As the state of Florida reports large spikes of coronavirus cases, one Palm Beach County Commissioner thinks mandating masks may be a way to slow the surge.
During a Friday appearance on CNN’s “New Day,” Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay said “mask wearing is probably something we need to be doing.”
McKinlay said she sees about half of the county’s residents wearing masks when she is out in public.
“It's about 90-plus degrees here and 85 to 90 percent humidity, it's summertime in Florida. You don't necessarily see the people wearing masks as they're walking on the street,” she said.
“What we really want to be focused on is when you walk inside and you go indoors and you're in closer proximity to other people, that's when we really want to see people wearing a mask.”
The Palm Beach County Commission is scheduled to take up the topic of mask wearing during its Tuesday meeting.
“These numbers are definitely concerning to me,” McKinlay said of the recent uptick in confirmed coronavirus cases in the county. “We are trying to figure out what our next steps are.”
The Florida Department of Health reported 2,000 confirmed cases daily for the past three days in the state.
She said she understands there are people who refuse to wear a mask.
“The aversion to mask wearing is the same aversion some people have to wearing seat belts or putting their child in a booster seat,” she said. “They make the argument that it’s a personal decision. I think it’s a small step to protect the public and to protect particularly the elderly and the most vulnerable.”
McKinlay said Florida opened up very quickly from the lockdown and she thinks people thought that reopening was a “return to normal.”
“I don’t think we can scale back how we opened, but we can simply slow down how we move forward and put these precautions in place, like wearing a mask,” she said.
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