Mandates

I did not intend for this to read like a cautionary editorial. When the Spectator World asked me to do a piece on the BA.2 Omicron subvariant, I thought I would simply be updating readers on the progress of the latest Covid mutation. And while the BA.2 is fast spreading, it appears to be no more life threatening than earlier versions of the coronavirus. Virus-related hospitalizations in New York state and the rest of the Northeast, where the new variant is especially prevalent, have gone up slightly in recent weeks, but are nowhere near where they have been in previous Covid surges. And according to the data, those who contract BA.2 are not at a higher risk of serious illness. There is no indication that BA.

That was fast: the now-you-see-me, now-you-don’t, now-you-do masquerade in Philadelphia. Let’s review. On March 2, Philly, recovering from Covid hysteria, rescinded its indoor-mask mandate — masks off. On April 18, the city, alone among large American municipalities, rescinded its rescission — masks on (unless everyone working on-site and coming through the door was fully vaxxed). On April 21, the city rescinded its rescission of its rescission — masks off, for now. This latest experiment in masking left Cheryl Bettigole, the city’s health commissioner, explaining that Philly was only trying to “follow the data.

The nation’s capital is finally dropping its vaccine and mask mandates…mostly. DC mayor Muriel Bowser reluctantly followed the science and ended the vaccine requirement for the district’s businesses effective Tuesday — rendering the city’s “get the vax to see the acts” campaign null and void. The decision to require proof of vaccination now falls to individual businesses in the city — a civil rights victory, surely, given that just under a quarter of DC’s black residents remain unvaccinated. Bowser’s move comes after a lengthy battle with venues such as The Big Board on H Street, which had its license suspended by the ABC Board earlier this month for refusing to enforce the mandate.

A new Johns Hopkins systematic review cuts in two the narrative that government-imposed mandates meaningfully prevent coronavirus deaths. The review looked at 34 different studies analyzing business and school closings, shelter-in-place orders, and international travel bans. It included data from US and European Covid mitigation efforts, along with endeavors in India, South Africa and China. Almost two dozen of these studies were peer-reviewed, while the other 12 were working papers. The results of this meta-analysis are striking. Lockdowns reduced Covid mortality by an average of only .02 percent. Shelter-in-place orders were slightly better at a 2.9 percent average, but nothing worth crowing about.

“Wearing a cloth mask to keep safe from a virus is like installing a chain link fence to keep mosquitoes out of your backyard.” That’s what a doctor friend joked to me in the early days of the pandemic. On 60 Minutes on March 8, 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And often there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” Just a month later, the CDC guidance changed.

I live in Montgomery County, Maryland. It’s one of those places where you see lawn signs proclaiming “In this house, we believe in science.” Naturally, our Democratic leaders have consistently ignored science over the last year, at least when it comes to COVID mitigation. Here in Montgomery County, our return to normalcy is currently being held hostage in exchange for near-universal vaccination of our least at-risk residents. If you believe that local governments are in a hurry to surrender “emergency” powers, I have a bridge over the Potomac to sell you. Maryland’s governor, Larry Hogan, has dropped our indoor mask mandate. But we still have a locally mandated one in place. Our county leaders reckon that they know better.