Very Late, but better Late than Never
Tens of thousands of Americans have died needlessly due to administrative incompetence. Still though, let’s appreciate Trump’s mask-wearing as better late than never.
Whether it’s for personal health reasons (doubtful), an epiphany about society’s need, or electoral survival (likely), he took visible action. And that visibility will improve our public health outcomes. To be clear, our outcomes are terrible thus far because of his administration’s poor leadership, but this could be an improvement for the path ahead.
Considering Mask adherence is less than 60% across the country, and that the President still has tens of millions of ardent fans, this can be fruitful. In those regions where mask adherence is low, it likely correlated with Trump fans who took his actions as guidance not to wear a mask. If even 25% of them now change their ways, this can tip mask wearing over the 50% mark needed to start to contain the virus.
American society has been late so, so, so many times. We were late to end slavery. We were late to join WWII. We were late to give proper guidance on mask wearing. New York was late to lock down. We are still late to create equal conditions for women and minorities. But it’s better to be late than to never correct prior mistakes. And for that, I think we should show some happiness that he wore that mask.
Now, let’s get an actual federal law requiring mask wearing. We need rules right now, not recommendations.
