In Lexington County, face mask rules are patchwork and spottily followed
With an American flag-printed face mask hanging over one ear, Nova Norman picked up a pair of handmade cloth masks from Betsy Gaskin-Lester’s vendor table at the Saturday morning farmers market in downtown Lexington.
“I don’t believe in them (masks), but I think if it would offend you that I didn’t have one or scare you or make you afraid, then it’s my duty to be a responsible citizen. That’s the only reason. I’ve fought it,” Norman said, handing Gaskin-Lester a $20 bill. “But I’m blessed. I haven’t been sick, and my family hasn’t been sick.”
Gaskin-Lester has felt the personal effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. She’s lost two friends to COVID-19. She’s spent more time crying over the state of the world than she’d like to. And she sews face masks, even though she wishes she didn’t have to. She keeps three of them in her pocketbook at all times.
“I feel like the wagons are circling a little bit tighter and tighter,” Gaskin-Lester said. “When you start knowing people, that’s when it starts getting more real. I don’t think it’s a hoax. People don’t die from a hoax.”
Recognized as one of the few measures individuals can take to protect themselves and others from the potentially deadly coronavirus, face masks have slowly but surely become the norm for, well, most people in most places. But not all, particularly in places where local leaders and businesses have not required their use — like large swaths of Lexington County.
On Friday and Saturday, two reporters from The State visited more than a dozen businesses, recreation spots and other places people gather in Lexington County to determine how many people were adhering to requirements or recommendations to wear masks.
Public health experts and, increasingly, elected officials acknowledge that universal face coverings would be one of the most effective ways of slowing the virus’ spread. South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, however, has balked at requiring face masks across the state, saying such a mandate would be unenforceable.
When the city of Columbia imposed a face mask requirement last month, it had a noticeable, almost immediate impact. Large numbers of masked faces were seen in public places across the city from the day the mask ordinance went into effect. The rest of Richland County soon followed suit, creating a requirement for masks throughout the county at the risk of being fined.
Across the river in Lexington County, one of South Carolina’s more conservative corners, the rules are more patchwork. Some municipalities here, including Cayce, West Columbia and the town of Lexington, have adopted similar face mask mandates. But Lexington County as a whole has not, leaving gaps and creating some confusion as people move from one town to another or into unincorporated territory. Masks are more or less prevalent simply depending on where in the county you are and who you’re talking to.
Like most other South Carolina counties, Lexington is seeing a rapid spread of coronavirus cases. The state Department of Health and Environmental Control reported more than 4,100 positive tests in the county since the virus was first detected in South Carolina in March. Since July 1, the number of cases in Lexington County has increased 84 percent.
In some places, masks met with ‘abrasion’
There’s a double-layer of mask necessity at many businesses now, as many national retails chains have put in place their own mandates on top of local rules. The result was near-universal compliance at the Walmart Neighborhood Market in Cayce on Friday morning, though a few people occasionally came in saying they cannot wear a mask, according to an employee stationed just inside the door.
Likewise, nearly every person at the Bi-Lo grocery store on Cayce’s State Street wore a mask, save for one woman who walked out of the store about 10:30 a.m. in a one-piece bathing suit, wearing neither face mask nor pants. She was the only person lacking either of those garments.
Mask wearing appeared more variable at some small local businesses. At Lizard’s Thicket on Knox Abbott Boulevard, not a person entering or exiting was observed Friday without a mask at a late-breakfast period; even a number of drive-thru customers covered their faces. But just up the street at Just Us Cafe — where the sign outside the restaurant reads, “Defund the media and all politicians! God bless” — just fewer than half of people walking in and out of the restaurant at breakfast time had their faces covered.
Signs taped to the front door and inside counter at Piecewise Coffee Co. on State Street told customers they must, by law of the land, wear a face covering inside the business.
“The ordinance definitely takes a lot of the awkwardness out of the interactions, for sure,” said barista Luke Osterhaus, working alongside general manager Bryan Miller on Friday morning.
“It definitely helps since it’s a Cayce policy ... in terms of giving us a leg to stand on,” Miller said. “We’ve been told it’s not our job to enforce it. But at the same time, it’s like, how do we not enforce it? Because for me, I personally feel like I would like my safety to be taken seriously in terms of the coronavirus.”
Some people still come into the shop without a face mask on, they said; there’s a box of disposable masks waiting for them at the register.
“There are some people that you can kind of just tell that they’re not buying into the severity of the coronavirus,” Miller said. “And then when we say, ‘Hey guys, you need to wear masks,’ it’s always met with some sort of abrasion. But as time has gone on, especially with Columbia and Cayce both adopting policies, people know that you have to wear a mask.”
‘It’s worth it if it saves your life’
Even in the unincorporated parts of Lexington County, where no mask rules apply, it’s not unusual to see masked faces. Palmetto Vapors, a vape shop on Platt Springs Road, advertises free masks on a roadside placard.
Steven Campbell stood behind the counter Friday morning, where he and one customer in the store were both masked. Campbell estimates the shop has given away between 5,000 and 6,000 cloth masks since March. But despite that demand, he estimated a little more than half of the store’s clientele tend to mask up when they come into the shop.
“Some people just aren’t that worried about it,” Campbell said. “Since the town of Lexington deemed them necessary, I’ve seen them more... and I’ve seen some wearing them when they go to Walmart, because they require it.”
Down the street at the Walmart Supercenter in Red Bank, the big box store began requiring shoppers cover their face while shopping this week. The State observed a couple dozen people either wearing masks, pulling one over their face on their way into Walmart or stripping one off after exiting the store. Not all of them were fans of the new rule.
“I think it sucks,” Mike Watson of Lexington said of the new rule in the parking lot, maskless after his shopping trip. “It ought to be my choice. I ain’t getting up in anybody’s face.”
Watson runs a logging company in Orangeburg County. “We work outside, with no masks on, and nobody’s got no corona out there,” he said. Watson said he only knows of one person who came down with COVID-19, “and he did something he wasn’t supposed to and probably went to a damn bar. You’ve got to have a little bit of sense, but there’s a lot of stupid people in this world.”
Another Walmart shopper, Alicia Frazier, feels differently. She said she’s been wearing a mask regularly for months, since it became mandatory in her job in patient admissions at Prisma Health Baptist Parkridge Hospital.
“I see people when they come in like” — and here she took a big gasp of air. “It feels like they should have made it a requirement before... (A mask) can be aggravating, but it’s worth it if it saves your life or your children’s lives.”
At a nearby shopping center, about a dozen people were wearing masks as they went in and out of other stores, except for a young man smoking on the sidewalk and a couple pushing a pair of babies in a stroller.
At the Lowes Foods grocery store on Augusta Highway on Friday, Jonathan Howell said he only wears a mask when he’s required to.
“I can’t breath in them,” he said. Howell sounded skeptical of media coverage of the severity of the pandemic. He said he knows someone who has had multiple positive coronavirus tests over the course of a month. “So does he count as one positive test, or eight?”
Across the parking lot, Victoria Derrick said she was the “weirdo” who adopted mask-wearing early, “because I have compassion for other people.”
“I hate that it’s gotten to be so much about politics,” Derrick said, adding that she’s seen at least one shopper argue with store personnel about wearing masks. “If you’re human, you should care about other humans, regardless of what they believe or how they view things.”
‘People look at you like you’re trying to be a rebel’
In the most populated corridors of the county, face masks appear to have taken a somewhat firm hold.
Along busy Sunset Boulevard inside the Lexington town limits, every person inside the Target store, save for the very youngest children, were observed wearing face coverings late Friday morning. And compliance was near 100% at the Aldi, Lidl and Lowes Foods grocery stores, where signs on the front entrances reminded customers that the law now requires them to wear masks.
At lunchtime at the nearby McAlister’s Deli, fewer than half the customers walking in and out of the restaurant wore masks over the course of half an hour.
Deta Elkin and her daughter Emily Hinson ate outside on the patio, their cloth face masks kept beside them while they lunched. Both women wear their masks everywhere they go in public, they said. But not everyone around them does the same, they’ve noticed.
“I think it’s necessary. I get aggravated with people that don’t do it,” said Hinson, who re-covered her face with her floral-patterned mask before walking back inside the restaurant. “At the grocery store, it drives me crazy that they cannot follow directions.”
Farther out Augusta Road in the western portion of Lexington County, most shoppers at a roadside produce stand weren’t wearing masks on Friday. The stand occupies a dirt parking lot next to a weather-beaten, Art Deco sign for St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church.
A man in a red pickup truck identified himself as the farmer of the fields around the produce stand. He declined to give his name, but he said he’s noticed between 65% and 70% of his customers wearing masks.
“I do it because everyone else wants you to, so you go along to get along,” the farmer said. “If you don’t, people look at you like you’re trying to be a rebel.”
In small Batesburg-Leesville, near the Saluda County line, the town has not followed its bigger neighbors in adopting a mask ordinance. On Friday, only one person out of 10 was seen wearing a mask in a shopping complex on East Columbia Avenue, and none of the five people seen strolling down Main Street. The nearby KFC advertises itself as being open for carry-out.
At Shealy’s BBQ restaurant, about half of those entering the restaurant in a 15-minute stretch were wearing face coverings.
Serious, even when not mandatory
On Saturday, 8-year-old Sunny Smith stood out from other fishers on the dock of the Lake Murray Dam Recreational Area. Hers was the rare face on this busy summer morning wearing a full cloth mask.
Sunny’s mother, Shala Smith, said her family has taken the coronavirus seriously since the outbreak first hit South Carolina.
“We take it very seriously, even though it’s not mandatory,” Smith said. “If I’m outdoors like today, typically I don’t wear one if there’s no one around, but even if I’m ordering takeout, I’ll keep my mask on.”
An Aiken resident, Smith is a nurse at Augusta University Medical Center, where the hospital has gone through various degrees of lockdown as the pandemic has advanced through the community. It’s left her with strong feelings when she sees someone out in public who isn’t wearing a mask.
“I’ll say something,” she said. “I’ll definitely speak up... When we run out of beds, where are we even going to send you?”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify information about the increase in coronavirus cases in Lexington County since July 1. The number of cases increased 84 percent from July 1 to July 24.
This story was originally published July 26, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
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