The masks — in a variety of styles and colors — were plentiful Monday.

Only the eyes and hair of customers and employees were visible at the Shop ’n Save store on North Main Street in Greensburg. It was the first full day of a bizarre, government-mandated scene officials hope will slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Lois Kunkle of Delmont said everyone at the store was wearing a mask while she shopped midday.

“I think everybody ought to be wearing them,” she said.

Not everyone agreed.

Tim Bazala of Greensburg said he understands the reasoning but thinks the order is “too little, too late.”

“I’m going to put one on to keep people off my hind end,” he said while entering the Shop ’n Save location on East Pittsburgh Street in Greensburg.

A requirement from state officials that customers and employees inside businesses wear masks went into effect Sunday night. Anyone who doesn’t abide by it should be denied entry under the order.

On Monday, grocery shoppers in Greensburg wore handkerchiefs tied around their heads, cloth masks and other coverings that hooked around the ears. Some had patterned fabric, while others were made of sturdier material. One woman who tried to get into the East Pittsburgh Street Shop ’n Save without one was sent back to her car. She put a mask on and walked back in.

Charley Family Shop ’n Save stores in Murrysville, Hempfield and Greensburg had employees posted at the front doors reminding customers of the requirement, co-owner Tom Charley said. There hadn’t been any problems reported by the afternoon, he said.

“We’ve had very, very little, very few customers, not actually come in with a mask,” he said. “It’s a nonissue.”

Below, Mitsutoshi Horii, professor at Shumei University in Japan, discusses differing attitudes toward mask usage.

At Bryant Street Market in Pittsburgh’s Highland Park neighborhood, employees complied with the mandate — though not all customers did.

The store hasn’t yet laid out a policy for enforcing the rule, said employee Axel Claussen, adding he expects it will soon.

“That’s my instinct. We would want to do that,” Claussen said. “But it depends on how many people walk in without masks.”

Josh Speshock of Hempfield said he warned a maskless female customer as she walked inside the East Pittsburgh Street Shop ’n Save, but she told him she didn’t care. Speshock put on his mask when he was asked to while going to pick up groceries, but said he thinks the decision should be up to him because he is an adult.

“It’s a bad idea; it’s stupid,” he said.

Bazala, a friend of Speshock’s, made his mask out of an old pair of sweatpants. He thinks the mask requirement should’ve been put in place weeks ago.

“I don’t mind doing it, and I’m going to do it,” Bazala said. But that doesn’t mean he agrees with it.

Masks are not required of anyone who can’t wear one because of a medical condition. Children 2 and younger don’t have to wear masks. Businesses that fail to comply with the order could face citations, fines or license suspensions.

Gov. Tom Wolf in March ordered the first closure of all nonessential businesses, followed by a broader order closing what the state deemed as all non-life-sustaining operations.

East vs. West

In the West, the idea of large segments of the public wearing medical masks is mostly associated with the avian influenza and SARS outbreaks in Asian countries.

In Pennsylvania, recent state orders for the public to wear masks when they venture out during the covid-19 pandemic have been met with criticism in some places.

But it is actually the West that inspired mass masking in the first place, according to Mitsutoshi Horii, a professor at Japan’s Shumei University.

During the Spanish flu epidemic in the early 20th century, surgical masks were worn in an effort to contain the spread — and some U.S. cities issued legislation requiring residents to wear them.

Then, as now, those efforts were sometimes met with resistance.

Japanese health authorities at the time read about the efforts and began encouraging citizens to don masks, Horii writes in his 2014 paper, “Why Do the Japanese Wear Masks?”

Their efforts were much more successful.

“In contrast to the American ‘mask order,’ mask-wearing in Japan was well-received by the public,” Horii wrote. “Mask production, distribution and use became a national event. The nation was brought together through the mask, which constructed a sense of control over the invisible threat of pandemic.”

Use of medical masks in Japan is widespread today during the traditional flu season and could also be seen in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

“I’m interested in how people in the U.S. respond to this measure,” Horii told the Tribune-Review. “Whether they accept it, if some people reject it, and also after this pandemic has gone, whether this practice continues in people’s lives.”

— Patrick Varine

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