces, the least we can do is oblige.

After all, those employees are doing us a huge favor by continuing to work in this sickly environment. The least we can do is cooperate.

There are exceptions. Some people should not wear masks, as outlined by Borenstein.

“I do not want people with respiratory disease, asthma, or COPD to wear masks,” she told the county Board of Supervisors this week.

Don’t wear a mask if you fall into those categories. Otherwise, you’d better get used to wearing a face covering.

Many stores have already made it a rule. All Costco locations will require customers to wear masks starting May 4.

Unfortunately, not all markets are enforcing the rule and, as a result, not everyone complies. Some shoppers ignore other guidelines as well — such as following the one-way directional markings on grocery aisles.

That’s plain rude. Those rules have been put in place to protect the safety of workers and other customers.

Supermarket employees are frightened, and with good cause.

According to the Washington Post, at least 41 grocery store employees had died of COVID-19 as of April 12, and thousands more had tested positive for the disease. We aren’t aware of any local cases.

We do know that grocery workers in San Luis Obispo County have a lot of anxiety about their safety and that of their families — so much so that they petitioned the county to require shoppers to wear masks.

Others jurisdictions, such as Monterey County, require residents to wear masks while out in public. The city of Santa Barbara requires customers to wear them in grocery stores and other essential businesses. Yet San Luis Obispo County has resisted the idea.

The county should reconsider.

Anxiety can be debilitating, and if requiring masks in certain settings would make local grocery workers feel more secure — while providing that extra layer of protection against coronavirus — the benefits would seem to outweigh the drawbacks.

There is a concern that masks can give a false sense of security and lead people to get lax about social distancing and hand washing.

But that already happens, even without a mask mandate.

Just look at the photos of crowds lining up last weekend at restaurants in Pismo Beach. Very few people were wearing masks, and they weren’t worried about keeping six feet apart.

Even if San Luis Obispo County doesn’t require masks, that’s no reason not to comply with the requests from supermarket employees.

Put yourself in their shoes. They’re dealing with dozens and dozens of shoppers per day, and even with those plexiglass shields now in place at registers, clerks and baggers often come within a couple feet of customers.

Masks are no guarantee against coronavirus, but if they give frontline grocery workers a little peace of mind, we should oblige — whether or not it’s the law.

This story was originally published April 30, 2020 at 1:24 PM.