To Mask or Not To Mask?
Every sector is grappling with the impacts of COVID-19; municipalities are no exception. In Orange Walk, Mayor Kevin Bernard says the town council is adjusting to survive the months ahead as collection of taxes drop and subventions from government are up in the air. Economic activity has ceased, but we found one business in the town operating on Thursday. But before you enter Cuello Store, you have to wear a mask. News Five’s Hipolito Novelo has the following report.
Hipolito Novelo, Reporting
On a regular Thursday, pedestrians would be out and about in Orange Walk Town but on this Thursday. The streets of Orange Walk were dead. The Central Park is empty and the life of the town has significantly slowed down. Residents are at home and Mayor Kevin Bernard hopes that they stay there.
Kevin Bernard
Kevin Bernard, Mayor, Orange Walk Town
“The State of Emergency is in effect today and I am asking our people to please you follow and abide by those rules. Stay home, you don’t need to come out if you don’t need to. There is no need for us to see people in the streets, playing in the park, doing their ordinary day business that they normally would do. It is time for us to prevent this virus from spreading.”
Five persons have been screened in Orange Walk for the COVID-19 virus with all negative results. And with the looming threat of a COVID-19 outbreak, the Orange Walk Town Council is doing its part. The council has closed its doors, leaving only the sanitation department operational.
Kevin Bernard
“As a council we have been sending out press releases, we have been adhering to the regulations. Out staff has been sent home for the same reason so that there is no direct contact with people. We have been providing oiling services for our customers and residents who want to pay property taxes, who want to do traffic transactions such as the renewal of driver licenses and motor vehicles. Essential services is the sanitation department, the market area cleaning and so forth. Those are the employees that remain on full employment. If you need to come out to buy any essential item let it be one person. Do that and come right back home.”
Economic activity has decreased tremendously with the state of emergency in place. You won’t find many people on the streets. You’ll find them inside stores and supermarkets, stocking up on necessary items. Social distancing is being enforced, and some businesses are requiring customers to wear a face mask or no service.
One of those businesses is Cuello Store, owned by Rene Cuello. Before entering his store, I washed my hands, and was given a face mask to use. His employees inside the store all wore face masks and so did Cuello. Cuello believes that to prevent the spread of the virus everyone must wear a face mask.
Rene Cuello, Owner, Cuello’s Store
“You need one person to infect many so what they are doing to stop the spread is not working, not even in the U.S.A. They are saying no more than ten persons but that is not helping. If government enforces the law that everyone must wear a mask in public or when you are speaking to someone we can stop this virus in its tracks because you cannot spread it if you are spitting in a person’s face or your breadth going to that person face. Put on a mask. Listen, no one without a mask can come to me and speak. I break them at the spot. You must wear a mask before you come closer to me.”
There is competing research related to the need to wear a face mask during the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected COVID-19 infection, and if you are coughing or sneezing.
Rene Cuello
“The advice they are saying why not to use mask is not logical.”
Hipolito Novelo
“Yeah, but the W.H.O. is saying that wearing a mask may put you more at risk.”
Rene Cuello
Rene Cuello
“It’s not logical Hipolito. They say if you were a mask the virus stick on it. So if it doesn’t stick on the mask where will it stick? In your face. You will be infected immediately. And the mask if to protect you if I have it. That is why all of us are wearing a mask here, so that I don’t spread it to you and you don’t spread it to me.”
However, recent research shows that the use of a face mask even by persons not showing signs and symptoms is effective in preventing the spread of the virus. Scientists say that COVID-19 is believed to spread through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Those droplets land on common surfaces that many people come in contact with.
Rene Cuello
“Right now as is, you go to a supermarket you have two with masks, eight without masks. They go in the supermarket; the one who is inspected probably could go behind a shelf and sneeze, you don’t know, infect the products, you go around there and you touch it. You get infected too. You pass it and bring it to your family. The way to avoid is to wear a mask!”
Signs and symptoms may appear days after a person is infected. Wearing a face mask prevents the persons from spreading the virus during its incubation phase. Cuello is requiring his customers to wear a mask or be denied service. A few other businesses around town are doing the same and Cuello is encouraging other business managers and owners to join.
Rene Cuello
“We demand that the customer brings a mask so that he doesn’t breathe or left some dew on the counter or on the money. You know how to handle yourself with the money when the customer comes. You have to take care of yourself so you stop the spread. But people have to be educated. People are going about their business like its business as usual. There are many shopkeepers that just don’t give a damn. They don’t care. I go to speak with them and they laugh. You don’t have to wait to buy a mask or to get it imported. It is laziness. You can make a mask out of anything. We bought the cloth and we did it. This is reusable. We bought the cloth. You just cut it. It is easy, easy. You get the string and you put a plastic inside or a wax paper so that anything doesn’t go through it. We sell it for a dollar and if they don’t have any we give it to them. It is just plain sleckness that we don’t do it.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Hipolito Novelo.
