The Virus and FedEx
To the editor:
In recent weeks, as the temperatures have spiked and the streets have filled to whatever extent they have this year, I have noticed one clear and unsettling exception to the near universal mask-wearing on Commercial Street.
On three separate occasions in the past few weeks, different FedEx delivery men have attempted to enter my store with packages while unmasked. In each case, they did not even have a mask around their neck — just no mask. In each case, I stopped them from entering and had them drop the boxes off on my front porch. In each case I asked if they would like a free mask, donated by a Provincetown local, which I hand out to anyone who needs one. In each case, once with significant hostility, that offer was declined.
Yesterday, I posted a query to the local Facebook business owners’ page and found that several other business owners have had the same experience. One person disagreed.
UPS and U.S. Postal Service workers deal with exactly the same heat and humidity. Nonetheless, they are generally masked when I see them — and they always mask up before entering my store without prompting. This suggests to me that perhaps FedEx management has told their drivers to ignore local ordinances regarding masks.
This is just not acceptable. None of us enjoys wearing a mask. Those of us who deal with large numbers of the public daily, whether as servers, cashiers, or delivery people, have even more responsibility to mask up because we could far more easily become a vector for community spread.
We are all in this together. I would hope FedEx would agree.
Jay Gurewitsch
Provincetown
The writer is the owner of Arcadia on Commercial Street.
Offended
To the editor:
I, also, had relatives who died in the concentration camps. I am deeply offended that your letter writer [July 23, page A4] would equate our southern border camps for “refugees” to the real concentration camps and death camps in which my relatives died.
Jerome Spier
Oro Valley, Ariz.
