Thinking of getting together with a couple friends? Wear a mask or risk getting COVID-19, health officials say

It’s the type of gathering that would normally see so harmless: a few friends getting together to watch a football game….or to have dinner at someone’s house.

But it’s exactly the type of gathering health officials say, as much as any, right now, is causing COVID-19 to spread.

“It’s happening in small gatherings across our community time and time again,” said Charles Patterson, Clark County Health Commissioner.

Patterson said, amid a countywide and statewide spike in COVID-19 that has seen Clark County again turn red on the Ohio’s Public Health Advisory System, and with four deaths over the weekend, surpass the county’s record death total in August already in October, with 12 days left in the month.

These cases, health officials said, are increasingly coming out of small group gatherings.

“The majority of people are most likely to get it in their own homes or from their friends' home. (Those are) the places where we feel most comfortable and we’re most likely to take our mask off and we’re most likely not to social distance,” Patterson said.

He noted, Clark County has continued to see cases in nursing homes, and at larger events like weddings and schools, but believes significant spread caused by these small gatherings could be avoided if groups of friends meeting wore masks around one another if they do not live together.

To that end, Patterson said mask compliance continues to be an issue he believes is driving up case counts.

“They absolutely work,” Patterson said. “So anyone who tells you that masks don’t work has not looked at the science. There’s clear science that shows masking cuts down on the number of viral particles, the number of particles in general that come out of your mouth.”

Cox Media Group