I was driving home from an assignment in Twin Lakes when a sign at the Lake County-Chaffee County line caught my eye. “Welcome,” it said. “Please mask up.”
I couldn’t help but think the display’s burnt orange hue and polite messaging was meant to gently catch the attention of tourists from Texas. Alot of Chaffee County businesses’ “summer dollars” come from Texans. But alot of Texans also flaunted no-mask practices back home this spring and summer. And despite Texas governor Greg Abbot’s July 2 mandatory mask order, The Lone Star State earned the distinction of becoming a national COVID hotspot for much of July, a month when over 4,000 people there died from the virus.
By comparison, Colorado has logged just under 1,900 COVID deaths since March.
https://twitter.com/GovofCO/status/1281600756525658113
Chaffee County’s courteous plea is in line with the strategy of catching more flies with honey than vinegar. But its message stuck me as being a bit “Jaws-mayorish,” in wanting it both ways: desiring precious tourist dollars knowing the public’s health is being put at risk. And to me, it lacked appropriate resolve at a time when COVID cases and deaths in the west were surging in staggering numbers.
The messaging also stood in stark contrast with Colorado governor Jared Polis’ blunt “wear a damn mask” tweet and subsequent Facebook post where he called people who refused to wear a masks in public “selfish bastards.” I can say I chose not to stop at any stores or gas stations in Chaffee County due to COVID risk. But as I drove through Buena Vista and downtown Salida, I did notice most people wearing masks and social distancing. So perhaps Chaffee County leaders had hit upon an effective formula to mitigate the spread of the virus.
Aside from my own mortality, I don’t have a dog in this skirmish over whether or not to wear a mask while playing tourist. But if I were to lead a mask wearing campaign, I’d blend honey with vinegar in equal parts, stress urgency, and paraphrase Winston Wolf, the Cleaner in Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction”: Pretty please, with sugar on top, if you go out, wear a fucking mask.
