Beginning on Thursday, July 23^rd, at 6 p.m. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine ordered a statewide mask mandate. This would make most Ohioans wear a mask in public spaces, schools, inside of stores, workplaces, and outdoors when social distancing isn’t possible. This gave rise to the very well know quote, “No mask, no work, no service, no exception.”

However, even with the quote saying “no exception” there are still some exceptions. With the order going into effect that Thursday evening some exceptions included, under the age of 10, health reasons, hearing impairment, and while eating. To see the full list of Ohio’s exceptions, visit here.

However, on Tuesday April 28^th Mike DeWine responded to those who were offended by the mandate by saying, “my administration will not require any customer or worker to wear face coverings when businesses reopen in May.” However, as we know that didn’t hold up. DeWine has this to say,

“I heard from a lot of different people who felt that ‘I may wear a mask or I may not wear a mask, but the government should not be telling me what to do,’” DeWine said. “And so, we believe that in almost every case it is safer for everyone if both people wear a mask. But we also know that this was offensive and people looked at this and they said, ‘that’s one government mandate too far.”

In recent times however, we have seen multiple states lift their mask mandates statewide, from Texas and Mississippi to Florida and Georgia. But Ohio’s governor DeWine, came out Sunday 3/7 defending his state’s mask requirements. To see a full list of every state and their status with mask mandates check here.

Adding to this DeWine stated, “You know with the vaccine, we’re now on the offense, that’s the great thing. But in Ohio, we can’t give up the defense. We have found that these masks work exceedingly well.”

But then again that is in DeWine’s opinion because as many studies (like the AIM) have shown masks aren’t effective, due to Covid-19 being 0.125 microns in size. Masks like the N95 only protect up to 0.3 micron in size, so in theory and in reality, these masks don’t stop the virus from passing through. Not to mention that said masks trap particles inside and keep them inside. Keep in mind that an oxygen molecule is 0.0005 microns in size.

Although the size of a Covid-19 molecule is around 0.1 microns the particle is sometimes bonded to something larger, therefor making masks effective in part. However, this is true sometimes, anything below 0.3 microns will not be stopped. To see a list of particles and their sizes check here.

Vaccines have been introduced to many across the US and has many believing that this will allow for a mask mandate to be lifted but ask previously stated that holds no truth for Ohio. More than 1.7 million people in Ohio have received at least one shot of the vaccine, or in other words around 15% of Ohioans as of 3/7/21, according to the state Health Department. Additionally, over 930,000 have completed their vaccinations, or about 8% of the population. DeWine had this to say via twitter on March 4^th 2021,

“Our path back is by each of us getting vaccinated when we can, and by each of us wearing masks in public.  While no one will be forced to take the vaccine, the more of us who are vaccinated, the more complete our victory, and the more confidently we can put this behind us.”

So, in theory it sounds like Ohio’s will not have our mask mandate lifted until later into the year when more of the population is vaccinated.

With that knowledge it sounds like Ohio will not see the push or drive for lifting the mandates, that should’ve been pushed for months ago. All that can be translated from DeWine’s statements is hopefully later on into the year when more of Ohio is vaccinated could we see a lift to the year + mask mandate.

In my personal opinion rather than reading DeWine talk about Covid as a battle I rather see the numbers now, and see what they were before and now. Give me (us) facts about infections, health to wearing masks, effectuality of masks, and just simply give us hope that we will see an end to the mandate soon coming.

We have all been in this together for well over a year now, and all I can say is.

WE STILL DO NOT HAVE A CERTAIN END DATE FOR THE MASK MANDATE…