The Fishers city public health order mandating the wearing of masks went into effect Friday. In addition, a mandatory Indiana state order from the governor was implemented Monday. But are these orders really mandatory?
It has generally been my understanding that when a legal mandate is ordered, there is some kind of penalty attached. It could be a fine or some jail sentence, but if one willfully and consistently violates the legal mandate, you could, at some point, face some consequences.
Nobody wants a face mask police force or arbitrary enforcement of such a legal order. However, with no specific penalty one would face for willfully violating these orders, it would be more accurate to describe the city and state actions as strong suggestions rather than mandates.
Now, understand, I am no expert in communicable diseases and have no scientific background other than a few high school courses and one science class in college. So, I read and listen to those with all the credentials to advise us on issues like wearing a mask.
Those experts are nearly unanimous in their advice – in most situations where you are around other people, wear a mask. Do that for the sake of the people around you to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
There may be no legal penalty for failure to wear a mask, but it is my view, based on these experts who have spent their lives studying viruses and have the credentials to write and speak authoritatively about the novel coronavirus, we should heed the strong suggestion to wear a mask when around others outside family members living in our households.
I commend Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness and Governor Eric Holcomb for making strong statements that citizens must be “educated” on the need to wear masks. I still worry about the people in our state not interested in being educated.
Allow me to take up a related issue. Last Monday, the Fishers City Council was set to hear a presentation from the Fishers Health Department about the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I verified with city staff this work session would be livestreamed on video. I am in a high-risk health category and have limited the events I attend in person.
I was assured the work session would be available on livestream. However, there was a major technical malfunction. You could see the video, but there was no audio – you could not listen to any of the presentation.
I was very disappointed, but later learned I was not alone. There were other journalists planning to use that livestream. I even received two phone calls later from former local officials asking me if I attended the work session so I could brief them on what was said.
I must be honest. I was very sad to see the city let people down. In more than eight years of covering Fishers municipal government, I have always found it very competent. Perhaps I just expect too much from our city government. Having worked in the broadcasting industry for over 14 years, I do understand technical glitches will happen. This one just came at a particularly inopportune time.
The city has tried to make up for it by posting the PowerPoint presentation and uploading videos, but anyone in communications will tell you that does not make up for the letdown on Monday night.
I also wrote about the delay in COVID-19 test results. Fishers has been way ahead of the curve on this one. It is my view that one major reason Mayor Scott Fadness chose to establish a city health department, a rare move for a city in the state of Indiana, was to provide free and timely testing for city residents and tests available to business owners for a fee.
Fishers has a contract with a lab to process the testing and provide results. The city health department issued a statement a few days ago saying the normal turnaround time of two to three days for COVID-19 test results were now 10 days due to the uptick in cases resulting in more demand for tests.
I wrote that a novel coronavirus test with results 10 days later is not of much use to the individual being tested and does not allow for contact tracing. I realize that was not the city’s fault, just a reality.
I rarely attend any meetings in person anymore, but I did about 10 days ago because I was invited and felt the session was of great importance to my local community. Everyone did their best to adhere to CDC standards, wearing masks and distancing as possible.
I received several messages following that meeting that one member of the group was COVID-19 positive, although some follow-up messages indicated the diagnosis might not have been correct.
To be on the safe side, as a resident of Fishers, I scheduled a test, which took about three business days. I received my test results roughly 72 hours later, which is a good sign that the testing results are coming in more quickly than expected.
In case you are curious, my results were negative.