The World Health Organization (WHO) says World Mask Week starts today, and has launched a new challenge –“Wear A Mask”.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is the Director-General of the WHO, a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health.  He is featured in a You Tube video talking about the “Wear A Mask Challenge – Do It All.”  He says we all play a role in breaking the transmission chain of the novel coronavirus which causes COVID-19.   He urges everybody to wear a mask, keep physical distancing, wash hands frequently, and be sure to cough into the elbow.

He says we should all take a photo of ourself wearing a mask and post it on social media.

In Hawaii, the COVID-19 situation has become far more serious in the past couple of weeks.  On Thursday, because of the steep increase in COVID-19 cases in the state and concern that hospital ICU beds on O’ahu may be at capacity within three weeks based on the current hospitalization rate, Gov. David Ige has reinstated the 14-day interisland travel quarantine for anybody traveling to any of the neighbor islands.  On O’ahu, Mayor Kirk Caldwell is shutting down parks, beaches, tennis courts, swimming pools, and more in an effort to stop the large gatherings responsible for much of the recent rise in cases.  Since the interisland travel quarantine was lifted on July 16, four weeks, the state has seen 1,504 new cases of COVID-19.  Today O’ahu has more than 1300 active cases.  The Big Island, as of yesterday, had 8 active cases, spread around the island.

Attached photo is former Mayor Billy Kenoi and wife Takako Kenoi in their masks