Some Americans refuse to wear masks even as their hometowns become covid-19 hot spots

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Some Americans refuse to wear masks even as their hometowns become covid-19 hot spots

Wed, 2020-10-28 10:18 — mike kraft

Some Americans refuse to wear masks even as their hometowns become covid-19 hot spots The resistance has grown larger thanks to presidential candidates with starkly different views about masks, as well as the pandemic. Joel Achenbach, Lori Rozsa Washington Post

Resistance to mask-wearing and other efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus has hardened in the final days before the presidential election, demonstrating how the pandemic has been politicized and posing a daunting challenge to the nation’s medical experts.

The refusal to go along with expert health guidance has persisted even in parts of the country that are seeing soaring caseloads and hospitalizations. That was driven home this week when the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, Deborah Birx, toured North Dakota, which has had more coronavirus infections per capita than any other state and over the past month has experienced a stunning surge in hospitalizations and deaths.

What Birx witnessed dismayed her.

“Over the last 24 hours, as we were here and we were in your grocery stores and in your restaurants and frankly, even in your hotels, this is the least use of masks that we have seen in retail establishments of any place we have been,” Birx told reporters Monday after participating in a round table with Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, according to the Bismarck Tribune.Also See: https://www.yahoo.com/gma/dr-deborah-birx-calls-north-002900504.html

Burgum has endorsed masks but declined to impose a statewide mandate, saying Monday that the decision to wear a face covering is a personal one. He did join Birx in calling for more widespread testing, and on his Twitter account, he cited her view that “more people need to wear masks, socially distance & slow the spread.”

The state reported 889 new infections Tuesday and 15 additional deaths, bringing the cumulative death toll to 481, three-fourths of them in the past eight weeks.

“North Dakota has the highest covid death rate per capita in the world right now,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, referring to deaths in the past week. At the same time, he said, data compiled from Facebook indicates that the state has the lowest mask-wearing rate in the United States, between 45 and 49 percent....

In South Florida, protesters belonging to a group called Reopen South Florida staged a march Saturday and burned masks. The group formed in April after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a strong Trump ally, issued a statewide state-at-home order. ...

Also see: Dr. Deborah Birx calls out North Dakota for poor mask use during pandemic

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/dr-deborah-birx-calls-north-002900504.html

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