Last week’s decision by state officials to institute a statewide mask mandate continues to be a topic of contention across the state and has drawn the objections of lawmakers, even as the Alabama legislature is out of session for 2020.
The latest is State Rep. Will Dismukes (R-Prattville), who questioned the mandate’s implementation given state officials have not explicitly stated the proper use of masks to mitigate the threat of COVID-19.
Monday on Huntsville radio WVNN’s “The Jeff Poor Show,” Dismukes laid out this concern and other concerns he has about the mandate announced last week by Gov. Kay Ivey and State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris.
“You know, one of the first points I made was that I’ve just observed and so it’s not like some scientist that just released this information but my own observance — for starters, the majority of people I’ve been counting and watching, it’s not correctly worn,” he stated. “As simple as it may seem to put a mask on, it would help to have some sort of education on just basics of mask-wearing, just the dos and don’ts of it. If you’re going to mandate something, then you need to follow it up with saying, ‘Hey, this is how it needs to be done.'”
Dismukes continued, “And then another thing is what she actually said is acceptable and not acceptable on mask-wearing, like a bandanna, and I call it a turkey-hunting sleeve because I wear one when I go turkey hunting, it’s just camo, to go over your face — they already said that’s not cutting it. That’s not going to do any good. So if you’re going to mandate something, why even have that as an exception. If we’re just going to do something to get by or tell the rest of the country, ‘Hey, we’re doing it,’ to me — there’s no point in that. Lastly, I think there is a due process to handling it, and I think that just shoving executive orders out there and making us go follow them — I really think that could set a precedent, that we don’t need to go down that road, not just for mask-wearing but because of what it could do in the future on a variety of issues.”
“I’m not anti-mask,” he added. “As much as it may seem from my Facebook posts and all that sort of thing, I’m really not anti-mask. If you want to wear one, by all means, wear one. I have put one on at times. I don’t regularly wear one. If it doesn’t stay on the door that they would prefer you to wear, then odds are I’m not going to put one on. I also respect people who want to and are full-out on it. I just think that rather than saying, ‘Here is an executive order,’ we should try to follow a due process and if we’re going to do this, even if it is for two weeks or one month, that we should come and meet on it.”
Dismukes added his concern over conflicting reports about the efficacy of the masks and argued for a more clearly defined mandate if one must be instituted.
@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 Huntsville’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN.
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