LETTER: Professional athletes and mask mandates

Jerry Beamon surmises in his Saturday letter that he and other “common folk” should be permitted to remove their facial coverings because the “edict apparently does not apply to everyone,” citing photos of NBA, NHL and NFL athletes not wearing masks during games recently covered by the Review-Journal.

For starters, while there are many of us who would welcome a President Steve Sisolak, he reigns supreme (to use an Review-Journal columnist’s terminology) only over Nevada — and none of those players was playing in Nevada.

Secondly, the NBA and NHL players have been living in a closed bubble, some for nearly three months now. NFL players and staff are subjected to daily testing.

So if Mr. Beamon and his common-folk cronies would like to leave their family and friends behind, move into a secluded bubble, self-quarantine for 14 days in a room the size of a college dorm room and submit to daily virus testing, then he, too, would be welcome to remove his mask for three hours every other day during game time.

For the record, both the NBA and NHL bubbles have proven effective, as there have been no positive COVID-19 tests in either bubble since early July, when the athletes first arrived.