Third World regimes have fewer COVID-19 cases than SC. Does the ‘no mask’ crowd care?

Many South Carolinians who still won’t wear face masks during the ongoing raging COVID-19 pandemic say they don’t want their individual freedoms trampled upon as though they were living in some undemocratic Third World country.

Perhaps someone should break the news to these people that during a recent seven-day period, South Carolina racked up more new COVID-19 cases per every 1 million residents than these authoritarian Third World countries:

▪ Bahrain.

▪ Oman.

▪ Kazakhstan.

These are the kind of facts that continue to expose the folly of South Carolinians who persist in refusing to wear face masks — even as our state approaches the four-figure mark in deaths related to COVID-19.

Doesn’t it bother the “If I put on a mask, I put away my freedom” crowd that if South Carolina were a country, we’d be considered a more alarming global hotspot for coronavirus than Panama?

Armenia?

Brazil?

Chile?

Or several other nations across the world?

Clearly not.

And that’s understandably a source of raw frustration for all of the South Carolinians who are wearing masks, practicing social distancing and doing their part to reduce COVID-19’s spread.

Can’t give up

But we can’t give up.

We can’t give up in our efforts to try to persuade more South Carolinians to transform themselves from dangerously stubborn holdouts to duty-minded citizens who accept their responsibility to wear face masks in the midst of a modern-day plague.

We must keep faith that these naysayers across our state will eventually own up to their obligation to our state.

Yes, it is exasperating that while South Carolina continues to break records for daily COVID-19 cases, no number is seemingly high enough to sway some to wear masks.

But we must keep throwing those grim numbers — politely, of course — into the uncovered faces of the skeptics.

Yes, it is maddening that as one local community after another has moved to implement laws requiring their residents to wear face masks in public places, the citizens who won’t can defiantly point out that Gov. Henry McMaster opposes a statewide requirement.

But we must keep pointing out that this is just another example of how local leaders have been way ahead of McMaster in taking decisive action during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yes, it is exhausting to hear and read State Epidemiologist Linda Bell issue yet another heartfelt plea to South Carolinians to simply wear face masks — and realize that her latest appeal will likely be just as studiously ignored by the “unwilling and uncovered” as the previous ones she’s made.

But we must keep encouraging Bell to speak up and speak out — while also giving power to her words by showing how most South Carolinians are embracing and heeding them.

In short, we can’t give up trying to lower the stubborn resistance to wearing face masks in South Carolina — because it remains our best chance of lowering the ominous COVID-19 numbers that make donning masks necessary in the first place.

Besides, “We’re worse than Bahrain!” isn’t exactly the most inspiring slogan for a state, is it?

This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 7:42 AM.