Civil liberties have crashed into a wall of coronavirus as Santa Barbarans struggle with the novelty of mandatory cloth face coverings. The cities of Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Carpinteria have required them for workers and customers at the essential businesses that are open — including food markets, restaurants, and the lines outside of them — but not all county residents agree.
A drive-by rally cruised up and down State Street and around De la Guerra Plaza on May Day in a protest against the statewide shutdown and its catastrophic effect on business. Beaches were on the verge of closing because of crowding the previous weekend, but the complaints included the “fearmongering” prompted by a requirement to mask up. The County of Santa Barbara hasn’t required masks, Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg has stated, because the science doesn’t back it up. He’s not alone. Ventura County’s health officer made the same observation. But that may be changing.
A goliath review of 104 medical studies about masks and virus transmission advised that, yes, masks could reduce the death toll from COVID-19. The article appeared at Preprints.org as a not-yet-peer-reviewed piece — a shortcut all COVID-related journal articles seem to be taking — by 19 scientists from a who’s who of research institutes and universities from Cape Town to California. Given the lack of therapeutics or vaccine against COVID, they found, cloth face coverings were a benefit that blocked virus transmission to some degree. Homemade masks even offered an economic edge, especially in light of the second wave of infection expected after stay-at-home restrictions are lifted. A renewed outbreak could cause businesses to endure a shutdown nightmare a second time.