MASKS: Make ‘em mandatory

Wednesday was my first time in a grocery store in around three weeks. Arrived at Winco at 8 a.m., put on our masks and went inside. There were not too many shoppers at this time but the numbers grew over the next 30 minutes.

The first thing I noticed was that we were just about the only shoppers wearing a mask. As it got more crowded the trend of shoppers without masks continued. There were elderly and children all included in the non-masked group. I would be surprised if more then 1 in 10 shoppers was wearing a mask.

I had to wonder if these folks were just not informed about how important it was to not only social distance but to mask up. Or were they much like the Washington folks who decided to come to Idaho so they would not miss a dinner out because their Gov. had shut their restaurants down to keep from spreading the virus?

Maybe it’s time for grocery stores to require masks be worn before being permitted into a store. We are extremely fortunate to have a very low count of infected in our county. Let’s keep it that way!

ROBERT SILVA

Coeur d’Alene