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OPINION: Wear a mask while going through drive-thrus

It's a small thing, but it's important
wearing-mask-in-car
Wearing a mask in the car

One of the best tweets I saw this week read, simply, "WEAR A MASK GOING THROUGH A DRIVE THRU!!!!!!"

Posted on an account (@ashtinmcfadden) that has only 1,300 followers, it went viral with 278,000 Likes, and more than 49,000 Retweets.

It's a basic message that it seems we all need to hear right now.

We wear masks inside the grocery store, to protect the workers and the other shoppers there.

In fact, we wear masks into every establishment we enter, for the same reason.

Signs on the door tell us that we're not allowed to enter if we're not abiding by the Public Health Order that's meant to slow the transmission of COVID-19.

However, I have yet to see a sign in any drive-thru I've been through over the past 11 months—and I have been through MANY—that requests that we wear a mask for the safety of the workers who are taking our money and handing us our food in that setting.

Starbucks doesn't seem to have them. McDonald's, Wendy's and A&W too, and even those that do would find it hard to enforce.

As a result you'll notice that not everybody in their cars is wearing them as they get their food, or coffee, or whatever they ordered.

Sure we're in our cars that are technically outside, but we come closer than 6 feet to these front-line workers, so we should be wearing masks.

Not only is it a sign of respect to the people working these jobs, but it just might help slow the spread of COVID-19.

Let's all wear a mask for a minute as we're driving through. It's a tiny gesture that will show front-line workers that we appreciate them.