Wearing masks will be mandatory now. Here’s why some people have refused to wear them.
The people eating in uptown Charlotte restaurants and dancing in crowded bars, often without face masks or social distancing, act as if the coronavirus pandemic is over — even as cases rise in Mecklenburg County and across the state.
But others are still hunkered down in their homes, going out only for groceries and other essentials with face masks and sanitizer on hand.
What explains the separate realities that Charlotteans seem to perceive? Not only do people have different priorities and risk tolerances, they say in interviews, but they also have varying levels of confidence in the news reports and COVID-19 data they see.
Most of those returning to breweries, restaurants and the nightlife scene are younger adults. Photos posted on social media show that very few wear masks while they’re out. While bars are closed under state restrictions, those that earn 30% or more of their revenue from food sales are considered restaurants, which have reopened with capacity limits.
Some say they feel that the risk of COVID-19 does not apply to them or is not a serious illness, while others simply believe that face masks do little to protect against the virus.
The debate over whether or not to wear masks has become increasingly controversial in recent days. On Wednesday, Gov. Roy Cooper announced a statewide mandate to wear face coverings in public places.
“I will never wear a mask,” one commenter wrote when Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles tweeted her support for the mandate this week. Others responded to the comment with criticism for not considering the health of others.
Matthew Moore, who’s 31 and lives uptown, attributes the lack of mask-wearing mainly to apathy.
“A couple of weeks ago everybody was wearing a face mask,” he said, “and now I guess people just don’t care.”
Moore knows that his young age and good health mean that he’s not at high risk for becoming extremely sick with COVID-19. But “if I get it, I could spread it to someone far more susceptible,” he added.
Lauren Harbury, 29, says she always wears a mask, and even makes her own.
“In my opinion, everybody should still be wearing a face mask,” she said. “We’re still in the middle of a pandemic even if people are tired of dealing with it.”
Some of Harbury’s friends have started going out to bars, she said, and she understands the toll that isolation and quarantine fatigue can take. While she says her friends wear masks when they go out, she also knows it’s not always practical.
“Obviously, you can’t drink a beer and wear a face mask at the same time,” she said.
Choosing not to wear a mask
While it might be safer for young adults to skip the face mask, some people of all ages choose not to wear one.
Rix Evans, a 63-year-old mechanical engineer, says he often goes out in public without wearing a mask. He knows that his age puts him at higher risk for COVID-19, and said he takes precautions. But Evans believes that wearing a mask is not as meaningful a safety measure as not touching your face and washing your hands often, he said.
“If you look at a range of things people can do to protect themselves, masks probably help the least. But it’s the most visible,” Evans said. He suspects people wear face masks simply to make themselves feel safer.
Health experts say face masks can help protect the wearer and those around them from infectious respiratory droplets. Dr. Mandy Cohen, the secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, has continuously recommended the use of masks to help limit community spread of the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommends face coverings, and lists multiple recent studies that back this up.
“I have no problem with other people wearing masks, I really don’t,” Evans said. “I respect the fact that they’re wearing those masks for reasons that make sense to them.”
The analytics firm Gallup reports that 56% of Americans surveyed in mid-June said they had avoided going to public places such as restaurants in the previous week, down from a high of 79% in early April. But 84% said they had worn a mask outside the home, reflecting a steadily rising trend since early April.
Many others, however, feel strongly enough about masks to take a stand against them.
ReOpen NC founder Ashley Smith posted a video on Facebook last week, before Cooper’s order, of her burning her face mask and encouraging others to do the same.
“Gov. Cooper now is talking about mandating masks,” Smith she says in the video. “I’m standing up and I’m saying, I will not comply.”
The video drew sharp criticism on social media, as thousands of commenters expressed their frustration and disapproval.
Rising cases, hospitalizations, deaths
The data is clear: North Carolina is seeing hundreds of new COVID-19 cases every day. More than 1,200 people have died and 906 were in the hospital with the virus as of Wednesday. Cases in Mecklenburg County have also been on the rise, but some people don’t view these numbers as a serious concern.
Evans, the engineer, says increased testing is behind the rising case count but adds that state-reported data “isn’t accurate.” DHHS Secretary Cohen has acknowledged aiming testing at people who are more likely to have the virus, he said.
In a press conference last week, Cohen said that the rise in cases can’t be attributed solely to increased testing.
ReOpen NC’s Smith believes that the pandemic poses a health risk, but that it’s been blown out of proportion, she said. The Morganton resident teaches her own family important hygiene habits like removing shoes and outer layers before coming into the house and practicing thorough hand washing.
“I think those are just common sense things that we could all work on,” Smith said in an interview. “I think we can all be smart, whatever that looks like for each individual person. But I don’t believe that we need to have laws enforcing our every move, and being policed to this level is just obscene and un-American.”
Desperate to go back to normal
It’s almost the end of June, the fourth month since the coronavirus took hold in the U.S. in mid-March. How people behave in a world where the pandemic has become the new normal often comes down to their personal risk tolerance, Charlotte residents say.
Middle school assistant principal Shana Hannibal lives in Steele Creek, and has noticed people acting differently in various neighborhoods around the city. People frequenting the bars and breweries in South End seem a lot less cautious than her own neighbors, she said.
Hannibal says she’s enjoying safe outdoor activities like hiking and backyard cookouts. But she thinks it’s too soon to return entirely to normal.
“With the numbers increasing the way they are, I do not feel safe eating inside of a restaurant, I do not feel safe to gather in large groups,” she said. “Especially since a lot of people aren’t wearing masks.”
Katherine Winchester, another young adult living in the Charlotte area, says she’ll eat in a restaurant, but only if the staff are taking safety measures and it’s not crowded inside. She said she feels more comfortable walking outside or sitting in an outdoor area.
“It’s hard to think about an invisible thing,” she said. “You can’t see a virus.”
But just because people are acting like the threat has passed doesn’t mean it’s entirely safe, she added. “Seeing everything spike again put things back in perspective.”
This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 12:41 PM.