The buck stops where?
Some of our leaders refuse to lead...
Yesterday, the Kansas City Star ran a story about the coronavirus and the rapid increase in infections here in our city.
The story quoted Johnson County Health Director, Sanmi Areola, who said the increase in the infection rate could be attributed in part to restrictions being lifted before cases were down, lack of social distancing and the refusal of some people to wear masks.
Areola also blamed politics for some people’s refusal to believe in science and here’s a quote:
“We’ve got a lot of work to do in educating people and letting public health professionals and science dictate what we do and finding a way to separate politics from this.”
Meanwhile…
The story also quoted an employee of a local bar who said the buck has been passed from the federal government all the way down to the bar employees serving “as front-line defenders for mask-wearing.”
Here’s more from the bar employee:
“It would be awesome if there were more leadership from anywhere. Literally anywhere. I’ll take it from somewhere other than continually passing it on to the lowest person to enforce.”
As the above cartoon points out, that bar employee cannot expect help from Donald Trump. The bar employee also cannot expect help from Missouri Gov. Mike Parson who hasn’t issued a state-wide mask wearing mandate.
And when Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly signed an executive order requiring face coverings in public, more than 90 counties in the state opted out of the mandate.
Which brings up an obvious question: there are 90 counties in Kansas?
I have also read quotes from police officials who said they would not enforce mask-wearing rules, so if you happen to work for a bar or restaurant or convenience store that has a no-mask, no-service policy, you might be on your own when it comes to enforcing it.
Fortunately, Kansas City does have a rule about wearing a mask and here’s what Mayor Quinton Lucas had to say about it:
“I think it’s a small price to pay for us to be able to get back to some level of normalcy by just saying, put on a damn mask.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
And don’t make some poor bartender or waitress or convenience store clerk who never signed up to be the mask-police, fight you about it.
Thank you for this, Lee. I work at the front desk of a local community center. Most of our members don’t grouse too much when it comes to wearing a mask, but sometimes—and it’s a small facility—our admin staff is just not there. And the front desk gets all the complaints, the insults, and all the stress because we don’t have back up.