Published on May 04, 2020 at 03:55AM by Hannah Knowles and Marisa Iati, The Washington Post
Some officials are backing off requirements that people wear masks inside businesses as cities, counties and states - left to devise their own guidelines - run into limits on their ability to maintain public health precautions with stay-home orders easing during the coronavirus pandemic.
The issue pushed a small Oklahoma city into the national spotlight this weekend, after leaders withdrew a mandate to don masks inside stores and restaurants, citing threats of violence and physical abuse directed at employees. The mayor of Stillwater apologized to businesses for putting them in a dangerous position after some people responded virulently to the new rules.
"We don't have the kind of police force that can go out and try to deal with every single one of the people who may not be willing to wear the masks," Mayor Will Joyce said Sunday on MSNBC. "And so it's been a struggle [to] make people understand that wearing that face covering is an easy and an effective way to help slow the spread of this virus."
Joyce's comments came the same day that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, an early proponent of statewide social distancing, said he'd reversed course on requiring Ohioans to wear masks because people "were not going to accept the government telling them what to do."
"It just wasn't going to work," the Republican governor said on ABC News' "This Week." "You got to know what you can do and what you can't do."
Federal messaging on masks has been changing and at times contradictory. Health authorities began recommending last month that all Americans cover their faces in public, after previously calling it unnecessary. White House coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx on Sunday called protesters who defy stay-home orders and crowd together without masks "devastatingly worrisome."
But while some cities and counties mandate...
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