Hospital personnel at the LAC+USC Medical Center in Los Angeles, California put on face shields and N95 face masks on May 14, 2020. Many medical centers now require patients to wear masks, but some are refusing. | Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Health care workers don’t want to fight the mask culture war, but they’re being forced to.

The decision of some Americans to not wear a mask in public has become a political act, the latest demonstration of how misinformation is complicating the American response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

As states reopen, enforcement of new mask requirements in public spaces has led to conflict: A Target employee in California broke his arm after trying to remove two customers refusing to wear masks. In Flint, Michigan, a security guard at a Family Dollar store was shot and killed after a dispute with