Florida, United States.
Today, when United States is about to overcome the sinister fit of half a million killed by covid-19, it seems inconceivable for a company to ban its own workers wear masks.
However, this happened less than a year ago in one of the major chains of Florida supermarkets, When the coronavirus it spread throughout the world and terror began to to settle.
At this time Gerald Gutiérrez, of 70 years, Worked in a Publix supermarket branch in Miami Beach.
He died in late April later beware of coronavirus in March, that horrible month in which the pandemic, In what Italya was entering a national confinement which caused stupor to West i in which the dead in United Statess still is they numbered in the hundreds.
“We were all in Virginor, “recalls his daughter Ariane, suing her in a civil lawsuit against Publix for culpable homicide.
There he alleges that a colleague who worked very close to Gutierrez coughed and had others virus symptoms, But Publix he then forbade his employees wear masks, because “they didn’t want to scare customers “.
“The result was that mand father died “, Says the daughter to AFP at home a Miami Beach. “I had gone there to work every day without ANYONEn type of mask or gloves“And they didn’t allow him to use them.”
March 23, Miami Beach it was the first city of Floridaa in ordering confinement and close their beaches.
But Publix waited until the first week of April for allow your employees use masks voluntarily, according to demand.
The policy change came late for Gutierrez, who already he was very ill. was hospitalized on April 10, and on the 28th, his friends and family were firing him for Zoom. He died that day.
“She loved it swim. He was very active, very vital. could have lived many more years “, Says Ariane, showing photographs of the father, who was Cuban.
Two weeks ago, a judge rejected a request from the jail supermarkets to treat the complaint as a labor compensation claim and not as one demand. The company did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.
“We keep paying”
In early March, Miami Beach he was still in the middle of his more season tourist. It is the time when students from all over the country they take spring break and celebrate their youth at Florida beaches as if there were no tomorrow.
Much was said then about the inopportune atmosphere of party of this island in front of Miami, when much of the country first adopted rules of social distancing – a term hitherto unknown.
“The people lingered in paying attention, ”he recalls Ariane Gutiérrez. “And we haven’t overcome that yet.”
This month the businesses closed, the shelves were emptied and the shortage of masks is return dangerous. Therefore, the health authorities at first they did not recommend its use to the general public, to ensure that the medical staff had sufficient stocks.
“This message at the beginning of the pandemic it was a great one strategic error of public healthPurnima Madhivanan, an epidemiologist at the University of Arizona, told AFP.
Also, in a way disconcerting per health workers and scientists, the mouthpiece became a political statement because Donald Trump, Who was president, refused for months to take him. Sometimes he even teased those who did.
“These mixed messages confuse people,” l saysthe epidemiologist. “And we continue to pay for it masks are key. “
Living with covid
One of the lessons of these episodes, according to the expert, is that, “as much as we want to say that the science prevails“Science is as good as the messengers who communicate it.”
A January study of the University of Southern California found that a large majority (between 80 and 90%) of Americans believe that use masks is an effective way to protect yourself against the covid-19, But only half of them use them consistently.
This shows that “the knowledge does not necessarily become behavior “, lamented madhivanan.
It was initially believed that the weather warm he killed virus, that the shopping bags, That race was a factor –It turns out that the inequality it was the factor– and many, like Gutierrez, suffered the damage of misinformation.
Some things have changed (who keeps disinfecting tomato cans?), But others, like using the mouthpiece, should be just as “Standard” a The West as they are in Asian countries, warns the epidemiologist.
“We have to live with it covid “, dice. “There will never be a time when we can say the covid is gone. We just have to learn to manage it, like the flu.”