Raimondo: Masks Essential, 'Need To Do Better Than 75 Percent'

CRANSTON, RI — Rhode Island is emerging from its stay-at-home order, but how residents follow the new rules is already giving Gov. Gina Raimondo fits. On Wednesday, during a Facebook live interview with the Washington Post, Raimondo emphasized thatshe wasn't pleased with everything she saw in the state's first weekend of the Phase One reopening plan.

Specifically, Raimondo wants to see customers wearing masks. During the first weekend that businesses were permitted to partially reopen, state investigators noted almost all employees wearing masks, but customers appeared to be wearing theirs in only 75 percent of interactions.

"We need to do better than 75 percent," Raimondo said. "It is strange, it feels weird, it's warm, but I wear mine and here's why I'm doing it: It's simple, it's inexpensive, and it is much better than closing down whole parts of our economy. If we have to endure embarrassment and discomfort to get thousands of people back to work, it's worth it."

It's wasn't just the maskless customers entering businesses that stood out to Raimondo. On Monday, she pointed out that customers using drive-thrus still need to wear masks, but so far the state had seen only "mediocre compliance."

In her Wednesday interview with the Washington Post, Raimondo also touched on Rhode Island's tourist industry, on which the state's economy heavily depends. One plan under consideration, she would require tourtists undergo "robust testing" and stay quarantined for fourteen days.

"I will not sugar-coat this," she said. "Rhode Island depends heavily on tourism in the summer, and we need a plan to figure out how to keep everybody safe and also enable some tourism, so we are making that plan. I don’t yet have the answers." symptoms of the coronavirus when they call, Raimondo said.

On Wednesday, Rhode Island added 221 new cases and 18 additional deaths related to coronavirus, although data continue to show an overall downward trend in hospitalizations.