Sedgwick County urges face masks in public. So why weren’t some leaders wearing them?
Now that Kansas is starting to reopen for business, the advice from health experts is clear:
Continue to stay home if you can. Wash your hands. Avoid crowds. Maintain a safe distance from others.
And if you must leave your home, cover your face with a mask or cloth face covering — both to to reduce the spread of the coronavirus and to serve as a visual reminder that the community is battling a pandemic.
Why, then, did three Sedgwick County Commissioners attend a crowded public rally without masks?
Video footage from KSN-TV, Channel 3, shows the commissioners — David Dennis, Jim Howell and Michael O’Donnell — at a rally outside Wichita’s City Hall on Friday, standing among dozens of people who were protesting Gov. Laura Kelly’s four-phase approach to reopening Kansas.
In an interview with KSN, Howell said commissioners “support people’s right to gather, protest, to be heard.
“People are ready to get back to work,” Howell said. “They want to get back to whatever normal is going to be in the future.”
The new normal, however, should include face masks and social distancing, neither of which were evident at Friday’s rally.
And a majority of commissioners, who just minutes before had praised residents’ adherence to pandemic safety measures, offered a troubling example of “do as we say, not as we do.”
I asked the commissioners Monday why they didn’t wear masks to the rally, which also defied a new statewide order limiting mass gatherings of more than 10 people.
“I do wear a mask when I’m at the store or in a busy public place,” O’Donnell responded in an e-mail. “Because I believe we as elected officials need to send a message that we’re taking this seriously but also not hiding in our homes.”
He added that his mask was in his car Friday when he walked from the Sedgwick County Courthouse to the rally: “I tried my best to social distance and then I refrained from shaking hands or hugging my friends there.”
Howell said he wears a mask while shopping or “anytime I’m in an indoor more crowded place where social distancing is difficult.”
He said he “stayed distant from the people there (at the rally) and had my mask in my hand,” wearing it part of the time and staying at the event only five to six minutes.
Dennis said he was caught without a mask Friday — he keeps one in his car and another in his pickup but was driving his wife’s car that day — and decided to attend the rally anyway.
“Once I crossed the street to the event, I only remained a couple of minutes due to social distancing,” Dennis said.
“As a member of the Board of Health, I do encourage the public to wear masks while in public places during this pandemic,” he said.
An excellent point: The Sedgwick County Commission also serves as the county’s Board of Health — a role Commissioner Lacey Cruse recently, perhaps rightly, suggested should be turned over to medical professionals.
So it’s even more crucial that commissioners lead by example when it comes to safety precautions during a public health crisis. Their explanations — I didn’t have my mask handy, I tried to keep my distance, it was just a few minutes — sound akin to, “Why wear a seat belt? I’m just going a few blocks.”
Masks can be a tricky and controversial measure. Vice President Mike Pence understandably took heat when he defied a request from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to wear a mask while visiting doctors and patients there.
Pence later said he “should have worn a mask at the Mayo Clinic” and wore one while touring a General Motors ventilator plant.
And just last week, a security guard at a Family Dollar store in Michigan was shot and killed after telling a customer to wear a state-mandated face mask.
The three Sedgwick County commissioners may have tenable reasons for going without masks Friday. We’re all getting used to this new routine and the need to have a face covering handy.
But let’s hope our leaders quickly recognize the importance of walking the walk — and wearing a mask.
This story was originally published May 4, 2020 at 3:45 PM.
