NEW PALTZ- New Paltz’s Karen Jackson, 56, is a woman on a mission. Her goal? Enforce universal face-mask use and social-distancing in her town. Her domain? The New Paltz community Facebook group.
Ever since mid-March, Jackson, a retired New Paltz Central School District elementary school teacher, has spent her days in much the same way. Each morning and afternoon, she conducts a patrol of the community’s main outdoor recreation locations, including parks and rail trails, as well as Main Street sidewalks. She then records her rough estimate of the percentage of persons who were masked vs. unmasked in her Face Mask Journal. (Jackson herself always wears a mask, even when inside her Prius with the windows up.) On the days when she needs to enter an enclosed space with others, such as a grocery store or pharmacy, she dons an N-95 mask and nitrile gloves, and dutifully records observations of mask-use in both customers and employees for subsquent reports to social media and law enforcement. (She prefers not to directly confront non-complying individuals to avoid conflict; “Someone might get violent, who knows.”)
While at her home on Butterville Rd., she researches and posts articles on the transmissibility of coronavirus, especially those that conclude it can be suspended in the air for hours or persist on surfaces for days, as well as reports that Covid-19 can be deadly for the young and healthy (including children) and can leave survivors with permanent damage to lungs and other organs, and even cause persistent cognitive deficits.
Jackson reports the results of her research and personal observations several times weekly on the New Paltz Facebook group.
A typical post, made yesterday, reads:
Prior to this spring, Jackson used social media sparingly. She made only two posts in the New Paltz Facebook group in all of 2019. The first, a photo of a double rainbow that was also recorded by dozens of other group members; the second, an open request for recommendations for a new financial advisor.
That changed when the pandemic began.
“I was reading what the experts recommended and began implementing their instructions immediately,” she said. “And I found it incredibly distressing that so many of my neighbors were disregarding the advice of scientists and putting the vulnerable at risk. It reminded me of my teaching days. Young children also don’t always know what’s best for them and others, and need frequent monitoring and instruction from authorities who have their best interests at heart, whether they realize it or not.”
