As COVID cases continue to spike to new highs, many of us in Maine towns are trying to do the best we can to contain this virus and keep ourselves and others safe.

Like many others, I listen to Dr. Shah’s press conferences when I can and abide by his helpful advice and adhere to Gov. Mills’ orders, including the new directives to wear a mask whenever leaving home, both indoors and outdoors, regardless of distance from others.

I leave home as seldom as possible, just for necessities such as grocery shopping or getting gas or babysitting my grandkids who live nearby — two or sometimes three times a week. But in the past week, I’ve twice had distressing encounters with customers in two local businesses who have not been wearing masks, and the employees and management in the stores have declined to intervene in any way.

At a convenience store on Brunswick’s Pleasant Street, there were three separate customers without masks despite a sign on the door warning customers that they must wear masks on entering, and none of the masked employees stopped them. When I called the manager, she told me that her company had instructed managers not to put their employees at risk by enforcing the mask rule because customers might be angry and harm them, even though I pointed out that her employees and other customers were at risk of being exposed to a deadly disease by not requiring everyone in the store to wear masks.

At a downtown Brunswick supermarket during senior hour one morning this week, a woman who’d been wearing a mask while shopping removed it while checking out and then kept it off while her groceries were bagged, but the sales clerk said nothing to her. I was behind her in line and politely asked her to put her mask on, but she refused, saying that she had rights. When I spoke with the manager, he admitted that, though the store had the policy of requiring that masks be worn, they did not ask employees to enforce the rule, nor did they ask customers to leave if they refused to wear a mask.

I don’t understand the point of the governor issuing executive orders about mask-wearing if stores are just going to pay lip service by posting the policy and requiring their employees to be masked, but then allowing scofflaw customers (whose rights apparently matter more than the community’s safety) to flagrantly disobey because they know that nobody’s going to make them comply.

And not only are stores not enforcing the order, but the state doesn’t seem to be doing anything about following up on complaints about these kinds of incidents by holding stores accountable by either fining or closing them. It feels like the people who obey the pandemic rules have no recourse but to never leave home, which isn’t right. The bad guys are going to continue getting away with breaking the rules and endangering us all unless more of us speak out and demand that the state enforces the mask requirement and stores learn how to effectively comply.

Sheila Pulver lives in Harpswell.