Hilton Head’s mayor turns zookeeper while medical world pleads for masking | Opinion

Hilton Head Island has the weakest mayor in the state.

Strangers can see that the island is a “zoo,” as a visiting PGA Tour player accurately described it last week.

Mayor John McCann has always said “residents first.” He campaigned on that.

But residents have been pleading in vain for four months for the Town of Hilton Head Island to treat the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic as a public health issue rather than a business or personal rights issue.

The result is the “zoo,” with a crowded, unmasked island giving all appearances that there is no pandemic, even as numbers of infections and deaths rise dramatically here and statewide.

That is how we will be remembered. When the chips were down, we were a zoo.

The optics are that Hilton Head cares primarily for the visitor’s dollar, and that the chamber of commerce is in charge.

McCann joined a loud chorus of residents in questioning a popular restaurant group’s policy of not requiring workers to wear masks. So he believes in the masks, yet he doesn’t follow his convictions with actual policy.

Beaufort Mayor Billy Keyserling sent out an email message on Thursday was jarring. He shared with the public a letter from Russell Baxley, president and CEO of Beaufort Memorial Hospital.

First, Baxley drew attention to just how real the pandemic is, saying his organization “is weary and fatigued, and thought in late May and into early June we saw a light at the end of the tunnel. This light seems to get farther and farther away every day.”

And here’s why:

“This surge in positive cases is due directly to the lack of masking in public,” Baxley wrote.

Why Hilton Head has been so slow to accept this reality is mind-boggling.

As Greenville, Charleston, Columbia and Spartanburg invoke policies, our Beaufort County mayors are all behind. The state attorney general’s office endorses the legality of that.

Hilton Head Town Council plans to address on Monday a simple measure that national and local health leaders — not to mention residents — have been pleading for for weeks.

The drafted ordinance puts the onus for safety on employees, not patrons/tourists/residents. Masks are required at grocery stores and pharmacies. But not in public places where there are likely to be crowds. That seems weak.

The mask is not a silver bullet that will clear out all infections. It won’t. But listen to Beaufort’s hospital director, with our emphasis added:

“I don’t believe it is reasonable to expect Beaufort or South Carolina to shut down again, but the only way to avoid another shut down is universal masking in public.

“The only way to avoid overwhelming the hospital in a second wave is universal masking.

“The only way to stop this current surge is universal masking.

“The only way to save lives is universal masking.

“If we are waiting on the hospital to fill up before we sound the alarms, then it is already too late, so the hospital is sounding them now.

“Our objective should be to keep people out of the hospital, not wait until the hospital is full, but at this rate, it will not be long until that time comes as admissions and deaths are a lagging indicator and what we should be watching is the continued increase in positive tests.”

What’s Hilton Head’s mayor watching? Hotel occupancy rates?