GEORGIA – On the literally hottest day of the year, one afternoon when car thermometers hit triple digits and air conditioners across the South complained, a lucky young jumper in front of a Wal-Mart in northern Georgia gave welcome in a constant flow of customers with masks.
Monday was the first day of Wal-Mart’s national mask decree: no mask, no service. How would that happen in Georgia, a state whose governor not only brought down the mask mandates but also filed a lawsuit against them? That was the search, and it started … quietly.
“Only one person complained,” said the spokesman, who was wearing a blue Wal-Mart mask. “She stood there, screaming and saying that you shouldn’t have to wear a mask just to do your shopping.”
So what happened?
“He put on a mask and went inside.”
Americans of all political persuasions agree that it is unhealthy to sneeze in someone’s face, that it is rude to spit on their food. Democrats and Republicans both wear seat belts and motorcycle helmets. Conservatives and liberals stop at red lights to allow others to pass through intersections.
But somehow, in the midst of the worst pandemic we have seen, we have left and politicized the use of masks, transforming what should be a basic health problem: not getting sick, not making others sick, in some kind of strangely referendum reasoned about government tyranny and constitutional rights.
Georgia does not have the daily positive results of Florida, Texas or Arizona, but it is the standard bearer in the growing War against the Masks. State Governor Brian Kemp has signed an executive order prohibiting municipalities from having more stringent mask ordinances than the state, and has also filed a lawsuit against the city of Atlanta for its mask ordinance.
Kemp, who was one of the first governors to reopen his state in April, has made wearing masks in Georgia an openly political issue, even as positive test results have increased across the state. Conservative fellow governors in Alabama and Arizona have enacted mask regulations, and the CDC has stated that “fabric face liners are a critical tool in the fight against COVID-19 that could reduce the spread of the disease, particularly when it is used universally within communities. ” but Kemp has stood still on his goal of keeping the use of masks as a recommendation rather than a mandate.
In announcing the lawsuit against the city of Atlanta, Kemp tweeted that the lawsuit was filed “on behalf of Atlanta business owners and their hardworking employees struggling to survive during these difficult times.”
However, many of the largest entities doing business in Georgia are clearly deciding that they will make their own judgments about the best way to protect the health of their employees and customers. (Governor Kemp’s office has not responded to repeated inquiries from Yahoo News for comment on the masking mandates of private companies within Georgia.)
Wal-Mart, which has more than 5,000 stores nationwide, has teamed up with a clique of other large corporations, including Best Buy, Target, Apple, and Starbucks, to demand the use of masks for anyone who walks through its doors. . It’s an update on the classic No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service line that no one in history has filtered through a political lens.
Nor is it, despite what some amateur constitutional scholars shout on social media trying to proclaim, a violation of anyone’s constitutional rights. By the time Wal-Mart customers enter Wal-Mart’s private property, they are playing by Wal-Mart rules.
And for the most part, Wal-Mart customers from the Appalachian foothills to the shadow of the Mercedes-Benz stadium, from the northern suburbs to the south of the airport, followed those rules. Sure, some of the masks were worn in the way best described as “five years at the end of a long Halloween night”, dangling from the chin or covering just the mouth, but still … the universal coverage of the mask is the universal coverage of the mask.
New rules at Wal-Mart. (Yahoo News)
Same store, new rules
It says something about the state of our country at the moment when everyone I reported on this article before I started researching it warned about the possibility of me getting into some kind of fight between enraged customers. Part of that is because social media amplifies those phenomena, and part is due to the less than excellent reputation of a segment of Wal-Mart’s customer base.
But here’s the truth, whether we like it or not: Wal-Mart has good control over the entire public health / shopping equation. Customers enter through a new row and must go through a black-shirted “health ambassador” before entering the store. The health ambassador arrests all people who do not wear a mask; I kept mine in my pocket when I approached one, just to test the system, and they stopped me, so if you go to a Wal-Mart without a mask, you know perfectly well that you are defying the company decree.
What happens then? Well, it depends on how much fuss the customer wants to make without a mask. An unmasked gentleman I watched pulled out her phone just before the queue and tried the old “I can’t talk, I’m on the phone” maneuver, but was rejected. Others were less susceptible to ambassadorial decrees.
“They’ve yelled at me this morning, they’re cursing me, and I’m trying to tell people, ‘It’s just my job,'” said an ambassador at a city store. “If they continue, I just …” and she pointed her thumb at the two policemen stationed nearby.
(Update: Since the initial post of this article, I’ve heard several stories of ambassadors who simply let customers walk into stores without masks. I contacted Wal-Mart for comment, but here’s a guess: nobody, individual or store, wants to be the target in a video of tantrums on social networks).
Inside each store, you will find masks, hand sanitizer, and other cleaning products right at the entrance. The hallways are clearly marked as one-way, and the signs on the floor show where to locate for proper social distancing. It is, by all reasonable measures, a consistent multistate coronavirus response strategy.
It is also a little preventive to cover the tail. Lawsuits for coronavirus are coming, as people try to blame their infection on outside entities. But even though such lawsuits have a slim chance of success, companies know that the best defense is the preemptive offensive.
“Certainly, by requiring [masks], it is a step to avoid any claim for negligence [from a customer]Says Terry Long, an attorney from Alpharetta, Georgia. “I doubt anyone has a very good case [against Wal-Mart], but it is unproven waters. Stores and schools will want to err on the side of caution, and most of them will follow CDC guidelines as a demonstration of negligence. ”
Come in come out
In addition to anecdotal evidence, everyone who observed Monday at Wal-Marts in Atlanta behaved quite well. Over the course of a six-hour, 150-mile, multiple Wal-Mart trip through Atlanta, I didn’t see any tantrums or screams of defiance, and as of 10 PM EST on Monday night, there was no new Wal-Mart outbreaks. emerged on social networks.
That will surely change, someone will be surprised at the idea that they have to use a mask to pick up some socks, or whatever, and it will be splashed on Twitter. But the vast majority of Wal-Mart customers, like literally every one of the hundreds I saw in stores on Monday, will wear the mask, either to protect themselves, to protect others, or, well … because they really need those socks.
“This is the way to do business now,” said an ambassador. “So it will be from now on.” (Note: this is not the official Wal-Mart policy).
An interesting aspect of The Great Mask Debate: nobody wants to speak on the album. No one. Of course, Wal-Mart employees have a valid reason to keep their names out of the press; They want to keep their jobs, and they do so by allowing Corporate to handle communications, in this way:
“As a company, Walmart has encouraged customers to wear protective face covers for the past few months,” Wal-Mart said in a statement provided to Yahoo News. “Through a new role, store health ambassadors, we will continue to inform customers about the benefits of using protective covers, either for their safety as explained by the CDC, or by orders issued by elected officials.”
But buyers have no such restrictions on giving their names. Still, I’ve conducted countless “person on the street” interviews, and I’ve never seen people so scared and unwilling to speak like that, not during protests, or in locker rooms that lose the championship.
There is much to blame for that: the politicians who incite their loyal social media commentators who fan the flames, the media that choose and choose who to deify and who to destroy. No wonder those people on the street just want to do their shopping and sidestep the drama of politicians, the media, and Facebook.
Still, if you’re looking for hope, you’re right there: People get on with their daily lives and do it in a socially responsible way, according to what scientific experts say is the best plan.
A young woman, pushing her cart toward her car at a Wal-Mart, said she had been wearing a mask for “months.”
“The doctors prescribed it,” he said.
Of course, she did not want to give her name.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo. Follow him on Twitter at @jaybusbee or contact him with tips and story ideas at [email protected].
