Don’t want to comply with SLO County’s indoor mask mandate? Here’s what you can do

Here we go again.

As of Wednesday, San Luis Obispo County Public Health is requiring that we mask up indoors when we’re out in public — even if we’re fully vaxxed.

That includes visits to supermarkets, beauty salons, gyms, restaurants, shops, offices and, of course, schools, which were already under a state mask mandate.

It is a step backward, but with cases rising as they are, it makes sense, and Public Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein deserves our full support for diving into the breach in the face of backlash and ridicule.

Wearing a mask is a small inconvenience, after all, especially when you consider the possible consequences of going unmasked: sickness, hospitalization, even death.

So this time, can we all just comply — without making a federal case out of it? Without throwing tantrums? Without acting like this modest measure is some kind of heinous assault on personal freedom?

Can we all just cooperate for once, without a litany of outrage and complaint?

Yes, it’s wishful thinking.

Unfortunately, no amount of cajoling will likely change the minds of conspiracy theorists who are putting more faith in viral disinformation about horse dewormer as a COVID treatment than in the proven medical science supporting vaccines.

Nor will they be swayed by legitimate reports, such as the case involving an unvaccinated Marin County elementary school teacher who took her mask off for a read-aloud session. She later tested positive for COVID. Half her class of 24 wound up infected, with most of the cases clustered in the rows closest to the teacher’s desk. And those students then infected others.

At the very least, that’s a strong indicator that masking helps prevent the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant.

Yet parents right here in San Luis Obispo County have literally screamed at school board members for requiring masks to be worn in schools. And now that she’s mandated indoor masking, Borenstein has made herself a target as well for acting in the public’s best interests.

After roughly 18 months of dealing with this pandemic, have we learned nothing? Are we going to be forever trapped in this cycle of seemingly turning the corner, only to have the virus flare up again and again? Are we going to again succumb to selfishness in a time of crisis rather than looking out for our vulnerable friends and neighbors?

If all that sounds melodramatic, consider the position San Luis Obispo County is in now: There are currently more people hospitalized for COVID than at any other time during the pandemic, and ICU beds are almost fully occupied by COVID patients.

Local hospital officials are as grim as we’ve ever seen them.

“This is real. This is the worst that we’ve seen so far,” Mark Lisa, CEO of Tenet Health Central Coast, said at a recent news conference.

“We are now imploring our community to slow the spread of COVID-19,” added French Hospital CEO Alan Iftinuik.

Still, a vocal minority continues to turn this into a political battle, warning of “medical martial law” and “vaccine passports” and preaching about individual “rights.” Ironically, the very mandates they condemn might not be necessary today had we all followed medical advice on vaccinations and masking to begin with.

Frankly, we’re tired of trying to reason with those who put politics over public health — who insist on “mask choice” even as the case count rises, who fixate on rare, possible side effects of vaccines while ignoring the known main effects of COVID, the most severe of which, for far too many, is death.

So here’s an idea.

Don’t want to follow the public health order on masking?

Fine. Then stay home. Go nowhere. Remove yourself from society.

In this day and age, most business can be conducted online, from the comfort of your couch. Order stuff on Amazon. Use Instacart to get your groceries. If you don’t feel like cooking, DoorDash will bring you a meal from just about any local restaurant. And for entertainment, there’s always Netflix.

It’s a win-win. You maintain complete control over your body — no medical martial law for you! — without putting the rest of our community at risk.

That may sound harsh, but at least you can have a choice in the matter, even if it’s a silly, unnecessary one. That’s more than we can say for those who are unwittingly exposed to the virus through no fault of their own.

We need to do everything in our power to get this plague under control.

So once and for all: Please, mask up, and if you haven’t already done so, get vaccinated.

This story was originally published September 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM.