The science evolved, as it always does, and on 3 April, in a packed WH briefing room, flanked by the #coronavirus task force, @realDonaldTrump announced that masks were officially recommended, stating that he would not be wearing one. Thus began the politicization of masks. 3/18
At his “campaign kickoff” in Tulsa, his #Phoenixrally inside a church, and other recent events, Trump and his followers seem committed to defying science. And they’re doing this as #COVID19 cases are spiking in many states that reopened prematurely, without a plan or both. 4/18
As a physician and as an American, I’m concerned. Science is the process of arriving at verifiable, quantifiable facts through hypotheses, testing and refutation. When partisanship drowns out science, the results can be deadly. 5/18
A month ago, America began re-emerging from lockdowns. Workers went back to their jobs, stores reopened, and many people ditched their masks, acting as if the #pandemic that has killed nearly 125,000 Americans since February never happened. 6/18
People started getting sick again. Arizona is running out of ICU beds and deaths are rising. Infections in half of the states are rising. Amid rising fatalities, the act of wearing a mask has become a proxy for loyalty to President Trump. 7/18
His most ardent supporters refuse to wear masks. Those who oppose him or support Democratic presidential candidate @JoeBiden are more likely to wear masks. On the whole, an overwhelming majority of Americans want Trump to model good behavior and wear a mask in public. 8/18
In spring, people protesting state governors’ stay-at-home orders showed up with weapons, but no masks. In summer, most of the Americans who rallied against police violence and racial inequities wore masks and even handed them out. 9/18
As a doctor who finished medical school 22 years ago, I’ve learned many treatments that exist today but were not used in the 1990s. We’re always learning new things because the science behind medicine is always evolving as we make new discoveries and disprove dogma. 10/18
So why the partisan divide around masks? Do @realDonaldTrump supporters care less about their loved ones and neighbors? Or is there a deeper reason why some people reject science-based opinions? 11/18
The rejection of science is not new. In 1633, Galileo Galilei was sentenced to house arrest for being “vehemently suspect of heresy” for publishing views that the earth was not the center of the universe. 12/18
In 1980, Ronald Reagan’s energy secretary said #GlobalWarming was not a problem, despite a century of data that culminated in the Carney Report in 1979 linking fossil fuel use to global warming and accurately predicting Earth’s progressive warming in the past 40 years. 13/18
The fossil fuel industry began funding fringe scientists to sow doubt in the public mind, by questioning whether the science behind #ClimateChange was real. Corporate money and right-wing organizations continue to fund Republican candidates who deny the #ClimateCrisis. 14/18
When one political party so thoroughly dismisses science, a part of the American electorate will reject facts and mistrust experts. Research shows that the widespread use of masks will reduce deaths and decrease the need for lockdowns to mitigate #COVID19 transmissions. 15/18
Yet Trump and his allies continue to question the efficacy of face masks, with his more extreme supporters, and commentators on @FoxNews suggesting that masks take away personal freedoms because they’re a form of government control. 16/18
Some Americans take their cue from Trump. His mask aversion is their mask aversion. By stubbornly refusing to wear a mask, Trump is not-so-subtly telling his supporters that his own #publichealth experts are wrong, the data is irrelevant and the science #FakeNews. 17/18
Today’s anti-mask, anti-science denialism is different from the church’s persecution of Galileo 400 years ago. The church’s repudiation of evidence resulted in Galileo’s house arrest for the rest of his life. Refusing to wear a mask amid today's pandemic will kill people. 18/18
