A hit and a miss on masks

Recently, to beat the heat, a friend and I went to Summit County. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that the Town of Breckenridge has established a mandatory mask zone downtown, requiring masks to be worn at all times, both indoors and outdoors. The compliance rate was extremely high, by my informal count about 99%, not counting people who had temporarily removed their masks to eat or drink. What was really surprising to me was how normal it looked, with tourists enjoying a beautiful day and local merchants open for business. People of all ages and, presumably, all political persuasions, strolled along Main

Street with good social distancing, and I didn’t witness a single kerfuffle over masks.

I truly believe that making masks mandatory for everyone depoliticizes the issue and emphasizes the public health challenge we are all facing together.

So how about it, Gov. Jared Polis? Isn’t it time to take the politics out of mask-wearing and put this virus in its place with a statewide mandatory mask order?

Ken F. Kirkpatrick,

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I attended a youth baseball tournament in Arvada last weekend at Harold D. Lutz Sports Complex to watch my 8-year-old grandson play in a tournament. While there, I saw just one other person wearing a mask.

There are nine fields at this complex and games were being played on each field. I must have passed hundreds of people! I was stunned.

Don’t these people realize that the United States is topping the list among countries, averaging more than 60,000 new cases daily? As I meandered through these crowds of clueless parents, siblings, players and their friends, Florida was hitting a grim single day milestone — 15,299 people tested positive for the virus.

What is it with youth baseball culture? Were these people acting to protect baseball tradition? Sure, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and

Sandy Koufax never wore a mask at a baseball park, but I’m sure they would choose to do so now in order to protect themselves and their loved ones during this pandemic.

Timothy R. Wagner, Boulder