Please, wear a mask
Wednesday, Jun 24, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Eric Zorn…
“Wearing a face mask poses a health risk to me,” says a document circulating online that mask-phobes are urged to present to greeters, clerks or managers who try to enforce the requirement and block their entry from a store or other place of business. “Under the ADA and HIPPA (sic) I am NOT required to disclose my medical condition to anyone.”
The document goes on to give toll-free number to the U.S. Department of Justice’s ADA information line and to threaten violators with fines of up to $150,000.
It’s mostly nonsense. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) simply restricts disclosures by health providers. The ADA requires only that businesses provide assistance to people with disabilities so long as that requirement doesn’t cause undue hardships or pose a risk to the health and safety of other customers. Many stores will offer to shop for those who cannot shop independently and bring the merchandise to the door, for instance.
And if you don’t wear a mask, you’re clearly posing a health and safety risk to other customers and employees.
* How people think they can walk onto someone else’s private property and literally do anything they want is just beyond me…
- Grandson of Man - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:33 am:
Widespread cooperation will help us beat back the virus. All the people who are refusing to cooperate, they apparently don’t accept that not taking precautions hurts their own goal of reopening the economy and having more freedom from restrictions.
- MSIX - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:33 am:
Stories like this make me fear a huge outbreak on universities this fall.
https://foxillinois.com/news/local/students-at-mahomet-seymour-schools-test-positive-for-covid-19
- Linus - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:34 am:
==someone else’s private property==
This, all day long. People: The stores where you shop are private property, not public. And every shopper’s health deserves protection, not just your own.
- TheInvisibleMan - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:35 am:
Most of my preparation for this pandemic has been to plan more for how people are going to behave(spoiler, they are going to behave badly), not for the virus itself.
Events like this are exactly why I take that approach.
- Token Conservative - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:37 am:
Do I like wearing a mask? No.
Is there much likelihood that I’m infected? No.
Do I still do it because it’s the right thing to do? Of course.
- Stones - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:37 am:
I’ll admit that I’ve forgotten mine a few times but we always wear our masks when shopping or otherwise in indoor public places. Somehow, we’ve managed to politicize a pandemic. Never thought something like that would be possible.
- Excitable Boy - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:38 am:
How these people can not feel shame is beyond my comprehension.
- Common Sense vs The Truly Dense - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:38 am:
No one has a problem with:
No shirt, no shoes, no service.
But require a mask to stop spread of deadly virus is just too far…
All this internet connectivity and some people still refuse to read anything to do with science..
- Powdered Whig - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:42 am:
Americans are too concerned with instant gratification. They are upset that they cant go to their favorite bars or restaurants, but yet will fail to take measures designed to allow those places to re-open and service customers. The blame always goes to someone else.
- PorkSteak - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:43 am:
* How people think they can walk onto someone else’s private property and literally do anything they want is just beyond me *
Ah yes, there’s the rub, isn’t it, private property and serving customers. Something about wedding cakes comes to mind, but I will stop there.
Businesses are free to restrict access, I’m not sure what the big deal is.
- efudd - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:44 am:
That second video looks like assault on the employee to me.
There is this sense of entitlement that some Americans have that simply defies reason.
- efudd - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:46 am:
PorkSteak-
You’re equating discrimination with public health?
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:48 am:
I was at the Menards in Montgomery.
Gentleman came in, no mask. Employee, while “trying” to stay at least 10+ feet away (more like trying for 20 feet, but I’ll get to that), tells the Covidiot, “go get your mask or leave”
Gentleman continues to walk towards the employee to ask a “mulch” question, only concerned, as almost yelling to get that 20 foot distance smaller (yelling spreads germs, like singing) and the employee, not listening by responding “you need to leave, no mask sir”, walking backwards as not to be ambushed from behind, as the Covidiot, now using more choice words heads to the parking lot, yelling.
I was about 35 yards away, watching, and this employee after, eyes above his mask looking shaken… headed to the outside garden area, away from customers.
It’s a (redacted) mask.
These Covidiots are threatening others… for reasons silly only to them. No one should need worry because wearing a red hat is more important that wearing any color mask.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:50 am:
=== private property and serving customers. Something about wedding cakes comes to mind, but I will stop there.===
… because that argument is asinine.
Health and safety is never the same as stopping ones civil rights.
No one will die making or not making a cake. No one should be discriminated against.
Wearing a mask will save lives.
Keep up,
- PorkSteak - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:54 am:
Nope. All I’m saying is the private property thing is a touchy subject. For some, private property rights only matter when its in support of the cause-du-jour, while others make a living telling me what to do with my property. A business isn’t truly private property because I can do all kinds of things at home that I can’t in my place of business.
- Nagidam - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:58 am:
I see the same issue of folks not wanting to wear a mask as not wanting to help with contact tracing. To much big government they say. Failing to realize that the data has the potential to help avoid another lock down. The data tells us patterns and who is most effected. The data lets us respond on a more micro level than making decisions that effect everyone. Fools
- Demoralized - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:58 am:
There’s a difference between telling someone they have to wear a mask and telling someone they can’t be served because of their race, gender or sexual identity. It’s not a hard concept to grasp.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 10:59 am:
=== Nope. All I’m saying is the private property thing is a touchy subject.===
Not when comparing a wedding cake discrimination versus a global health pandemic, seen once a century.
Why one would choose blatant discrimination of a wedding cake to make a ridiculous “slippery slope” argument… welp…
=== For some, private property rights only matter when its in support of the cause-du-jour, while others make a living telling me what to do with my property.===
lol… then either get waivers or face getting sued, don’t tell me about a need for immunity for having a place of business run by Covidiots, encouraging Covidiots to patronize.
- Socially DIstant Watcher - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:00 am:
The Americans with Disabilities Act does not say that you can put other people at undue risk. It says that you have a legitimate health issue, you get reasonable accommodations. If there are no reasonable accommodations that don’t put others at risk, then under the terms of the ADA, a store can ban you from entering. The ADA does not mean that you don’t have to wear a mask, even if you have a legitimate health reason for not wearing one. which the person in this video did not demonstrate.
It’s not complicated.
- Tommydanger - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:05 am:
If you can be courteous by opening a door for another person, or by allowing someone with fewer items to jump ahead of you to check out; why would you not wear a mask to save another person from a serious illness or the loss of their life?
Its not as if you’re being asked to run into a burning building to save someone’s life. Just wear the mask.
Its one thing to be an ignorant idiot, its quite another to be an intentional one. Just wear the mask.
- revvedup - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:05 am:
Once an employee or security guard tells the person to leave the business’s premises, it’s Criminal Trespass to Real Property ((720 ILCS 5/21-3) (from Ch. 38, par. 21-3)
Sec. 21-3. Criminal trespass to real property.
(a) A person commits criminal trespass to real property when he or she: (1) knowingly and without lawful authority enters or remains within or on a building, or (b) (3) remains upon the land of another, after receiving notice from the owner or occupant to depart), and they can be arrested. The store employee may make a valid citizen’s arrest because it is a Class A Misdemeanor ((725 ILCS 5/107-3) (from Ch. 38, par. 107-3) Sec. 107-3. Arrest by private person. Any person may arrest another when he has reasonable grounds to believe that an offense other than an ordinance violation is being committed.) It’s time to stop playing with these Coronaidiots, especially when they force their way into businesses like this.
- Glenn - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:07 am:
How many who won’t wear a mask now refused to take off their shoes and undergo body searches before entering an airplane after 9-11-2001 ?
Does freedom mean the choice of what safety measures one chooses to comply with?
- PorkSteak - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:23 am:
*don’t tell me about a need for immunity *
LOL. I didn’t. And lawsuits are just a scare tactic like everything else. There is absolutely no way it can be proven that someone caught a virus at a specific location. Maybe if that is the only place they’ve visited, and there are no other humans in the house, but otherwise, nope. Tell me, how many people are sued today over catching a virus at a home or business (other than food poisoning, which can be proven). That’s a door you don’t want to open.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:29 am:
=== And lawsuits are just a scare tactic like everything else. There is absolutely no way it can be proven that someone caught a virus at a specific location.===
Ever heard of tracing? In South Korea, for example, with tracing, they narrowed down not only the location but the time of the beginning infections began at that location.
You laugh because science is something you don’t take seriously.
I’m more than pleased these Covidiot places could be sued. Oh, if it’s such a scare tactic, why did POTUS have waivers for his own event? Yeah, it’s a scare tactic.
=== Tell me, how many people are sued today over catching a virus at a home or business (other than food poisoning, which can be proven). That’s a door you don’t want to open.===
Then there should be no need for immunity.
Suing ignorant Covidiots will ruin businesses. That’s why they are fighting it, and Covidiots don’t want good tracing of the infected.
Just wear a (redacted) mask, it saves lives, maybe of someone you care about.
- Moe Berg - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:29 am:
Writing this as a white male of means: belligerent, confrontation-seeking refusal to wear a mask is a manifestation of white privilege and an assertion of white supremacy - “different rules apply to me because I’m white.”
It’s white people provoking these confrontations.
And, thus far, it’s mostly been persons of color suffering the most mightily from COVID-19. I believe that plays a role in how some white people are behaving about masks.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:35 am:
“I don’t want tracing, and it doesn’t work”
Reality?
Tracing works, no one wants liability for being Covidiots, they know they are personally endangering lives for money.
From JAMA…
https://bit.ly/3dqgmLX
“Information Technology–Based Tracing Strategy in Response to COVID-19 in South Korea—Privacy Controversies“
April 23, 2020
- Barrington - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:42 am:
Ugly, senseless, selfish and lack of humanity. Unfortunately lots of Karen memes on social media and YouTube now.
- anon616xx - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:42 am:
What blows my mind is when you go to a medical professional (Chiropractor, Cardiologist, etc..) and they aren’t wearing a mask. Or county officials like a Sheriff or county clerk not wearing a mask.
And if you wear a mask, they tell you that you don’t have to wear it and they are so over this whole pandemic.
- In_The_Middle - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:50 am:
If you wear pants when you leave the house, then you can wear a facemask.
It’s just another piece of clothing.
- PorkSteak - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:51 am:
* the Korean government developed a customized app for quarantined individuals and required them to report their health status on a regular basis, and, with aggregated location data, modeling efforts were also made to locate potential sources of community-acquired infections.*
never happen in this country OW, and you know it. Some countries are accustomed to having the government’s nose in their business, we aren’t one of them.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:54 am:
=== Some countries are accustomed to having the government’s nose in their business, we aren’t one of them.===
… then when those businesses are sued, the business owners ruined, and the Covidiots realize it was traced back to them, maybe someone will realize, even business owners, don’t have the right to harm, infect, or worse to the public because wearing a mask doesn’t work when wearing a red hat.
I mean, advocating to hurt, infect, or worse to your customers is a business plan…
- Joe Bidenopolous - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:55 am:
==If you can be courteous by opening a door for another person, or by allowing someone with fewer items to jump ahead of you to check out; why would you not wear a mask to save another person from a serious illness or the loss of their life?==
My assumption, as of now, is that mask refusers are terrible human beings who would never have opened a door for someone or allowed a person to jump the line. They clearly have no concern for others. Prove me wrong.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 11:58 am:
- PorkSteak -
If you’re purposely advocating that “they’ll never know we infected all these people, so it’s good” as a business thought to be open…
… yikes man. That’s truly money over lives.
We’ve already traced, by sheer numbers, meat packing plants, Amazon work places, if a business thinks they can avoid liability, they need to ask why POTUS has those liability waivers for Tulsa.
- low level - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 12:15 pm:
Private Property: If I own the store, I make the rules. Or if I have a party and require everyone to wear a mask, I have the right to kick you out if you show up without one.
- Cheryl44 - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 12:17 pm:
I’d like to know if Porksteak owns a business so I can avoid it like the plague.
- PorkSteak - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 12:18 pm:
You are talking about large scale events or huge facilities, of course those outbreaks are easy to trace (but not 100% fulproof), mom and pop shops, not so much.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 12:23 pm:
=== You are talking about large scale events or huge facilities…===
… and yet small towns are finding out who went to Florida beaches, as an example, when the town went from zero… to 13.
Lemme know if you want some cites on this, because your ignorance to how tracing works is comically scary.
===… mom and pop shops, not so much.===
I agree, I hope you don’t own a business, and if you do, please let me know what it is and where it is… I’d avoid your business.
Think about… lol… your idea is dodging tracing, but stay open for money in *hopes* contract tracing doesn’t work… as the hot spot might be those who all got a haircut, or a bar or restaurant, I mean… that MAGA hat might be too tight, friend.
- Matthew Dean - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 12:26 pm:
Why did Gov Pritzker give blanket immunity to nursing homes?
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 12:29 pm:
- Matthew Dean -
https://capitolfax.com/2020/05/15/pritzker-adjusts-eo-on-nursing-home-liability/
=== After granting the troubled nursing home industry legal immunity through an executive order last month, Gov. JB Pritzker backtracked slightly and ordered that the industry can only be protected from civil liability lawsuits involving Covid-19.===
Dunno if that’s blanket immunity…
- Jocko - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 12:30 pm:
Covidiots appear to have upped their game by trying the “I have a health condition” workaround. Unfortunately, I don’t think narcissism qualifies.
- DTAG - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 12:47 pm:
I’ve never wanted to get into a Walmart that badly in my life.
- Chatham Resident - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 12:47 pm:
As I shared yesterday, during lunch at work yesterday I had some banking to do at a credit union near the Capitol Complex. (Some of you may know which one I’m talking about).
Their lobby had stayed open during all the shelter-in-place orders/closures, but mandated that customers wear masks, observe social distancing, no public bathrooms, and wait to be recognized by teller before approaching.
Yet despite these precautions I go there and the all-young workforce was not wearing masks. Not even when customers like me approached. And they didn’t look like they cared either. Looks like the employees needed to practice what they preach.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 12:59 pm:
===Something about wedding cakes comes to mind===
It’s always the whataboutism with you clowns.
- Last Bull Moose - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 1:32 pm:
My son cannot wear a mask. He has asthma and cannot breathe.
He also does not go out. Amazon and we do his shopping. He is essentially housebound until a vaccine is deployed and proven effective.
- Pot calling kettle - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 1:40 pm:
===Some countries are accustomed to having the government’s nose in their business, we aren’t one of them. ===
Yes, we are. In many areas, but especially public safety. Police stop reckless drivers, the EPA and local health depts. work to ensure clean air and water…it’s a very long list. When one person’s actions can effect another person’s health or safety, we expect the government to monitor and moderate the interaction.
- Ducky LaMoore - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 1:48 pm:
That guy in the second video should be charged with trespassing and assault. Probably should be serving 6 months to a year. Law and order(exclamation point)
- lake county democrat - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 1:50 pm:
If you can be forced to wear a helmet for nobody’s protection but your own, you can be forced to wear a mask to protect everyone’s safety (and livelihood given the effect of COVID on the economy).
- OneMan - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 1:58 pm:
== How people think they can walk onto someone else’s private property and literally do anything they want is just beyond me ==
Once tried to explain, at length to a GOP candidate for State Rep why Walmart had the right to tell her not to solicit petition signatures for her campaign inside their store and on their property.
- Rudy’s teeth - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 2:11 pm:
In my best Bugs Bunny voice, “What a maroon.”
- RNUG - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 2:19 pm:
I fear for the lack of common sense. Out running around in the general area of Alton and masks are in the minority.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 2:50 pm:
===Some countries are accustomed to having the government’s nose in their business, we aren’t one of them===
Really? Drive across the state border and fire up a joint and see what happens.
- R A T - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 3:06 pm:
White people crack me up.
- Earnest - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 3:08 pm:
===Some countries are accustomed to having the government’s nose in their business, we aren’t one of them===
Try googling search term “Patriot Act”
- Chatham Resident - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 3:12 pm:
==That guy in the second video==
That guy resembles Darren Bailey.
- Because I said so.... - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 3:24 pm:
Seat belts are now legally required for our own safety. Face coverings are for the safety of others. Like most, I don’t enjoy wearing one but I always do and I rally don’t understand why those who can choose not to.
- theCardinal - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 3:38 pm:
when he pushed the security person they should have called police …oh wait nevermind.
- Nagidam - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 3:41 pm:
@Lake County Democrat
You cannot be forced to where a helmet like a seatbelt.
- RNUG - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 3:42 pm:
A little more encouraged … several places are requiring masks and the beer garden we found for a late lunch had people responsibly spacing out.
- Honeybear - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 3:49 pm:
I’ve been real proud of Hamel. I get stuff at our little store all the time and I hardly ever see someone without a mask on these days.
- Da Big Bad Wolf - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 4:18 pm:
=== Something about wedding cakes comes to mind, but I will stop there.===
The Supreme Court ruled in the baker’s favor, so there’s that.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 4:20 pm:
=== in the baker’s favor===
They did?
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 4:23 pm:
To rephrase, what did the ruling say, and the overall implications?
- ArchPundit - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 7:36 pm:
—You cannot be forced to where a helmet like a seatbelt.
Yes, a state can require. Illinois chooses not to have a law requiring it.
===Seat belts are now legally required for our own safety.
Seat belts also are for others safety. They keep people behind the wheel and in control of their car in many accidents. This has happened for me where I was able to keep the car from crossing into oncoming traffic after being hit.
- ArchPundit - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 7:39 pm:
Being LGBTQ+ is a protected class in many states. Being obnoxious and not wanting to wear a mask is not covered as a protected class. I think the difference is fairly obvious, but being LGBTQ+ is inherent to the identity of the person and irrelevant to their participation in civil society. Being an obnoxious crank is not.
- ArchPundit - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 7:42 pm:
===The Supreme Court ruled in the baker’s favor, so there’s that.
This was based on the administrative board’s bias as evidenced by the record of proceedings not on the larger issue. The case on employment indicates that laws protecting the class are legal and apply to LGBTQ+ individuals also likely apply to public accommodations laws.
- RNUG - Wednesday, Jun 24, 20 @ 8:42 pm:
== —You cannot be forced to where a helmet like a seatbelt.
Yes, a state can require. Illinois chooses not to have a law requiring it. ==
As a former motorcycle owner … actually, ABATE took Illinois to court over that and the State was unable to prove that wearing a helmet had anything to do with safely controlling a motorcycle … which was the rationale for the helmet law. The court did agree that eye protection (glasses or a face shield) DID have a relationship with being able to safely control a motorcycle (clear vision being a issue), so that part of the law remained valid.