All hail Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, who liberated himself from the “forever COVID” mentality that has gripped far too many lawmakers.
“The emergency is over,” Polis said in an interview. “Public health [authorities] don’t get to tell people what to wear; that’s just not their job.
“There was a time when there was no vaccine, and masks were all we had and we needed to wear them. The truth is we now have highly effective vaccines that work far better than masks. Those who get sick, it’s almost entirely their own darn fault.
“Just to put it in perspective, of the about 1,400 people hospitalized, less than 200 [or 16 percent] are vaccinated. And many of them are older or have other conditions,” Polis added. “Eighty-four percent of the people in our hospitals are unvaccinated, and they absolutely had every chance to get vaccinated.”
In other words, this is the next stage of COVID: an endemic, mutating virus that will be around for many more years with intermittent flare-ups. With that revelation should come legislators’ widespread recognition that you cannot, by executive fiat or by cringeworthy public service announcement ad spot, by carrot or by stick, force every American to do the exact thing you want.
You can instead arm them with information, allow them to make their own choices and recognize that public health-related asks must be rare and specific if you want decent compliance; a perpetual state of emergency, wherein you ask the population to sacrifice school, work and social gatherings for years on end just won’t yield desired results.
Contrast one Democratic governor’s strategy with another’s: New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul, who took office when now-disgraced Andrew Cuomo scurried away from the governor’s mansion. She instituted a statewide indoor mask mandate that went in effect Monday, forcing all businesses to either check people’s vaccination cards or require them to wear a mask while inside, even in private offices. Fines could be as high as $1,000 per violation.
It’s unclear what exactly Hochul hopes to gain from this, other than the scorn of business owners and local health departments who are charged with enforcing this executive overreach.
Local officials in Livingston County have already publicized that they won’t be adhering to Hochul’s mandate, cheekily reminding her of her own comments that it would be difficult to enforce such a policy upstate.
More counties should take their lead, and more state officials and reporters should ask Hochul: What exactly do we stand to gain through this mandate? It’s not quick errands to the deli, the pharmacy and the grocery store that ultimately are the biggest spreaders of COVID; it’s people’s extended, indoor private gatherings, which they assume at their own risk, which Hochul couldn’t stop if she tried.
“Do I look like the COVID police?” a Bronx restaurateur asked me back in August when I interviewed her about Mayor Bill de Blasio’s vaccine mandate and the challenges it posed to her ability to serve her loyal patrons.
Although the restaurateur in question was reacting to a different New York official’s mandate, and one about vaccination status not mask wearing, the sentiment holds and is echoed throughout the state.
Hochul is foisting the enforcement burden onto many rightfully indignant business owners who’ve incurred all kinds of losses over the last 21 months, all in pursuit of forcing compliance with a public-health intervention that’s somewhat limited in value, while public will to comply grows ever more thin.
Polis, unlike Hochul, understands that the state cannot play the role of your parent, telling you where to go or what to wear.
Liz Wolfe is an associate editor at Reason based in Brooklyn, and Austin, Texas.
