From left-leaning Politico:
Democrats are making a U-turn on mask mandates, just in time for the midterms.
It’s happening among the party’s governors, several of whom are easing up their masking rules as Covid’s Omicron wave fades. And it’s happening on the Hill, where Democrats are suddenly lining up to call for rollbacks of the nation’s most noticeable pandemic-era rule.
Their pandemic pivot comes as they brace for a brutal November election in which the virus — and the culture war that’s accompanied it — is shaping up to be Democrats’ biggest blind spot...
“It’s not based on science; it’s based on politics. I think people are fed up, and the Dems are seeing the polling,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.).
Even my own Congressman, a doctor, understands:
The centrist New Democrats Coalition hosted former Biden adviser Zeke Emanuel — brother of another former House Democratic campaign chief, Rahm Emanuel — at a meeting on the topic last week.
Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), a member of that group and a physician, has penned a soon-to-be-published op-ed for his local paper, arguing that it’s time to declare the end of the “pandemic” phase of the virus. In an interview, Bera said there’s been “fair criticism” aimed at both the White House and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for their “overly cautious” approach.
Still, Bera insisted that the party’s shift on masks wasn’t rooted in politics. He argued that vaccines, not masks, are the most effective tool available against the virus.
“I think of it [as] less of a political issue, but I think it’s where the public is,” Bera said. “A lot of purple districts are suburban districts. And in suburban districts, there is a prominent feeling of wanting to get our lives back.”
Of course it's not rooted in politics, and of course he has to say that. It was never about science, it was about science! If it was about science, though, what those people in the suburban districts want wouldn't be the issue--even though it should be, because that's politics.
Update, 2/15/22: I'd almost feel sorry for these people if they weren't trying to screw with my life:
WHY PROGRESSIVES CAN’T QUIT THEIR MASKS: “For a certain kind of progressive, giving up masking feels like giving in. It doesn’t feel to them like the epidemic has been beaten — it feels to them like they have been beaten, and their cultural enemies (Joe Rogan, and that estranged uncle who is angry on Facebook) have won.”
Remember. The science hasn't changed, the political science has changed.
4 comments:
I was hoping you died from COVID so I could nominate you for a Herman Cain Award.
Typical leftie.
Our mask mandate expired three days ago. Unlike May, no one is going around unmasked in stores that aren't asking for masking.
Looks like a science experiment is planned here:
From the NY Gov's 2/9/22 Covid Update...
We've been using really smart practices here to say no, in New York State, our schools are open, so that's going to continue to be a priority.
So what we want to do, we know there's another break coming up. Most of the public school students in the state will be back the week of February 28, after they've had their winter break, some of them may be traveling to other states, maybe going to Disney world. I'm not sure where they're going, but they won't be in class for at least a week, 10 day period.
So, let's talk about when the kids come back, or even before that, let's make sure that there's test kits and we're giving them out right now. And I'm going to talk about the extraordinary number of test kits we've amassed in a very short time, more than any state in the nation. And what are we doing with them?
Getting them out to schools, getting them to parents, getting them in the hands of people that can find out whether a child is positive before they come back and that's how we stop the spread. So after this break parents will have test kits for their children. We want them to test the day after they come back.
And again three days later and let the school know if your child tests positive, keep them home. But by that Friday, just a few days after the children come back, we'll be able to look at those numbers, but not just those numbers. We're going to be looking at everything we've looked at throughout this entire process that actually led us to today.
We're going to look at the cases per hundred thousand. We're going to look at the percent positivity. We'll also keep an eye on hospital admissions and even pediatric admissions - what's happening with them? Are they continuing to decline - which is a very good metric right now. .....
igm,
You forgot some very important variables: The percentage of false positives and false negatives of the test kits; whether they were stored and shipped at the correct temperature range, and whether they are expired or not.
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