Across the country COVID-19 cases continue to rise. The small plateau in cases seen for a few days in April are long behind us. This means that municipalities looking to try to reopen parts of their economy must be prudent in how they go about it. As places like Florida are showing us, just reopening and crossing one’s fingers is not a good public or economic plan. This public health crisis is also running in tandem with our country’s native white supremacist history and structure of racial inequality. The rates of spread and mortality of the novel coronavirus is disproportionately affecting Black communities throughout the country.
The Montgomery Advertiser reports that a stream of doctors spoke in front the Montgomery City Council, in Alabama, on Tuesday. They were there to give their opinions on a mandatory mask ordinance in front of the council. One of the speakers was Jackson Hospital pulmonologist William Saliski, who pleaded with the council, saying that "The units are full with critically ill COVID patients [...] This mask slows that down, 95% protection from something as easy as cloth. ... If this continues the way it's going, we will be overrun."
Saliski explained that Montgomery has been “late to the party,” but that the hospitals are filling up. “Right now we have between 220 and 240 patients in our hospital system. Half of those on ventilators.” Saliski took a very somber breath before proceeding. “The sad part is that of the patients on ventilators, between 85 and 90 percent are the Afro-American [sic] population.” Saliski continued on to explain exactly how and why masks are important.
After the doctors spoke Councilman Brantley Lyons asked the doctors whether or not social distancing techniques like six feet of separation and the wearing of masks really helps. The doctors told Lyons that they very much do make a difference. But Lyons, who is known to throw around a lot of platitudes about God and the Bible—at least during his election years—feels that partisan political talking points are more important, telling the room that, “At the end of the day, if an illness or a pandemic comes through we do not throw our constitutional rights out the window.”
The ordinance failed to pass in a 4-4 vote, The ordinance had been proposed by Councilman Cornelius Calhoun and supported by Montgomery mayor Steven Reed. It was to last for 30 days and would have only made it mandatory for Alabamans to wear a mask in a public location with a group of 25 or more people.
The fact that Black people in Montgomery have been dying from COVID-19 at a much higher rate has been long understood by everyone in the city. It’s also been a glaring sign for the state in general, as the surge in cases across the state in more populated areas has not been as high as it has been in Montgomery. In fact, “Montgomery County has a smaller population and fewer people being tested than Mobile or Jefferson counties.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci has already explained that officials downplayed the effectiveness of N95 and other masks in the early days of the pandemic in the hopes of combating shortages in protective equipment supplies that front-line health workers would need. But he has also, as has the entire scientific and medical community, been very clear that wearing masks when out and about is one of the best ways we have at slowing the spread of the virus.
As of Wednesday, Montgomery has a 10 PM curfew as their one enforceable mitigation against the spread of the disease. The curfew, which has been in place for weeks, is supposed to dissuade people from gathering in large groups. Mayor Reed told the news that whether or not the city would end the curfew could be decided later this week, but he had earlier implied that passing the mask ordinance would have led to it.