Wearing a Mask to Protect your Neighbors

Although the latest COVID-19 data are heartbreaking, there are signs of hope. It is encouraging that most Americans are finally following the guidance that the best ways to stop COVID-19 are to consistently:

• Cover your face with a mask
• Give others space
• Wash your hands

My colleague, Barb Pelletreau, CommonSpirit Health’s senior vice president of patient safety, puts it well: “It takes a community to commit to wearing masks to prevent the spread. Preventing coronavirus is a team sport.”

In fact, scientists have recently indicated that masks can also help reduce the severity of the disease caused by the coronavirus even if you get infected.

Across CommonSpirit’s 137 hospitals spanning 21 states from coast to coast, our women and men have been active in spreading the word about the importance of face coverings so we can help stop the spread of COVID-19 in our communities.

For example, I joined California Gov. Gavin Newsom to give out 200,000 masks to people in the San Francisco and Sacramento areas of Northern California along with our partners the San Francisco Giants and San Francisco 49ers. Sports teams are great allies when it comes to getting a message to our communities. 

Our care sites across the country – from California to Georgia – are encouraging masking by giving away masks and by creating community-specific PSAs. In partnership with the United Way of San Joaquin County, California, and their local public health department, we launched the “Mask On Campaign” that features people of that community urging their neighbors to wear a mask. In Arizona, our clinicians have joined with other local health care providers to promote masking in the state’s communities – just “like a hero”.

What Americans need to remember that a mask can serve as a signal to neighbors that you care about them, just as you want them to care about you.

You can read more about what we can do to slow the spread of COVID-19 in this article.