U.S. states issue conflicting mask orders as new cases set another record

@Blacklabel: You said: "So I can choose to wear a mask if I care about your uneasiness that you fear I might have corona..." Did you just now take a virus test? You cannot guarantee that you do not have the virus unless you are tested. People have a responsibility to others to prevent the spread of the virus. Wearing a mask is helpful in preventing the spread.

Well, this settles one thing - Trump does in fact have a "No Child Left Behind" program....

I think Trump has a No Child Left Alive program.

@nishikat: I am sorry. I re read what you said and you said it to an obvious Trump supporter who most certainly must have voted for Trump. My apologies.

Well, this settles one thing - Trump does in fact have a "No Child Left Behind" program....

Open up the schools so that our children won't be left behind in the worldwide COVID pandemic...

What a leader...

@Nishikat: You said: "That's what you get when you elect a president that encourages people to inject Mr. Clean to fight COVID-19." I think you do not understand the voting system in America. Hilary Clinton received around 3,000,000 more votes than Trump. (I voted for Hilary Clinton) Trump won because he got the majority of Electoral votes.

Every vote does not count in America. For instance, I voted for Stacey Abrams but Georgia is a solid Republican state and Kemp won. Kemp is preventing people from being forced to wear a mask and thereby helping to spread the virus in Georgia. It is an ugly situation.

Please remember what I am telling you the next time you feel the need to say "That's what you get when you elect a president that encourages people to inject Mr. Clean to fight COVID-19." See Sarah Cooper: How to Medical.

If people want to wear one, their right, they should and if you don’t, it’s equally your right. Makes perfect sense to me.

This kind of attitude says a lot about why the infection and death rates keep climbing in the States.

Yes, US guidance has been inconsistent and conflicting with what the experts have been advising. Which is why the US leads the world in COVID cases.

If only the US had some kind of central figure who could be a leader and get the states on the right track...

The US has a leadership problem and it won't get better anytime soon.

People should have a choice but choose wisely,"

Laugh out loud at this one! I wonder if people have noticed that it's nearly all caucasians in the US that are complaining about wearing masks and social distancing.

After living here so long and seeing people wear masks with no second thought, I can not believe the number of idiots that live in the US.

It's like they are ASKING to get sick and die! (Maybe the world will become a better place if they do!)

So I can choose to wear a mask if I care about your uneasiness that you fear I might have corona.

Any if you don't (in Japan) you get funny looks on the subway. Numbers in the USA are really bad. That's what you get when you elect a president that encourages people to inject Mr. Clean to fight COVID-19.

Is there anything American's won't politicize?

Back in the dark ages of Covid-19, when very little was known about this virus, Fauci did indeed say that masks were not needed. As more and more information came out, he realized that he was wrong and decided to recommend masks. That's true science. Amending your initial hypotheses in the face of new and more complete information. Sticking to your rigid belief system even in the face of contravening evidence is religion.

Back in April, there many people on here and all over the world saying "It'll be killed in the summer by the heat and UV". You still claiming that will happen? Probably not. So even you and others are able to amend your/their hypothesis in the face of new information, just like Fauci did with the usage of masks.

It's common sense for someone to wear a seat belt for their personal safety. But it's also the law in America to wear a seat belt. shrug

It depends on what is common sense? Washing hands, social distancing, eating healthy, for that you don’t need a mask. If people want to wear one, their right, they should and if you don’t, it’s equally your right. Makes perfect sense to me.

After Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, Georgia's capital and largest city, said she planned to defy Kemp's order and enforce a mandatory mask ordinance she issued on July 8, Kemp filed suit on Thursday to override her.

Ah yes, NOTHING spells American rights like a lawsuit! They are going to sue everyone to death and not have learned a thing.

Would it kill Americans to use common sense?

Fauci very clearly and scientifically explained why masks don’t work.

It’s better to read around and look at consensus in matters like this. My reading around has led me to believe masks work to a degree. Don’t take the word of one man. If you do this in the case of Trump, you’d be six feet under and possibly preserved with disinfectant.

Put a mask on. It’s no great burden.

Pardon me. I assume @Blacklabel is an American.

Do you, @Blacklabel, live in Japan? If so, do you wear a mask? If so, why? If not, why not?

Do you think people in Japan should or shouldn't wear masks?

If you, @Blacklabel, don't live in Japan, do you wear a mask? If so, why? If not, why not?

Do you think people in America should or shouldn't wear masks?

I like masks. I have to shave less.

So you can run out in groups without masks and "social distancing" (whatever that means) burn down buildings, loot buildings, beat and execute innocent citizens, declare autonomous zones, pull down statues, and assault police officers and it is alright, it is just okiedokie.

Hardly - I think you'll find almost all people condemn the pro-Trump, far-right, racist, hate mobs out causing chaos in our cities - everyone except our President...

BUT don't even think about going to shop for groceries, buy a tank of gasoline, go eat in a restaurant, go to a funeral or to church without one.

Unless you are the type of person that can't be bothered with a mask, putting at risk your family members, neighbors, fellow church congregationalists, the elderly, those with compromised immune systems, etc...

This is a political power grab and conditioning population to submit. If you can't see that then you are delusional. Masks are not a magical force field.

Says the guy as they wheel him into the ICU - where everyone is wearing a mask...

But if I don’t care about that and I don’t have corona like 326+ million people don’t

You're tested after every mutually unmasked interaction? Wow!

I didn’t see protesters criticizing other protesters for not wearing a mask or not social distancing. 

Conflating BLM protests with what exactly? Are masks not within scope of the 'All Lives Matter' retort?

What Americans do in their country is their own business, but when stories like this are in the international media, I doubt there will be many people in other countries who read it and think "I wish we could be more like America".

I'm certainly pleased Japan is not like this.

Wearing face mask is not perfect but much better way to prevent infections for each other It really does matter persons do not have corona virus or not. More masks people are wearing, less virus are spreading among people. Look at Spain and Italy and others. Americans never learn about it. So selfish and arrogant about independent! American is now a super-pandemic country!

So you can run out in groups without masks and "social distancing" (whatever that means) burn down buildings, loot buildings, beat and execute innocent citizens, declare autonomous zones, pull down statues, and assault police officers and it is alright, it is just okiedokie.

BUT don't even think about going to shop for groceries, buy a tank of gasoline, go eat in a restaurant, go to a funeral or to church without one.

This is a political power grab and conditioning population to submit. If you can't see that then you are delusional. Masks are not a magical force field.

So I can choose to wear a mask if I care about your uneasiness that you fear I might have corona.

But if I don’t care about that and I don’t have corona like 326+ million people don’t, end result to you is the same.you didn’t get corona from me despite me not wearing a mask.

I didn’t see protesters criticizing other protesters for not wearing a mask or not social distancing. But when a protester want to go to Costco they are concerned? Order online

Unless you wear an N95 mask, which are still in short supply and necessary for people working in a medical setting, a surgical mask or bandana will not generally stop the virus from getting through the material and infecting you. A mask however WILL stop virus laden droplets coming out of the mouth or nose of the wearer, preventing their illness from spreading to others. Does that make sense? Wearing a mask greatly reduces the chance the person wearing the mask could spread germs around that could and probably wold infect others. THAT is the value of masks.

To quote the majority opinion in Jacobson v Massachusetts 197 U.S. 11 (1905) where the Supreme Court ruled the state of Massachusetts could require residents to be vaccinated for smallpox in the face of an ongoing epidemic there:

"But the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis, organized society could not exist with safety to its members. Society based on the rule that each one is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy. Real liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own, whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others. This court has more than once recognized it as a fundamental principle that persons and property are subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens, in order to secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State, of the perfect right of the legislature to do which no question ever was, or upon acknowledged general principles ever can be, made so far as natural persons are concerned."

There is no conflict: you either understand that masks work or you are a clear danger to society.

There is only conflict in the minds of those who do not understand this.

Because the expert told us masks don’t work for prevention of spreading this virus.

Mask protects other from you, but this isn’t necessary if you don’t have it. like 99 percent or more of the population does not.

Listen to the experts!

This thing is not a health issue, it's about control.

That's a perspective. But I don't understand how it could NOT be a health issue when in the US 135,000 have died from the virus and thousands more could too, when millions have been sickened and those number grow daily and the health costs linked to the virus are destroying the economy.

Curious that so many of the pandemic deniers tend to also be climate change deniers and pro-gun extremists. Zero regard for the society they live in.

Fauci very clearly and scientifically explained why masks don’t work.

he has yet to scientifically unexplain why the same type of masks do work so much so that they need to be mandatory

After Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, Georgia's capital and largest city, said she planned to defy Kemp's order and enforce a mandatory mask ordinance she issued on July 8, Kemp filed suit on Thursday to override her.

Kemp stole the GA Governorship...He obviously doesn't care about the health of his GA residents.

When a person shows you who they are....believe them.

He is a corrupt, cheat, a pathological Trumper. Another Deplorable

I saw a scene on TV a person who got very angry when he was asked to wear a mask at a supermarket or something in U.S. I thought he is truly an American who hates his individual freedom jeopardized. That may explain why they are not successful in controlling guns.

Yeah that sort of thing does happen.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/driver-hits-63-year-old-man-with-his-car-after-he-asked-him-to-wear-a-mask-in-a-store-police/

"This lawsuit is on behalf of the Atlanta business owners and their hardworking employees who are struggling to survive during these difficult times," Kemp said in a statement. "I refuse to sit back and watch as disastrous policies threaten the lives and livelihoods of our citizens."

Masks threaten the lives and livelihoods of our citizens?

This thing is not a health issue, it's about control.

I saw a scene on TV a person who got very angry when he was asked to wear a mask at a supermarket or something in U.S. I thought he is truly an American who hates his individual freedom jeopardized. That may explain why they are not successful in controlling guns.

This virus is oblivious to arrogance and conceit.

It's expected that 'politics' will be played by elected officials at all levels of government. It's unfortunate those with the greatest power have played their politics so poorly. It's unfortunate the nation has been leader-free throughout the pandemic.

It's expected there would be so many compassion-free individuals in a nation as large as the US where so many people have shown zero concern for the families of the 135,000 who've been killed by the virus, no concern for the millions made sick by it, the millions who've lost jobs because of it.

It's equally unfortunate but not surprising given how many me-centric Americans there are that so many citizens have been unwilling to accept personal responsibility and refuse to wear a mask and practice social distancing when so many medical and scientific experts have advised doing so.

This is made even worse when 'leaders' claim it's un-American to do so.

Trump will go down in history as the president who drove the US to its lowest point ever. And he and his admin still have time to make things even worse.

"I refuse to sit back and watch as disastrous policies threaten the lives and livelihoods of our citizens."

Governor Kemp, how exactly does mask wearing threaten livelihoods?