A sheriff in Washington state is pushing back against the governor’s mandate that requires face masks in public amid coronavirus fears.
“In case you guys didn’t hear, Gov. Inslee, in his infinite wisdom, has decided after over a hundred some odd days that we should all wear face masks inside and out,” Lewis County Sheriff Rob Snaza said about Gov. Jay Inslee’s recent face mask decree. “Here’s what I say. Don’t be a sheep.”
“And when I said, ‘Don’t be a sheep,’ it means you don’t have to be a follower,” Snaza added in a later interview. “It’s OK to ask questions.”
“You have the right to say, ‘Why do I have to do this? Why are people going and trying to take away our First Amendment rights?’ Stand up, fight for yourself, and just be that leader that we’re looking for in our community,” he said.
“I do disagree with it, and at the same time, we will do everything necessary to enforce the mandate the governor has pushed out,” Snaza said. “Our goal is to do education. We do wear masks in the office, and it’s a requirement that we do have throughout county government. When it comes to wearing a mask, at no time did I ever say, ‘Don’t wear the mask. We’re not going to do anything about it.”
Inslee at first said he was “disappointed” with Snaza’s initial comment but later called the clarification “helpful.”
The statewide face mask requirement goes into effect this Friday.
“Starting Friday, every Washingtonian must wear a facial covering when in a public space, as mandated by the public health order signed by Wiesman,” a press release on the governor’s website reads, referring to Washington Secretary of Health John Wiesman. ”This includes both indoor and outdoor public spaces.”
“The science is clear that when we use face coverings, we limit the spread of droplets being passed on to others when we talk, cough, or sneeze. While some of us are wearing face coverings in public, we must increase usage to best control the virus. Washington’s strategy to restart the economy and get people back to work will only be successful if, together, we act safely and follow health recommendations,” Wiesman said in the press release.
Several governors across the country, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, have insisted that people continue to wear masks to combat the spread of the coronavirus, while critics cite studies showing that masks aren’t effective.
A paper in the New England Journal of Medicine in April said, “We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection,” and another paper from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine argued that it is “impossible to assess” the benefits of wearing a cloth mask.
