I’m open to correct that the Indiana General Assembly is acting more responsibly than this brief AP story suggests, but it looks like they’re unwilling to do the bare minimum to slow the spread of COVID. Specifically, they’re unwilling to commit to a rule requiring that members of the General Assembly wear masks at the State House when they reconvene for organization day on Tuesday. Just as a reminder: this is what our new COVID cases are doing.
This is probably an indicator that we won’t be getting a lot of scientifically sound public health legislation this session.
Edited to add: I occasionally browse the bioRxiv COVID pre-print server for biology. Just after I wrote this post, I came across this study entitled “Association of social distancing and masking with risk of COVID-19.” From the abstract:
We examined the association of community-level social distancing measures and individual masking with risk of predicted COVID-19 in a large prospective U.S. cohort study of 198,077 participants. Individuals living in communities with the greatest social distancing had a 31% lower risk of predicted COVID-19 compared with those living in communities with poor social distancing. Self-reported masking was associated with a 63% reduced risk of predicted COVID-19 even among individuals living in a community with poor social distancing.
This politically-motivated, performative anti-masking is hurting people.
The only question for me is … will the Republicans prohibit future governors from declaring a public health emergency completely, or just mandate a limited-to-the-point-of-uselessness duration like two weeks?
The two weeks scenario strikes me as more likely. But, then, I’m an optimist!
So shocked.
Not sure if you ever watched the movie “Dodgeball,” but I’m thinking of the scene where Cotton and Pepper are doing the broadcast, Cotton says, “Average Joe’s beat the Germans in a *shocking* upset!” to which Pepper Brooks responds, “I feel *shocked*.”
You might also mention Average Joe’s not coming out for the final match…”It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for ’em”