– Riverfront Times, July 27, 2021 –
Charles Wagstaff likes to water the plants lining the patio of Pizza Head on South Grand. It’s not his patio or his restaurant — he just does it.
Armed with translucent gloves and a face mask, the 88-year-old tends to the well-kept patio that lies under the second-floor apartment he has called home for 30 years. And he wears those gloves when he goes on the bus, too.
“I wear the gloves because everybody touches the overhead rail and the poles, just trying to take care of me and everybody I come in contact with,” Wagstaff says.
It’s an ethos that officials urged people to adopt as St. Louis and St. Louis County returned to mask mandates on Monday in hopes of curbing a new surge of COVID-19 cases. As of Monday, those aged five and older, with some exceptions, are required to wear masks indoors and on public transportation in the city and county.
“We came together once to protect each other, and I’m confident we can do so again,” St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones said Monday at a news conference.
But not everyone sees mask-wearing in the same way as Wagstaff. Political opponents of Jones and St. Louis County Executive Sam Page immediately announced plans to fight new mandates. Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed a suit against the city and county, claiming that the public health orders were “unacceptable and unconstitutional.”
It was another sign of the divide that persists across the region and state, even as outbreaks of the delta variant have turned Missouri into one of the country’s COVID hotspots.
In Creve Coeur, Conway Road at North Ballas is usually calm on Sunday nights. The intersection borders Mercy Hospital St. Louis, and aside from night-shift traffic, you might see a few pedestrians from the wealthy St. Louis suburb.
But this past Sunday night, the intersection was blaring. Keep Reading / Image by Me
Victor Stefanescu 