Governors face competing virus advice
LAS VEGAS — As Nevada prepared to start reopening parts of its economy last month, a team of medical experts recommended to Gov. Steve Sisolak that he require people to wear masks in public to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.
The governor promoted masks but resisted making them a requirement, saying he feared the rule could create a backlash for businesses trying to enforce the order.
With reported cases rising the past four weeks, Sisolak on Wednesday finally decided to take their advice and impose the mandate, saying it was necessary to protect people and keep businesses open.
“It is troubling and it is really discouraging,” he said, “that this has become a partisan issue about whether or not people want to wear a mask.”
A fraught decision-making process faces many governors as they listen to a variety of sometimes competing voices. The result is sometimes confusing and creates mixed messages for the public.
With reported cases rising rapidly in many states, governors are getting lots of advice on what they should do. Unions want to be sure workers are protected on the job. Many business owners say they can’t afford another forced shutdown. Public health officials urge them to make mask-wearing a statewide requirement. And governors are facing blowback on the right over business restrictions and mask regulations.
Dr. Brian Labus, an assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Public Health and a member of the medical team advising Sisolak, said he knows the governor has to weigh public health advice against political and economic considerations.
“We were told not to think about all those other things. Don’t make political decisions. There will be other groups that will do that,” Labus said.
Nevada’s governor has a panel of rural and urban county officials and economic advisers giving him input, along with his medical advisory team. Labor groups, politicians and businesses also bend his ear with unsolicited feedback.
In Utah, coronavirus cases have been surging since most businesses were allowed to reopen in May. Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, has paused lifting any more restrictions and has strongly encouraged people to wear masks.
He faces strong opposition on making it a mandate. An interest group founded by a conservative activist to push back against restrictions, Utah Businesses Revival, has actively campaigned against mask wearing or any renewed restrictions on economic activity. They and others have held protests that included an anti-mask demonstration at the Utah Capitol.
North Carolina’s governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, last week announced a statewide mask rule and a three-week pause on further reopenings, moves that were supported by a nurses association. But he has faced pushback from Republican lawmakers and small businesses that are still shuttered, including bars, gyms and bowling alleys, which have tried to overturn the governor’s orders through legal action or legislation.
South Carolina’s top infectious disease expert last week said a statewide requirement that people wear masks indoors would be a great help in what she said was a “critical juncture.”
That advice from state epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell runs against the stance of Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who continued to say that a mask requirement would step on personal liberties and be too hard to enforce. He has largely sided with business interests throughout the pandemic.
“If we could go to the epidemiological extreme, we would close everything down and have everyone stay inside and have everyone wear masks. But the country would fall apart,” McMaster said Friday.