Skip Navigation

Wolf Administration reinforces orders for Pennsylvanians to mask up at businesses, workplaces, public indoor settings

Masks have been broadly encouraged since April as a helpful way to stop the spread of coronavirus.

  • Charles Thompson/PennLive
A customer wears a mask while shopping at a Fine Wine and Good Spirits store in Cumberland County on May 22, 2020, the first day the store reopened to shoppers after having been closed due to the coroanvirus.

 Kate Landis / PA Post

A customer wears a mask while shopping at a Fine Wine and Good Spirits store in Cumberland County on May 22, 2020, the first day the store reopened to shoppers after having been closed due to the coroanvirus.

(Washington) — At a time when Gov. Tom Wolf is facing regular challenges to his emergency authority to steer Pennsylvania through the coronavirus pandemic, the administration put out a fresh public reminder that – love ‘em or hate ‘em – masks are the law of the land at work and in most face-to-face business transactions.

“We just want to make sure that as we reopen we remind people how we can keep our communities safe to avoid backsliding that we have seen in other states,” said Wolf’s press secretary, Lyndsay Kensinger.

The administration’s point is that, even though 54 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties will be in the green, or least restrictive, phase of the reopening plan as of Friday, the emergency orders that are still in place require mask usage at workplaces and by customers doing any face-to-face transactions with a business – retail, office or otherwise.

“In yellow and green counties, it is required that masks are worn when visiting businesses to protect employees, employees’ families, and communities as a whole,” Wolf said. “Mask-wearing has proven to be an important deterrent to the spread of the virus, and as more counties move to green and more things reopen, we need to be vigilant in our efforts to continue our mitigation efforts.”

A cashier wears gloves and a face mask while assisting a customer at The Country Store on May 9, 2020, in Mount Joy, Pa.

Kate Landis / PA Post

A cashier wears gloves and a face mask while assisting a customer at The Country Store on May 9, 2020, in Mount Joy, Pa.

As a civil order, the state’s rule has not been used to issue individual citations to date, a Health Department spokesman said Thursday. But businesses such as groceries, pharmacies and others are all empowered to refuse entrance or service to customers who are not observing the rule, and they can be cited for lack of enforcement on their properties.

Masks have been broadly encouraged since April as a helpful way to stop the spread of coronavirus because limiting the transmission of aerosolized droplets that can carry the virus from one person to another.

The drive to mask was reinforced by U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams via a Tweet on Sunday.

Even so, the state’s release comes as some here say they have noticed some slippage in masking.

“There’s a lot less people wearing masks or wearing masks properly than even just two weeks ago,” said Nathan Harig, an assistant chief at Cumberland Goodwill EMS in Carlisle. “It seems like a lot of people have interpreted green (which Cumberland County entered last Friday) as a mask-free phase, and it most certainly is not.”

Harig recounted a recent trip for groceries in which he counted five or six different customers shopping without masks, and he said he’s even noticed a reduction in signage about masking about several stores in the area.

He calls it “caution fatigue,” and his problem with it is that the asymptomatic carrier of the coronavirus can be out there – not even knowing they are infected – and creating an unnecessary risk for people who may work in nursing homes, in the health care profession, or simply share a home with someone who is especially vulnerable to COVID-19.

It’s important to guard against especially now that businesses are reopening, the weather is nicer and things are starting to feel just a little bit more normal, Harig said.

Matt Rourke / AP Photo

A person wearing a protective face mask as a precaution against the coronavirus walks past a shuttered business in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 7, 2020.

“We’re going to have to be on our guard for quite some time,” Harig said. “It’s very much a pyramid, and if you start to remove some bricks, the whole thing comes toppling down.”

Wolf has characterized masking as one of the simple steps all Pennsylvanians can do to try to keep new case incidence rates down as the states continues to reopen. His emergency orders remain the law of the land under a public health emergency disaster declaration, though the state Supreme Court is currently weighing a challenge to the governor’s power from the Republican-controlled legislature.

 

PennLive and The Patriot-News are partners with PA Post.

Support for WITF is provided by:

Become a WITF sponsor today »

Support for WITF is provided by:

Become a WITF sponsor today »

Up Next
Health

Mount Nittany Health announces more layoffs, cutting 10% of staff