Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, has a two-word recommendation for our continuing battle against the spread of the coronavirus pandemic: “Cover up.”
Toomey spoke with the Washington Examiner from his basement in Zionsville, Pennsylvania, where he has quarantined himself from his family. “The final week of negotiations were extremely intense, and at times, there were a dozen or more people in a small conference room, sitting around a table in a room with no windows,” he explained. “After several days of that, it occurred to me that, probably for the sake of Kris and the kids, I probably ought to just keep to myself for the two-week period. I have no symptoms or anything. I feel fine, 100%, but just to be safe, I’m sticking with basement life.”
Toomey is now urging people to wear face masks when out in public, a message that has reached both the highest office in the land and across the aisle. Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, has joined Toomey in this effort. “I had a good conversation with the president [Tuesday] afternoon, where I called him to advocate for this,” Toomey said. “He was sympathetic. He did not make a commitment, but he was aware that his team was discussing this very matter.”
Trump told reporters after his call with Toomey that finding ways to cover up our faces was not a bad idea.
Toomey was quick to stress they are not advocating for the general public to use regulation medical masks, supplies desperately needed for doctors, nurses, and front-line responders. “Those are too precious and need to be reserved for the healthcare providers who are dealing directly with people who are known to have the virus,” Toomey said. “But we could do a lot of good at slowing down the rate of transmission if we just put a scarf, or a bandanna, or a homemade mask, some kind of device that would slow down the rate of transmission.”
In an interview Wednesday afternoon, Toomey outlined why he was advocating that the Trump administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and fellow members of Congress also recommend covering up in public as a complement to social distancing in the fight against the coronavirus.
Washington Examiner: What led you to advocating for people to use masks more universally?
Sen. Pat Toomey: I think this is a no-brainer. We all take it for granted, and I think we all routinely observe the commonsense etiquette of sneezing into your elbow or covering your mouth when you cough. And we do that for the obvious reason that the little droplets that leave your mouth and nose when you sneeze and cough could infect somebody.
We know that people can be infected with the coronavirus, can have no symptoms whatsoever, but can themselves nevertheless be highly infectious, highly able to transmit the disease. So the fact is, you emit small droplets when you just talk and breathe.
So the obvious logical extension of what we’ve been doing with social distancing and covering coughs is to put something over our face when we’re out in public. And it’s not really primarily for the benefit of the person wearing it, but it’s for the benefit of everyone else. And I am not recommending that we have universal use of N95 masks. Those are too precious and need to be reserved for the healthcare providers who are dealing directly with people who are known to have the virus. But we could do a lot of good at slowing down the rate of transmission if we just put a scarf, or a bandanna, or a homemade mask, some kind of device that would slow down the rate of transmission.
I’ve been pushing hard on this. I had a good conversation with the president [Tuesday] afternoon, where I called him to advocate for this. He was sympathetic. He did not make a commitment, but he was aware that his team was discussing this very matter. I spoke with the head of infectious diseases at the CDC, and he acknowledged all the points that I made. So I think we’re getting some traction on this idea because it’s so intuitive and so much common sense.
Oh, and by the way, it’s been demonstrated to be successful in other countries where wearing masks are either commonplace or recently mandated. The transmission rate has been much better than what we’ve experienced. So I think it’s about time we adopted this as a social norm.
Washington Examiner: And so, how would this work?
Sen. Pat Toomey: We could simply, for starters, have the CDC provide guidance where they would recommend that everyone, including asymptomatic people, when you have to be out in public, they could recommend that you wear some kind of face covering.
They could provide instructions on how to make one, what material would be [useful] … and just cotton is all it takes. Like I said, a bandanna is better than nothing.
But there’s lots of how-to videos where if you have a sewing machine and an iron, you can make one that looks like it’s professionally made. That’s not necessary, but that would be fine too. I think the guidance from the CDC, a recommendation from the White House, and then let’s just create the expectation that this is what people are going to do.
You know, curbing cigarette smoking in office buildings was really driven by a new social norm. We could do this, I think much more quickly, and it would be very constructive.
Some governors might choose to mandate it. I would not suggest that on a national level, certainly. I would leave that up to the individual governors. But I would want to strongly encourage the adoption of this behavior.
Washington Examiner: Any bipartisan support?
Sen. Pat Toomey: Michael Bennet of Colorado joined me in a conference call. He came out and publicly endorsed this effort, and he and I did a joint press call just a couple of hours ago.
First, I want to make sure people understand that this is not meant to be a run on N95 masks. That’s the last thing we should do. Secondly, I would stress this is not meant as a substitute for social distancing and hand washing. It is meant as a complement to those things. And again, I would just stress that the real goal here is to protect one another. My mask will protect you, your mask will protect me, and together, we can reduce the threat of this virus.
