Ricketts defends his stance that mask mandates are counterproductive, would encourage resistance
Source: Omaha World Herald
By Paul Hammel
LINCOLN — Under a flurry of questions from reporters, Gov. Pete Ricketts on Wednesday defended his position that mandates to wear masks to fend off COVID-19 — like one being considered in Omaha and one in place in Lincoln — are counterproductive.
"Mandates would actually encourage resistance and we'd get less people using masks," Ricketts said.
The conservative Republican governor, during a press conference on a different subject on Wednesday, faced a bevy of questions about his threat to file a lawsuit if the Douglas County Health Director, Adi Pour, carried out a plan to mandate mask wearing in the county.
On Tuesday, The World-Herald reported that Omaha was the largest city in the nation to not have a mask mandate; it's also the only one among the nation's top 100 cities without a mandate. That was the latest development in the flap over mandating the use of face masks, which is supported by pandemic experts at the University of Nebraska Medical Center as an effective way to stop the spread of the virus.
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