I am a pediatrician with 21 years of experience. On Monday, 5/18/20, at Publix on Experiment Station Road, I counted 31 people not wearing masks exiting one of the two doors in a 15 minute period. On the COVID-19 & Resources tab at cityofwatkinsville.com, it is written Governor Kemp "announced the reopening of the businesses listed below. According to the governor, these listed businesses are not opening for business as usual but with minimum basic operations, adhering to social distancing and sanitation guidance. " Where is the guideline that all people in public should wear face masks? The CDC has been recommending this protective measure for weeks (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html) I believe if our community had better messaging from the government, they would be more willing to wear masks. We could even give out free masks to encourage use. The R0 of COVID-19 is 3. That means for every person that has COVID-19, they infect approximately 3 people. In one case, a choir person infected 70 people at church. At least 25% of people with COVID-19 do not have any symptoms and therefore may not realize they are capable of spreading this dangerous infection. The death rate in GA is 4%. We have no definitive treatment. We are not even testing 5% of the GA population. Oconee County government needs to do a better job of teaching our community how best to protect one another and ourselves.
Nicole Broerman, MD, FAAP Watkinsville, GA 30677