President Donald Trump seems to be changing his stance on masks, but it remains to be seen if some Republicans in Pennsylvania will follow his lead.
Before former Vice President Joe Biden delivered his most recent speech in Pennsylvania, a message was aired over the speakers.
"Please keep your masks on the entire time, which is now mandated by the state of Pennsylvania and the governor."
The group of roughly 50 people complied and also practiced social distancing at McGregor Industries, a metal working plant near Scranton.
Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, was also wearing a mask at the Dunmore factory on July 9.
That same day, President Donald Trump sent his top surrogate, Vice President Mike Pence, to Pennsylvania.
When Air Force Two landed at the Lancaster Airport in Lititz, Pencewas wearing a mask. Hewas greeted by other Republican leaders, such as Congressman Lloyd Smucker, who were also wearing masks.
But most of the people in the crowd of Trump and Pence supporters were not wearing masks or standing at least 6 feet apart.
The president, who was in Washington, D.C., that day, had rarely worn a mask at that point.That changed two days later when he visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and wore a mask while visiting patients.
And it changed even more that Monday night when he posted a photo of himself wearing a mask.
"We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can't socially distance," Trump tweeted on Monday. "There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President!"
The president seems to be changing his stance on masks, but it remains to be seen if Republicans in Pennsylvania will follow his lead.
Some top-ranking Republicans in the state have been wearing masks for months, even if they haven't agreed with safety mandates from Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat from York County. That includes U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican from the Lehigh Valley who has been advocating for masks since March, and the new Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler, a Republican from Lancaster County.
But former Speaker Mike Turzai, a Republican from Allegheny County, and dozens of other Republicans in the Legislature have been fighting the mask mandate.
How the Pennsylvania mask fight started
Rep. Russ Diamond, a Republican from Lebanon County, takes credit for starting the mask debate in Pennsylvania.
"I kind of pioneered not wearing a mask," he said.
Diamond said he was the first state Republican lawmaker to publicly show that's he's not wearing a mask.
He has a few problems with wearing masks: They create suspicion that everyone has COVID-19;he thinks they're ineffective;and he thinks they're unfair to people with certain medical conditions.
"We're creating a society where we're all isolated from one another, and we assume everyone is dangerous and carrying a disease," Diamond said. "We're turning it into: Everyone is guilty until they're proven innocent."
Also, despite what numerous scientists and doctors say, he doesn't believemasks work.
He said science seemed to agree with him when the virus was first spreading across the U.S. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised against masks.
That changed three months ago when the CDC recommended masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
But Diamond hasn't changed his mind.
"Reusable masks are problematic," he said. "They can get damp and collect bacteria if they're not properly cleaned. If you want to properly wear a mask, get a disposable mask. Too many people fiddle with them and end up touching their face more."
He said another reason he doesn't wear a mask is because he's supporting his fiancee, who has a medical condition that prevents her from wearing a mask. He said wearing a mask triggers her seizures; she recently had a severe seizure while wearing a mask to pick up her medical cannabis.
Wolf's mandate includes medical provisions, but most merchants don't allow customers inside their businesses without a mask, Diamond said.
"If we're going to exclude unmasked people with medical conditions from businesses, then let's knock out wheelchair ramps, too," he said.
Diamond believes the solution better than a mask mandate from the governor is forsymptomatic people to quarantine, and asymptomatic people "don't really need to."
Pennsylvania's recent wave of positive COVID-19 cases can be traced to more than just asymptomatic carriers of the disease, according to state health officials.
Diamond, who said he "hates close talkers" and always maintains "5 feet of personal space to begin with," does support social distancing, vigorous hand washing and sanitizing, and washing and changing clothes when coming home from public spaces.
But he does not support masks, and he disagrees with state education guidelines that will require masks in school this fall.
"Teachers have enough to do. Now, they have to be the mask police, too?" Diamond said.
Diamond thinks a happy medium is: "If you want to wear a mask, fine. I won't say anything bad about you. I choose not to wear one. Please don't say anything bad about me. I'm not going to force myself into your personal space."
How the mask fight continued
Republicans launched a political battle with Wolf over business shutdowns, saying it was a threat to livelihoods and personal freedoms.
Now, they're saying similar things about masks.
For some Republicans, the mask fight isn't about medicine. It's about mandates.
State Rep. Ryan Warner, a Republican from Fayette County, talked about liberty and freedom in a July 1 video on his Facebook page.
He said he agrees with wearing masks in many situations, but he doesn't think Secretary of Health Rachel Levine, M.D.,has a right to tell people to wear masks because she's not an elected official. Levine was appointed by Wolf.
"The decisions from the governor are unilateral, authoritarian decisions. It is not how we do things," Warner said.
Like Warner, Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, a Republican from Centre County, said he doesn't dispute wearing a mask.
"What we're disputing is by using his emergency powers, this governor is dictating it to people," Corman said to the Associated Press. "We live in a free society. People can make decisions for themselves."
The state House and Senate recently voted to strip the governor's emergencypowers and give Pennsylvanians more of a say in how they want to be governed in times of crisis, including if they want to wear masks.
The Legislature previously tried to end the governor'semergency declaration without his consent, but a state Supreme Court ruling ended that effort.
Recently, the Legislature voted to change the state constitution and end the emergency declaration, and Wolf vetoed that plan.
"We believe the power of our commonwealth truly rests with the people," Cutler, House speaker, said. "Pennsylvania is not a dictatorship, and the voters should ultimately decide."
He said the legislative branch has tried to work with the governor and asked to join a bipartisan task force to manage the crisis.
"The governor turned us down, deciding instead to go it alone for months on end," Cutler said.
The case for masks
Pennsylvania Democrats, Republicans and health officials who advocate for masks point out they are not new in the commonwealth.
They have been used here for more than a centuryin surgeries, dentistry and other medicalsettings, industrial operations, veterinary care and more.
These uses have been met without protest, and masks have been trusted to do what they were designed to do provide a reliable barrier against contamination.
In the simplest terms, they are designed to keep people from getting sick.
Mask supporters say they are a needed tool in the currentpublic health crisis just like they were used to curtail deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic and shouldn't be used as political weapons.
"When we should be fighting this virus, we are fighting about masks," said Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who said he wears a mask every time he goes into public spaces.
He pointed out that it's not just Democratic governors who want state residents to wear masks.
"The governors of Alabama and Texas, and governors in very red states, are pleading for masks," Fetterman said. "They realize it's not a political statement. It's a tool until we get a vaccine."
When Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued a mask mandate last week, she said she knew the order would be hard to enforce.
"I always prefer personal responsibility over a government mandate, and yet I also know with all my heart that the numbers and the data over past few weeks are definitely trending in the wrong direction," she said.
At the time, Alabama had more than 58,000 positive cases and hospital intensive care units were overwhelmed.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last week defended his mask mandate in a video message.
"Now, I know that many of all you are frustrated. Soam I," he said. "I know that many of you do not like the mask requirement. I dont either. It is the last thing that I wanted to do. Actually the next to the last. The last thing that any of us want is to lock Texas back down again.Each day the facts get worse. If we don't slow this disease quickly, our hospitals will get overrun, and I fear it will even inflict some of the people that I'm talking to right now."
Republican governors in Arkansas, Maryland, North Carolina and Ohio offered similar messages.
And former Republican governors in Pennsylvania say they support Wolf's mandate.
"All Pennsylvanians should heed the Wolf Administrations directives to wear a mask when out of the home," former Gov. Tom Ridge, an Erie native, said in a statement. "Like all Pennsylvanians, Gov. Wolf and Secretary Levine are hoping to avoid the COVID-19 spikes impacting other states so that we can get our economy back up and running as soon as possible. Wearing a mask is a simple, selfless act all of us should support."
His successor echoed that.
"Wearing your mask amounts to saying lets beat the virus now, not later when it might be too late,"former Gov. Mark Schweiker said in a statement.
About 100,000 Pennsylvanians have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 7,000 have died. More than 4,800, or 68%,of those deaths have been in nursing homes.
While many Pennsylvanians have been able to go outside and experience some kind of summer, even if it's a masked one, tens of thousands of nursing home patients are still living in isolation because of the continued spread of infection.
Levinesaid the coronavirus typically enters nursing homes through workers who are asymptomatic carriers of the disease. It's imperative that those workers and the people they come into contact with in public are wearing masks, she said.
As the health secretaryalways says, "Your mask protects me, and my mask protects you."
The nation's top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, M.D., and the CDC say masks protect everyone.
That includes the growing number of Pennsylvanians in their 20s who are getting and spreading the disease.
Pollster and political analyst Terry Madonna, who usually refrains from taking a side in political issues, is taking a side in the mask debate.
"I am very, very supportive of wearing a mask in public," Madonna said. "I understand the cons in the issue. I understand the argument. But this is temporary, and it involves life and death. Wearing masks in public seems reasonable to me."
Candy Woodall is a reporter for the USA Today Network. She can be reached at 717-480-1783 or on Twitter at @candynotcandace.
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