ANALYSIS/OPINION:
One of the Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers in Fredericksburg, Virginia, has a policy requiring customers to wear face masks in order to receive in-facility service — but at the same time exempts its own employees working in the food preparation area from having to cover their faces. Why?
That’s a great question — and the answer from management was this: Because they work around heat and the coronavirus isn’t so easily spread in the warmth.
Hmm. Interesting.
So why the shuttering of beaches around the nation?
Why masks at all since America is heading into heatwave season?
This is the stuff of tortured logic, and it’s a primary reason why Americans are suspicious of government’s COVID-19 guidance, and frustrated with private business response to the guidance. First off: The signs on business doors — like on CVS — that warn, “Wear a face mask; it’s the law” are lies.
There is no national law in America requiring citizens to wear face masks.
There are no state laws in American requiring citizens to wear face masks.
Some local governing bodies, like in Montpelier, Vermont, have actually passed a law requiring all citizens to wear masks while entering buildings. But there are exemptions for those who cannot wear masks due to medical reasons. And who’s a business owner, who’s a city council member to demand a citizen provide a doctor’s note or share personal and private medical information? The exemption makes the law moot; at the very least, the exemption sets the stage for legal challenge.
But by and large, face mask mandates are actually not.
There are executive orders — which are far from laws. There are government recommendations — which are not laws. There are health and safety guidelines — again, which are not the same as laws.
So to post signs on store windows saying face masks must be worn because it’s the law is an outright lie.
And to the many in America who aren’t sheep, it’s just another lie in a long list of COVID-19-related deceptions that have fueled national angst and sparked backlash against government and now, private business, overreach.
There were the closings of hospitals around the nations save for coronavirus cases that left health care workers dependent on stimulus dollars to keep operations in the black — setting the stage for conflicts of interests with the reporting of coronavirus patient numbers.
There were the reports of hospitals coding all fatalities who tested positive for the coronavirus as having died from COVID-19, accompanying health problems be danged, pre-existing heart condition, or liver problem, or long-time serious medical issue be danged.
There were the conflicting government orders: Wear a face mask, don’t wear a face mask, wash hands and social distance — whoops, nope, stay home, stay far away from all others.
There were the dark currents of money to be made in vaccines by the very folks who were given global platforms to press the need for worldwide COVID-19 vaccines, i.e. Bill Gates, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and their partnership on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Decade of Vaccines campaign — and the almost complete blackout of press coverage of these obvious conflicts of interests.
There were the World Health Organization’s issues of complicity with China.
There were the Democrats’ support for mass protesters in the streets and complete takeovers of sections of city blocks — but dire warnings about church openings and the COVID-19 fallout that could come. There were threats by New York City’s Democrat mayor, Bill de Blasio, to permanently shut down churches that didn’t obey.
There were the massive death projections, only to be lowered, then lowered again, then lowered again, and the ridiculous computer models that put a nation on lockdown, in stay-at-home mode. And no apology from the wildly wrong prognosticators, either.
That’s just a drop in the bucket of curiosities, conflicts, political grandstanding, deceptions, skewed truths and outright lies that have plagued Americans more than the actual coronavirus.
And it’s time to stop the lying. Americans, by and large, aren’t a blindly obeying bunch — but they are the most compassionate, concerned and care-taking people in the world and will act selflessly at the drop of a hat, when expedient, when necessary, when the facts point to that need. But nobody likes to be deceived and manipulated and forced into illogical acts. And in America, the rights fall to the people first, not government, certainly not business.
If government wants Americans to take seriously the threat of the coronavirus, government needs to stop the lying. And so does private business.
And here’s yet another reason to be fight the nonsensical policies being put in place in random, haphazard fashion around the United States: Some are being put in place by rogue operators.
From Freddy’s corporate public relations manager, Jill Tinsley, in an email: “In this current stage of dining rooms reopening, all Freddy’s Team Members are required to wear non-medical cloth face coverings. Freddy’s does not require Guests to wear a mask unless it is required to comply with a local ordinance. [Mandated face masks for guests] at the franchise location in Fredericksburg was not in compliance with Freddy’s current standards.”
The takeaway?
It’s time to stop the lying.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
