COVID-19 survivor State Sen. McClendon says mask mandates don’t work, but urges people to avoid places where masks aren’t worn

Last month,  State Sen. Jim McClendon (R-Springville) revealed he had a 10-day stint in St. Vincent’s Hospital in Birmingham after contracting coronavirus.  He had since recovered and returned to “full speed,” working on his farm with what he deemed to be minuscule residual effects.

On Tuesday’s broadcast of Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5’s “The Jeff Poor Show,” McClendon, who chairs the Alabama Senate Health Committee, discussed how COVID-19 had changed his outlook.

The St. Clair County lawmaker explained he had been a “dedicated mask wearer” but had since determined mask mandates were not effective.

“As far as changing my perspective, I thought I was terribly cautious before,” he explained. “I was a dedicated mask wearer. I tell you one thing I learned, Jeff, is I can’t fix anybody. You know, those people who are not going to wear a mask and really don’t seem to worry about the welfare of others — there’s not a darn thing I can do except avoid them. So, it turns out a mandate to wear a mask, that doesn’t work. We say it doesn’t work here in Alabama. I don’t think it works anywhere. People resent you coming down on them. But what you can do as an individual is you can just avoid those folks and avoid going places where you have people that don’t show that respect for others, and that’s how I look at the masks.”

“When I wear a mask, it is to help other people out, not me,” McClendon continued. “And when I get around folks that are not willing to wear a mask, I get a little bit more perturbed than I probably should. But I also figured out I can’t fix them. I can’t do anything about it. All I can do is stay away from them.”

McClendon did not foresee another shutdown despite pressure that could come from outside of Alabama and maintained “personal responsibility” was the best practice.

“I can’t see that,” McClendon said. “It just about devastated our economy already. One of the things we learned is what happens when you do that ‘stay at home’ order, and obviously, it appears to me the Governor has picked up on the unpopularity of that. So, we go back to personal responsibility.”

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.