I share conservative concern about government caprice. But not on the issue of masks
It’s one of the dumbest plays in sports. But you wouldn’t believe how many football players have done it. Even Kansas City Chiefs standout safety Tyrann Mathieu did it once in college.
It’s dropping the ball just before reaching the end zone. In a fit of premature celebration, players racing toward a score let loose of the football before it crosses the goal line. If it then rolls out of the end zone, it’s awarded to the other team, no points for yours.
It’s a monumental mistake. But I wonder: Are we about to collectively do that ourselves? Aren’t we at risk of dropping the ball on the cusp of the goal line if we lift the COVID-19 mask mandates so close to widespread immunity?
Johnson County appears poised to do just that on Thursday, with cases seductively down but vaccination rates not adequately up.
Yes, the county’s positivity rate — the percentage of those being tested actually having COVID-19 — has dipped to 3.4%. That’s great news, which we would’ve reveled in just weeks ago. But while half the population has had at least one shot, only about 30% have been fully vaccinated. And herd immunity — the goal line in this case — is 70% or more.
If we lift the mask mandates now, we’re not even dropping the ball at the one- or two-yard line. We’re dropping it back at the 20 or 30.
To fully grasp the peril, one needs to look only as far as Wichita.
The White House COVID-19 Task Force Friday classified Sedgwick County as a “rapid riser” in cases, and just one notch below “emerging hot spot.” Community spread there is now “substantial,” the feds say, and the positivity rate well over 5%, which is something of a red line.
“Everyday activities should be limited to reduce spread and protect the health care system,” the federal report says of where Sedgwick County is.
Certainly doesn’t sound like our friends down the turnpike have reached the goal line.
Has Johnson County? I’m not so sure, but even Johnson County health officials appear willing to go along with dropping the mandate Thursday.
“As long as it is very clear to everyone that we have not achieved herd immunity, and that we have a lot of work to do, and that wearing masks (continues) to be important,” Johnson County Health Department director Dr. Sanmi Areola told commissioners last week, “we’ll be supportive of moving to ‘strongly recommend’” rather than a mandate on masks in public.
Well, OK. But you know how that goes. The second the mandate comes off, so do many of the masks.
I’m not a doctor, and I’ve never played one on TV. So I must defer to the experts. And commission Chairman Ed Eilert says he’ll vote to lift the mandate in favor of a strong recommendation that we continue wearing masks. I respect his choice.
But if I were a county commissioner, I wonder whether I’d do that. I wonder if just a few more weeks of a mandate wouldn’t help us get over the goal line, or at least closer to herd immunity. What’s a few more weeks of a mask mandate while more people get vaccinated, especially after more than a year of it?
I’ve heard the clamorous complaints of my dear conservative friends who feel the masks, and certainly the mandates, have been tyrannical. I absolutely share their concern about government caprice.
Just not on this issue.
Mask mandates have come as a result of the collective will of a self-governed people. Our duly elected representatives at nearly every level of government have done their best to protect the public health and save lives, as they are duty-bound to do. Perhaps belatedly and grudgingly, government has yielded some amount of due process in the form of grievance hearings on the mandates. That’s to the good. But the virus being the relentless critter that it is, mandates have mostly stayed in effect, especially in urban areas.
I don’t like them any more than anyone else. I hate that masks prevent the passerby from seeing the smile I intend for them. And I think they’re a bit dehumanizing. I can’t wait to get my second shot next week and be gradually liberated from this isolation we’ve shared, so far apart from each other.
But liberation, not domination, is precisely what these masks are all about. They, and the vaccines, are the surest path to a renewed sense of freedom.
Maybe the Johnson County Health Department has it right and I have it wrong. I sure hope so. But I’d hate to see us become the football player who drops the ball just before hitting the goal line. For athletes, it’s merely a forever embarrassment. No one gets sick, no one dies, no shifty virus gets a fresh foothold.
We’re so close. So close.
