Wear it properly

My husband is a cancer patient in his 70s being treated with chemotherapy. If he contracts COVID-19, he will almost certainly die. He has not entered a single public building except for Cancer Care Northwest, since early March, even before the official shutdown. The only small outings left to him involve fast food drive-through windows.

Today he needed to get out of the house and wanted a burger, so he drove downtown to food row on Sprague. He secured his mask before approaching the payment window of the first place he tried. The employee who wanted to take his money, however, was wearing her mask drooping below her nose. He drove away. The same thing happened at the second place he tried. To make matters even worse, he could see that the person working the grill inside was also wearing his mask underneath his nose. Again, he drove away.

I can’t fully believe that people who flout the mask mandate, which is in place to protect people’s very lives, are terribly fastidious about hand washing or other basic hygiene activities. I would hope the managers of these restaurants would be more insistent that their employees follow the simple rules of human decency during this pandemic. Ordering a hamburger at a drive-through should not put people at risk of dying.

Lavonne Weller

Spokane