For thee but not me: As long as public meetings stay virtual, city officials can’t see the burden of the mask mandate | Opinion

The city Department of Public Health has reinstated a mask mandate in Philadelphia. The rules require that anyone in an indoor public setting wear a mask, unless the facility verifies that everyone entering has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. If the business doesn’t check patrons’ vaccination status, then everyone in the space must be masked, even those who are vaccinated.

In the past, mask mandates required businesses to check vaccinations or enforce mask mandates on all their patrons. In offices around the city, employers have been presented with difficult decisions. If we allow unvaccinated people to attend, how can we effectively conduct an interactive event if everyone is masked? Do we simply exclude unvaccinated people from certain meetings or company events? When we discover that unvaccinated employees disproportionately come from traditionally disadvantaged populations, that makes it harder to argue that they should be restricted from any activities.

For businesses, mask mandates are a burden. Period.

The only people who haven’t faced these challenges are the people who actually govern Philadelphia. City Council hasn’t held a meeting in person for over two years. The same can be said for the Board of Health and other mayoral commissions.

“The only people who haven’t faced these challenges are the people who actually govern Philadelphia.”

Twenty-five months after the shutdown, our city government continues to conduct virtual-only meetings under the rationale of a COVID emergency. So how can they possibly understand the impact of mask mandates on shops, restaurants, and other businesses that don’t have the luxury of remote work?

And is there really a COVID emergency? Mayor Jim Kenney said only days ago that “[o]ur city remains open; we can still go about our daily lives and visit the people and places we love while masking in indoor public spaces.”

In the spirit of the mayor’s message, our public officials should immediately resume in-person meetings on a regular basis. They should have to confront the same choices as everyone else.

City Council, for example, could easily station a staffer at the entrance to chambers on the fourth floor of City Hall every Thursday, dutifully checking identification and vaccination cards of those lined up to view and participate in Council sessions — just like every restaurant and business in the city has been required to do for months.

If there’s a concern that a vaccination requirement may exclude people from participating, there’s a simple solution under the rules: Everyone in the room can wear a mask for the duration of the meeting. This would, of course, include fully vaccinated people and the public officials themselves — even when they’re talking, because there’s no exception for that.

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All of this may sound cumbersome and inconvenient amid the controlled chaos of a public meeting, but it’s certainly not new for anyone who operates a business in Philadelphia.

Perhaps this experience might compel our elected and appointed leaders to conclude that having a different health standard than anywhere else in America isn’t such a great idea. Or they might conclude that the restrictions really aren’t too cumbersome and we’ll continue to wear masks.

Either way, we’d at least know that the people in charge respect us enough to stand side by side with thousands of Philadelphians in sharing the real burden of the mandates they’ve imposed.

Anthony V. Mannino is a Philadelphia resident and general counsel to a Philadelphia-based real estate start-up.