Long Islanders wearing masks include vulnerable, those who've lost loved ones to COVID
Among the few Long Islanders wearing masks in public settings was Cristina José, 60, outside a Brentwood shopping center. Credit: John Roca
Sandra Sánchez of Brentwood was wearing a blue surgical mask on a recent afternoon as she sold plastic containers of cut fruit near a stoplight at the end of a Long Island Expressway exit.
Her mother died of COVID-19 in 2021, and Sánchez, 50, doesn’t want to take chances.
“I have a lot of fear of COVID, a lot of respect for COVID,” she said in Spanish.
Sánchez is one of a dwindling number of Long Islanders who still regularly wear face masks to protect against COVID-19, even as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations on Long Island have more than doubled in recent weeks.
WHAT TO KNOW
- Few Long Islanders wear masks against COVID-19, even as case and hospitalization numbers rise.
- Experts say the lack of mask-wearing is in part a desire to fit in and follow what has become the social norm.
- Research shows that masks significantly reduce the chance someone with COVID-19 will spread the virus, but studies have reached mixed conclusions on their ability to protect against exposure.
On Long Island Rail Road trains and in supermarkets, movie theaters and other places where Long Islanders shop and gather, masks that were nearly ubiquitous early in the pandemic are now rare, outside of health care settings. Even many hospitals and doctors' offices no longer require them.
During the height of the pandemic, laws and regulations requiring mask-wearing became political and social flashpoints, with some opponents of mask mandates asserting the requirements were a violation of personal freedom and others saying they were necessary to protect others.
Today, in communities across Long Island, no matter their political leanings, you might have to wait awhile before you spot someone with a mask.
That’s a reversal from early in the pandemic, when people without masks stood out, said Perry Halkitis, a public health psychologist and dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health in New Jersey.
As more people over time stopped wearing masks, that made others more likely to leave their masks at home as well, he said.
“We want to be like the norm,” Halkitis said. “Everyone wants to be like everyone else.”
People follow how family and friends behave, and what they see celebrities and politicians do, he said.
"Nobody wants to feel like the odd person out,” he said.
People at higher risk for severe COVID-19, and those who socialize with them, are most likely to still wear masks, he said.
Halkitis said he has increased his mask-wearing as COVID-19 rates have risen in recent weeks. Scientific studies show masks reduce the amount of COVID-19 virus that enters the mouth and nose, and that high-quality masks such as N95s and K95s block the most particles. But researchers have not reached a consensus on how effective masks are in reducing COVID-19 transmission rates in communities, especially in an era when few people wear them, which increases the risk of transmission for those who do.
Still, Halkitis especially recommends people wear masks in tight, confined spaces such as commuter and subway trains.
"It's not just about COVID that's floating in that air," he said. "It’s going to protect you from the flu or whatever else is circulating around.”
Fraction wearing masks
Yet during a recent afternoon rush-hour at the Hicksville LIRR station, only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of people who exited and boarded trains wore masks.
In more than a dozen interviews there and in Brentwood, at a grocery store and expressway exit, some mask-wearers said they only don masks in crowded places like LIRR cars, while others said they do so in any indoor public space. Some were worried about COVID-19, either because they're at high risk for severe COVID or just don't want to get sick.
No one interviewed said they received rude comments or nasty stares.
Elias Gonel, 61, of Uniondale, said he never stopped wearing a mask.
“I wear the mask for myself, my patient and my family,” Gonel said as he waited for a bus to return home from his job as a home health aide for a 70-year-old man in Hicksville. His patient thanks him for wearing a mask, he said.
Elias Gonel said he wears a mask to protect himself, his family and the man he takes care of as a home health aide. Credit: Newsday/David Olson
Gonel is more nervous now that most people no longer wear masks. But he doesn’t look down on people who don’t use masks.
“It’s up to you,” he said. “If you want to wear the mask, all right. If you don’t want to, it’s not a problem.”
Mercedes Hernández, 42, of Syosset, who was wearing a surgical mask as she waited for her husband at the Hicksville LIRR station after finishing her job cleaning houses, said she wears a mask because "I feel more vulnerable."
Hernández believes she is at greater risk for severe COVID-19 because of smaller openings in her nasal passages that are a result of severe burns from a muriatic acid attack more than two decades ago. She likes how the mask protects her against colds and the flu as well as COVID-19.
“There are people who have colds and sometimes cough and aren’t careful,” Hernández said in Spanish.
Gladis Mendoza, 58, of Brentwood has diabetes, which research shows increases her risk.
“I have her always wearing masks,” said her son, Arnold Cruz, 29, of Brentwood, as they left a Gala Foods supermarket in Brentwood. “I don’t want my mom catching anything.”
Gladis Mendoza, 58, with her son, Arnold Cruz, 29. Credit: John Roca
Masks a habit for some
Research shows masks are more effective at preventing someone with COVID-19 from spreading the virus than others from inhaling virus particles.
That means an LIRR rider today who is the only person in a train car wearing a mask is at significantly higher risk than when most or all riders in each train compartment were wearing masks.
Ema Han, 34, said she wears a mask on the LIRR, but she doesn’t think much about COVID-19.
“I think it’s just a forced habit,” Han said of mask-wearing as she stood on a platform at the Hicksville LIRR station waiting for a train to return to her home in Woodside, Queens, from her interior design job in Hicksville. “I’ve done it for so long."
David Olson covers health care. He has worked at Newsday since 2015 and previously covered immigration, multicultural issues and religion at The Press-Enterprise in Southern California.
