The indoor mask mandate first imposed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on July 22, 2020, to combat COVID-19 will be removed Friday.
The news was signaled when Walz and his top pandemic-fighting commissioners entered a press conference Thursday evening — without the masks they’ve worn since the mandate began. “It looks a little different up here,” he said.
The mandate will be dropped completely, not just for those who have been fully vaccinated, as having two sets of rules would have caused confusion, Walz said. Instead, he called on Minnesotans to do the right thing if they are not yet vaccinated. “It has been challenging this year to not see people smile, to not see the emotions on their face,” Walz said.
When asked, Walz said he expected to go to stores like Target without a mask, should the company decide to lift its own mask requirements. “I have not gone without so far, but I will now. And more people will recognize me, and I’m sure that will go well,” Walz joked.
Private businesses may still have mask mandates, and many local governments could also keep mandates for public indoor spaces.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement Thursday night saying the city would keep its mask requirement for the time being: “The Minneapolis indoor mask requirement will stay in place while we review the data, consult our health experts, and analyze the unique circumstances and vaccination rates for our communities across our city,” said Frey. “After such review, we can reasonably project a timeline for lifting the requirement. That projection and final decision will follow the same health-based philosophy as when we first instituted the mask requirement a year ago.”
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter also said he would consult with the city’s public health officials before dropping St. Paul’s mask mandate: “I appreciate the continued diligence of our community as we work with our public health professionals to determine when mask measures can be safely lifted at the local level,” he said in a Tweet.
The state’s guidance on face coverings in child care settings and its protocols for local schools, the Minnesota Safe Learning Plan, also remain in effect.
Walz’s announcement came just hours after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidelines on where and when masks should be worn by people who are fully vaccinated, which is defined as someone having all required vaccinations plus the two-week period afterward for antibodies to reach protective levels.
Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said her department’s guidance remains the same for those who haven’t been vaccinated or those who aren’t fully vaccinated — that masks should be worn. But that recommendation will no longer have the force of a legal mandate. And Malcolm acknowledged that she would have preferred to have one rule for vaccinated people and one for unvaccinated people.
“If we thought it was enforceable to be able to divide people into those vaccinated and those unvaccinated, I would have like to have seen that,” Malcolm said. “I just think it’s not practicably enforceable. But we will continue to be clear that our guidance remains that there’s a whole lot of stuff that’s a lot safer if you are vaccinated.”
The governor said having two sets of rules would put too much onus on businesses to act as vaccine cops, asking customers who are maskless if they have received vaccinations. The confusion of two sets of rules would be “untenable and unworkable.”
Employment and Economic Development Commissioner Steve Grove said the state didn’t expect businesses to be “cops at the door.”
Vaccinated people not only are immune from getting infected with the virus but are not spreading the virus to unvaccinated people, Walz said, citing studies in real-world settings.
Under Walz’s most recent executive order — until Friday, that is — the indoor mask mandate would have ended on July 1, and sooner if more than 70 percent of those 16 and older had received at least one shot. As of Thursday, 61.5 percent of eligible residents have received at least one shot and just over 50 percent have either one shot of the Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot regimen or two shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Yet Minnesota also currently has the fourth-highest COVID-19 infection case growth in the U.S. and is not near the vaccination rate to reach herd immunity — a level at which the virus stops spreading because it lacks enough uninfected hosts. “We don’t have nearly enough people vaccinated to keep this virus suppressed,” Malcolm said. “It will come back if we don’t continue to build up more vaccinations.”
“My anxiety as I stand here is that when things are no longer a rule or a mandate people think everything is safe,” she said. “They might translate this guidance as meaning the pandemic is over. It’ll be incumbent upon us to get that message out there.”
The CDC news was announced at the end of Thursday’s session of the state Senate, and Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka praised the news, saying it meant masks would no longer have to be worn on the Senate floor. GOP leaders quickly called for an end to state-ordered mandates and an end to Minnesota’s peacetime state of emergency. Walz is expected to extend that state of emergency on Friday for another 30 days.
After adjournment of the state Senate session Thursday, three DFL senators — Senate Minority Leader Susan Kent of Woodbury, Sen. Karla Bigham of Cottage Grove and Sen. Melisa López Franzen of Edina — tossed their masks in the air, Mary Tyler Moore style.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Peter Callaghan[/image_credit][image_caption]Shortly after tossing their masks in the air "Mary Tyler Moore style," DFL state Sens. Karla Bigham, Susan Kent and Melisa Franzen talked about the pending end of the state's indoor mask mandate.[/image_caption]
Later, House Speaker Melissa Hortman said if she relaxes mask requirements on the House floor she would trust that members who don’t wear masks are fully vaccinated, with some exceptions. “If somebody has splashed all over social media that they are not going to get a vaccine and they are not going to wear a mask and they expect to come to the floor and be recognized to speak? I will not recognize them, no,” Hortman said.
Political leaders all trying to find “science” to their own liking.
I’ve said this all along that some people don’t want this to end.
Well, I guess the decision has been made to try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I suppose the CDC’s position is that its announcement didn’t necessitate the end of state mask mandates, but this was the clear result, since no one wants to be the “mask police”. If the CDC thought this announcement would be some sort of “incentive” to get vaccinated, it didn’t think this through and doesn’t understand the motivations of the (largely rightwing) dissenters.
There is now no compulsion whatever on the state’s numerous dissenters, and reaching even the 70% level has likely been thrown out the window. Ironically, the major cities in the (Blue) counties that already had the highest levels of vaccination may keep the mandate for a little while longer, while those counties most failing to get vaccinated now have had the mandate (prematurely) lifted. Flawlessly logical!
Fumbling the endgame. At least the MDH expressed its exasperation over this.
It’s about time – now Walz needs to end the KING Walz run and the legislators needs to make it that a governor never has that kind of power again. No matter the party.
The Biden Administration was desperate for some good news so they let the CDC tell the truth. Seems like it left a lot of Dem Guvs in a pickle, especially if they are up for election in 2022.
You do understand that “the truth” is that the non-vaccinated are still supposed to wear masks indoors and in close quarters outdoors, don’t you?
Walz dropped it for all
Yes, but the actual recommendation of the CDC is for non-vaccinated to continue masking, which is also the recommendation of the MDH.
How many of the non-vaccinated do you think will comply with the mask “recommendation” absent a legal mandate?
Immature childish responses to Covid are tied even with politicians leading the public astray instead if adhering to the science. As a result America leads with Covid deaths still, approaching 600, 000. Politicians jobs are to PROTECT AND SERVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Not lie to them or harm them. The CDC wants to be popular so they change their tune like the winds shift. They forget time and time again that their mission is to PROTECT THE PUBLICS’ HEALTH. We are in a ridiculous ‘the emperor has no clothes’ era, where everyone sees the obvious but for inexplicable reasons almost half refuse to admit it. In the book it took a child to proclaim finally that the emperor was parading buck naked. Finally the others decided it was true, too. Trump is a sadistic, cruel, power hungry psychopath who longs for constant adulation. When it isn’t given to him, he creates it by any means. He lies, threatens, manipulates the gutless wonders called REPS. Because they are weak & scared & rudderless they cleave to his insanity falsely thinking that because his methods have worked for him, well they’ll prob work for them, too. His having a dossier on each of them and not being afraid the threaten them with capitulation if they don’t toe the line, they all acquiesce. This is highly dysfunctional aberrant behavior. Only the masses standing up forcefully now and presenting a strong wall of defense will defeat these miscreants. But shut them down, we must. Or the entire country will be buried alive in their forced fascism. And remember fascism is what caused the rise of Mussolini & Hitler and the world wars. Never, ever forget that. America is at a critical crossroads now; the stakes have never been higher. And we cannot allow patholical lying by a segment of the population to become it’s undoing.
Trump, his followers, and this Covid-19 virus are now the enemies of the American people. Americans need to stand up bravely and fight against these toxic enemies. “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” – JFK
52% according to 538 which is insanely low considering the fawning coverage he receives.
There is a reason 538 doesn’t use the AP poll in its blended average. 538 wants to remain credible while AP wants to massage the numbers to prop up a pretty bad start considering Biden was gifted the vaccines.
You can sneer all you want, but there is no getting around the fact that President Biden’s approval ratings are well above even the best score achieved by the loser of the last presidential election.
Someone is very obviously pulling Walz’s strings on this change. He was very adamant less than 2 weeks ago that the mask mandate was staying in place until July or until 70% vaccination for eligible Minnesotans because of science. And now a sudden about face. I don’t believe his sudden concern over the confusion that businesses would have on who should or shouldn’t wear a mask as per the CDC’s new policy – Walz hasn’t given one crap about the difficulties of business during the pandemic.
Given that MDH made very clear it would have preferred to maintain the mandate, it seems pretty likely the worry that businesses didn’t want to be “vaccine police” was indeed the decisive issue.
So the “anti-business Walz” narrative doesn’t really fit.
BK, that was exactly my point. For the last 15 months, Walz was not concerned at all about how difficult any of his Covid mandates would be on businesses. Why does he now care about how hard policing a mask would be? Walz is generally ambivalent to business (keep in mind he has never actually worked for a business as an adult, he has been a teacher and a politician, so they get their money if they are open or closed or providing good or bad service). It is odd that his own MDH commissioner is not comfortable with this mask mandate change, but Walz’s excuse was that he was concerned about business in the mask issue. Just seemed like an odd and out of character statement from Walz.
This statement by Walz was also very odd – from the article:
Vaccinated people not only are immune from getting infected with the virus but are not spreading the virus to unvaccinated people, Walz said
Yet, didn’t Bill Maher’s show just get shut down yesterday because Maher has Covid after being fully vaxed, and aren’t there 7 or 8 players on the Yankees who are fully vaxed and also out because they are testing positive for Covid? Again, a very odd statement and a complete 180 after months of Walz saying that just because you are vaccinated doesn’t mean you cannot still get Covid or spread Covid. What changed that has made Gov. Walz completely change his stance on masking and vaccinations, all apparently in 1 day?
Eric, I don’t think it was a 180 from his prior action. That action, on May 6 (executive order 21-11), said the mask mandate would disappear on June 30, regardless of vaccination rate achieved. That was the action that communicated that he was throwing in the towel. This one just moved it up six weeks. Since the anti-vaxxers are not going to have an epiphany between now and then, what’s the point of waiting? It was just a small second shoe dropping.
Some here are justifying the action by saying that since you can’t differentiate between the vaccinated and unvaccinated, you can’t apply a standard of mask-wearing only for the unvaccinated, so you can’t apply the standard at all. Reasoning suggests that this just means you need to continue mask-wearing for all. Folks who are vaccinated understand the social purposes of mask-wearing and would be prepared to continue. Conditioning the ending of the mask mandate on reaching proper overall vaccination level also was the only real leverage left to push the vaccination rate up, and now there’s no leverage whatsoever.
The problem with the CDC guidance is that the CDC is competent as to the science, but willfully incompetent as to the social context. It should limit itself to stating the science, and shouldn’t be offering guidance as to how to socially structure behaviors where it chooses to assume that the citizenry will act thoughtfully and responsibly. The governor has the responsibility to take the social context into account and readily could have interpreted the CDC guidance into that context in order to continue the mask mandate.
Businesses can legally mandate face masks. But few want the hassle in today’s world where the majority obeying the rules has ceased to be the norm. If they mandate masks and employees don’t comply, employers will have to enforce their policies. Then it becomes employer vs employee. In today’s world where few ever suffer consequences for their actions anymore this is new, tenuous territory. It’s a mess. Brought about by immaturity and personal irresponsibility. Maybe it’s many things and I invite others to thoughtfully comment/respond. But I’m a Sr now and from my perspective the leading contender is: the parents get a fail. They indulged their kids too much. Now they are adult-aged, but don’t act like adults. Anything goes today! Don’t feel like obeying the laws? OK. Don’t want to deal with reality. OK. Wanna eat 24/7 and not exercise.. why not? Wanna blame others for everything? Sure go ahead.. Add in social media and massive corruption in politics and world unrest and income equality and more…and here we all sit in the mess. This unhealthy stew where everything is simmering and festering. Well, take a step back, take a deep breath and stop to think: how will this outrageous craziness and spreading unaccountability and laziness play out???? And most importantly: how will it affect the children?????????? Serious introspection by all adults is needed now!
He is just more pro-getting-re-elected than he is anti-business.
You’ve got it backwards – its Republicans who wanted businesses to fail by ignoring distancing and mask requirements. It was a president with a lifetime of experience in business failures who hurt businesses by keeping Covid going. Everything could have been open long ago.
Pat, I believe you have failed to comprehend my statement. To sum, it is odd that Gov. Walz, who as recently as 10 days ago said the mask mandate would stay in place until July 1 or 70% of those eligible get the Covid vaccination, suddenly drops the mask mandate because of how hard it is on businesses. He has done a complete 180 without explanation and without any journalist even asking him to explain why he changed (other than the lame ‘too hard on business’ excuse). Walz even went on to say that those who are fully vaccinated cannot get Covid, which is 100% not true according to every doctor/expert like Fauci, Osterholm, Jan Malcolm, etc.
Why has Walz done a complete 180? And don’t tell me because “it’s too hard on business”. That is crap. I don’t care what the bad orange man did before Jan 2021, I don’t care what Biden is doing now. Why has Walz completely contradicted himself and completely changed course?
The situation in MN (until yesterday) was that everyone (vaxxed or not) were to continue to wear masks indoors until we reached the 70% level. The CDC then pulled the rug out from under that by recommending that vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks indoors (or at all). That created a conflict with the MN statewide mask mandate, so Walz had to drop the mask mandate for the vaccinated. He could have continued the mask mandate for the un-vaccinated (as it seems MDH wanted) but then who was going to check everyone’s vaccination card at every door? Every person would have to “show their papers to the vaccine Gestapo!”, and we know how “conservatives” would have handled that…
Your idea that (in the early days of the pandemic) MN businesses having to tell everyone to wear masks was just as much a burden as now having them check the vaccination status of each customer as they enter is not accurate in my view. The latter seems obviously more burdensome and time consuming, so I’d guess Walz felt he could NOT put that onus onto MN businesses. That he felt that businesses could require everyone to mask earlier in the pandemic doesn’t mean yesterday’s decision is wildly different or that someone “got to him”.
Further Walz has been sensitive to the challenges business faced all along; it’s mostly just a narrative to assert otherwise.
No, I understood just fine. You said Walz didn’t care about the impact on businesses. And I said that Walz cared far more than the Republicans or our business failure game show host former president. Businesses were hurt because many people did not take simple precautions. The anti-maskers and not the anti-vaxxers are the ones have hurt and will continue to hurt businesses.
Walz did a 180 because the CDC did. Because vaccines seem to be working, and maybe lifting the mask mandate will get people to take the vaccine.
This CDC revision came out of nowhere, and it’s taken everyone by surprise… so be it. No governor has any choice but to follow suit. Only time will tell if this has causes any significant delay reaching herd immunity or produces a new wave of new variant, we have to cross our fingers and hope for the best.
It’s weird to see all these commenters here acting like they’ve just “won” some kind of argument, as if this was a political debate game of some kind instead of a deadly pandemic that has killed half a million Americans. The lesson here is that some people will remain ignorant and immune to information indefinitely. We need to remember these displays of obtuse stupidity in future crises. If we anticipate this level of irrationality and ignorance in our planning and organization for future crises, we might be able to mitigate the damage more effectively.
The only delay in herd immunity would come from those deciding not to vaccinate due to removal of the mandate. Dropping the mask mandate my accelerate herd immunity by increasing naturally acquired immunity. What effect the mandate has on vaccine hesitancy is an unknown.
Paul, I have spent the last 8 months in Florida. No mask requirements biz open 100%. Our numbers are in the middle of all of the states.
People say it’s because we spend time outside. In N Florida, it’s chilly in the winters. I went to restaurants all winter long, as did my friends. We survived, nobody got covid. We did get out first dose in Jan, 2nd in Feb. I am thankful we were able to get them.
I’m not trying to be political one way or the other. I just find it odd that you had one state wide open and one state mostly shut down. Numbers were almost the same for MN and FL ( statist a.com ) Please don’t come back with FL hid their numbers, this is based on hospital stats. Hospitals did not hide their numbers
Not aware of any studies or data on this–there is a real dirth of scientifically derived data to date; we’ll know a great deal more in 5 years–so it’s just a theory but: just as asthmatics fair better in Salt caves and when by ocean shores, so too I’m thinking will folks during the pandemic who live on the coasts. Covid is a respiratory situation first and foremost. Those same folks largely also spend far more time outside much of the year. Food for thought.
Except that Florida covers up and falsifies Covid information, and tries to punish those who tell the truth. Neither you or anyone else really knows what happened in Florida.
As I understand it, Minneapolis and St. Paul, both places where the rate of new infections is dropping rapidly, are keeping their mask mandates for the time being.
As for the rest, I would not be surprised if the areas with high rates of infection are the most eager to drop all restrictions. Who are they going to believe, their own health care workers or some guy with an agenda on AM radio or a lying website?
As I have noted before, I wonder if Walz (like other people, including me) is so sick of the Republicans’ consist carping about common-sense regulations that he has just thrown up his hands and thought, “You know, if you don’t care whether you live or die, why should I?”
P.S. The test positivity rate, 5.8% just a few days ago, is not at 6.0%.
I don’t know what else he could have done. Without some kind of a vaccine passport, all the anti-maskers can now just claim to be fully vaccinated and run around without masks on.
I don’t know who CDC gets their advice from. They REALLY messed it up this time. They used to be a good agency. Not sure why they couldn’t return to that now that they don’t have the Man in Mar-a-Lago pushing them around any more.
Some people don’t want this to end.
You’ve said that often; in fact, it looks like you just said it a few hours ago.
Why don’t they want it to end? What possible benefit could it be to the Governor or to anyone else to keep the mandate in place permanently?
This claim that “some” people don’t want the pandemic to ever end… let me clear this up for everyone.
This is a baseless claim. This is a fallacy wrapped in ignorance and surrounded by misinformation.
You start with a core fallacy that Walz’s emergency powers suspend the Constitution entirely and grant him the unlimited powers of a dictator. Then you layer on another fallacy that neoliberal “moderate” Democrats ( like Walz) are hostile to business interests and want to kill the economy. Then you project your own Fascists impulses to convert every issue, crises, or policy discussion into a weaponized debate game. And finally you wrap all of that up in a permanent haze of ignorance and stupidity regarding the pandemic, science, and knowledge… and VOILA!, you’ve got yet another absurd Republican/Conservative talking point.
Add to this the immorality of demanding more death and suffering in order to even recognize the crises, or the immorality of declaring hundreds of thousands or even millions of live “acceptable” casualties for the sake of profits, and the monstrous nature of “conservative” America is breathtaking.
Of course this perspective requires complete ignorance if not outright denial regarding multiple avenues of reality ranging from biology to economics. The fact that Walz has been rolling back restrictions for 8+ months, and almost all reliable information regarding the COVID virus and pandemics must be denied or avoided.
However, we can’t make this observation without noting that this has been the conservative mentality for decades, which begs the question: Given this irrational disconnect from intellectual integrity combined with an increasing trend towards Fascism… why have “moderate/centrist” Democrats spend the last several decades promising not to pursue any progress without the “bipartisan” cooperation of these sociopaths and intellectual dullards? Maybe it’s time to stop demanding this participation and simply move on without it eh?
Yes, indeed! That can be about the only actual motivation of those who refuse to get vaccinated…
Maybe the Governors of closed states looked at open states and decided that masks have no impact on COViD. Maybe after 14-15 months without 1 peer reviewed study showing masks actually work at preventing COViD, Governors and CDC lifted the mandates requiring masks. It is about time!
As a resident of Florida ( no mask requirement, business open 100% since last summer ) who got back here 2 weeks ago I can tell you as a matter of fact that our numbers did not “explode” as many predicted.
The biggest outbreak was when it all started in March of 2020, when cruise ships from everywhere were denied entry to a ports up and down the eastern seaboard. On top of that, many countries in the Caribbean, along with South America, also refused entry. Stranded at sea without supplies, Florida finally let them in. Which is why the initial numbers in Miami/Dade/Ft Lauderdale were so high. After that spike, our numbers were right in the middle along with other states in the country.
So the theory of masking everyone and social distancing didn’t exactly apply in Florida. Go figure.
I was thrilled when I heard yesterday the mask mandate has been lifted. But of course, there’s more to the story. He grants exceptions for cities and businesses. It didn’t take Jacob Fry and Melvin Carter long to announce they will still enforce it. No surprise, just a disappointment. If there goal is to drive more business to the suburbs, job well done.
A comment based not on proof, but on many debunked hit pieces. Dems are scared of Desantis 2024. Meanwhile Cuomo is still governor of New York.
Both Cuomo and DeSantis improperly and illegally intervened in statistical public health records to falsify and distort their response to a deadly pandemic. The difference is that these actions destroyed Cuomo’s career in the Dem party, while DeSantis’ fraudulent actions burnished his record for the Repub party and enhanced his standing for a Repub presidential primary run. Go figure…
At some point we will get to see the “excess death” numbers for FL during the pandemic and the level of its economic contraction. I’m surely not going to waste time trying to look into that now. FL is now clearly benefiting from the massive (Dem-authored) Covid monetary aid to state and local governments; aid that all of its Repub reps in DC ranted, railed and voted against, so DeSantis’ hypocrisy and flim-flammery is monumental.
I certainly hope that the corrupt DeSantis runs for president, because then there likely will be a minute examination of his reckless, corrupt and abusive actions as the governor of FL. Of course, as I said, this will only aid him in winning the Repub nomination….
You have no evidence of Florida fudging the numbers. None.
Both Ms Jones and the 60 minutes piece were so flimsy and distorted it only takes about one minute online to debunk their claims.
Ms. Larey, I’m glad you’re happy in Florida but your observations are not scientific. Pandemics are not contests between States. I’m sure we’re all glad that more people didn’t die in Florida, but a lot of are glad we don’t live in Florida, and didn’t have to live through the pandemic in Florida.
Bottom line, the mask mandate is over with cases the 4th highest in the nation and deaths higher than they have been in weeks. Science indeed!
And that’s why the MDH was clearly exasperated with the CDC’s announcement. It’s also interesting that when Walz does make a decision admittedly based on the interests of businesses having to deal with the pandemic, then he receives mockery and flak from the right for “not following the science”. This is called “Heads I win, Tails you lose”.
Finally, a bit of logic: the fact that science did not drive a decision made in the fumbled pandemic endgame does not prove that science never drove any decision throughout the entire ordeal.
Nor does it prove that science drove any of it.
Explain to me just how good Walz’s chances would have been trying to enforce a mask mandate once the CDC changed the rules of the game.
Just yesterday I was picking up a food order when a woman behind me came in maskless. The server asked her to put on her mask and her response was to say “I thought that was repealed.” The server hesitated to respond, so I turned to the woman and said “Businesses are allowed to continue requiring masks if they wish”. The woman said a profanity, pulled her mask out of her pocket and put it on.
THAT is the kind of thing Walz would be facing if he had tried to continue the mask mandate on a statewide level.
Everyone else is doing it! Thank you for pointing out the solid foundation upon which the decision might have been made.
Many posts wondering why Gov Walz lifted the mask mandate. I am surprised that on one has mentioned that perhaps he lifted it to get another point in the budget negotiations. Gazelka can no longer use lifting any COVID restrictions as a bargaining chip, because they have all been rescinded.
This is a very good point.
I agree that this is the big picture lesson of Trump’s Pandemic (2020-21).
A huge segment of the citizenry is now completely ungovernable as a result of ingestion (eager or otherwise) of toxic “conservative” claptrap for over 40 years. And naturally that citizenry sends equally irresponsible members of this chaos faction to legislatures all over the country, to produce gridlock and paralysis in DC and Blue States and anti-democratic plutocratic fascism in Red ones. Finally, this paralysis faction now has a democratically-illegitimate “conservative” Supreme Court super-majority to ensure that any attempts at sensible governance will be declared “unconstitutional”.
Hard to see a way out of this self-inflicted swamp of idiocy and celebration of intellectual backwardness. But the pandemic has definitely shown the extent of the nation’s mental and emotional rot, as well as the corrosive power of “social media”.
Amazing how trump’s pandemic is worldwide, dont you think?
Agreed! And don’t anyone dare say that the virus came from China either. We can say where the variants came from though.
Trump Pandemic with no previous knowledge of it and a totally vulnerable society lost 400,000 Americans in one year . Biden Pandemic with knowledge and 1 million doses of vaccine per day (and more) has lost almost 200,000 Americans in four months. And counting.
Trump pandemic because he dismantled the pandemic response team that had been set up to deal with situations like this, on account of Obama.
Trump pandemic because his first reaction to it was to whine that the news was being exaggerated to make him look bad.
Trump pandemic because he downplayed its severity so he wouldn’t provoke “panic.”
Trump pandemic because his administration’s overall response to it reads like a graduate thesis from the Moe Howard School of Public Policy.
The CDC changed their tune, about mask wearing, without showing any hard evidence of why. What changed with CDC leadership? Where was the hard evidence that masks helped in the first place? Following the science (as I hear at Minnpost all the time), is getting really hard to do. Seems to be more political than science with CDC!
Mr. Smith, on more than one occasion I have provided you with links to peer-reviewed studies regarding the efficacy of masks (“peer reviewed,” in this context, meaning “methodology judged to be acceptable even if Joe Smith doesn’t like the conclusions reached”). You, however, ignore those studies and rely instead on the occasional out-of-context statements from TV news as a rebuttal.
I can see why you might have some difficulty “following the science.”
Yes, I think the real value with comment’s like Mr. Smith’s is that they reveal just how resistant people can be to reliable information and attempts at education. After over a year of daily and weekly information releases, press conferences, and publications by dozens of agencies, news outlets, and journals, the fact that anyone could write a comment so completely devoid of basic understanding regarding the pandemic is a true testament to the power of deliberate ignorance and rational illiteracy.
Just finishing Michael Lewis’ new book on the pandemic: “The Premonition”.
Like the “Big Short” he finds a few obscure, but connected, individuals who truly understood the magnitude of what was going to befall us by January 2020.
All of the pontificators here would be well served to read it. And just to make it easier for our right wing friends to swallow:
1. A well thought out plan for pandemic response was initiated, funded, supported and demanded by GWB after reading a book on the Spanish Flu.
2. A group of these connected experts would conduct regular calls to discuss the pandemic. Over time, many officials (Fauci being one) would listen in, but not comment or make known their participation. One of these silent observers could no longer keep quiet and demanded that these folks step up and make a visible difference. The lone voice? None other than The Cuch: Ken Cuccinelli, not always thought of as a voice of reason by a left winger like me.
3. It is suggested that the CDC be relabeled the CDOR: The Center for Disease Observation and Reporting. Riding to the rescue is not their thing.
Regardless, the CDC and NIH spend about 150 billion dollars per year. I’ll take their guidance over some 400 pound guy sitting on the edge of his bed with his computer.
Actually the nature of pandemics and preparation for them has been common knowledge in the field of epidemiology and public health for decades, this is not special knowledge held by a few people. Many universities (included the U of M) have entire schools dedicated to infectious disease, outbreaks, and public health. Previous pandemics have been studied ad nauseam and warnings were issued for decades. It’s true that some major efforts to organize a national response took place under GWB, but it’s also true that he and subsequent administrations started defunded these efforts once interest in the SARS and Anthrax events faded.
Perhaps worse, efforts and funding for preparedness largely focused on organizing “Incident Command Systems” plans once a cottage industry of consultants emerged from the Hurricane, 9/11, Anthrax, and SARS events. These “plans” essentially reorganized entire departments in the middle of a crisis and put some of the most unqualified people in charge of supervising. We ended up not with the best people with the best expertise in charge of crisis management, but rather the ones who had time to got the training sessions in charge. And so it goes.
The most important to know about our public health system and response is that it relies heavily upon state and local departments and their experts. THEY are the ones who populate the federal surveillance systems with data and information. Most outbreaks are recognized and discovered on the local level before they pop on theNIH, CDC, FDA, or USDA radar.
The reason the US failed to react efficiently to the COVID pandemic was a complete absence of Federal coordination, and THAT failure flowed directly out of the White House and Trump appointees. No one in the US Public Health regime had ever imagined or prepared for a White House that would literally stand down when the alarms sounded. The alarms sounded, and sounded loudly, and our Health Departments heard them… but there’s no plan “B” for a scenario wherein the feds simply stand down and refuse to act. The entire response REQUIRED a federal government that stood up the necessary resources and infrastructure when the alarms went off… that simply didn’t happen until long after COVID became ubiquitous infection nationwide. One thing we KNOW for absolute certain, and have known for decades, is that you have a very small window of opportunity to lock down and isolate transmission… that knowledge was simply ignored by an administration that didn’t want to admit we were facing a crisis.
There were also some problems with the WHO but they largely take their cue from the US and the CDC, so when the CDC virtually stood down, the whole thing went to H in a handbasket very quickly.
Add to that this permanent haze of ignorance and irrationality that millions of Americans have been cultivating for decades and you have a perfect storm that kills twice as many people as would otherwise have died.