The recommendation that vaccinated people in some parts of the country dust off their masks was based largely on one troublesome finding, according to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
New research showed that vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant carry tremendous amounts of the virus in the nose and throat, she said in an email responding to questions from The New York Times. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGkZZsrxGTJmhjbjtbFqPcmXQbV
A major benefit of getting vaccinated fell by the wayside last week, as the vaccinated public are reported as significant carriers of the Delta variant, according to the latest data from the CDC. No one can be more chagrinned than I, facing the prospect of masking up for every public indoor event for the indefinite future. It is not enough to regret getting vaccinated, but it weakens my argument for the unvaccinated to step up and be counted.
Masking up feels like such a defeat at this point in the summer. We had just savored the victory of eating out, visiting museums and going to church without the mask and here comes the collapse of the cloth on our faces. The cloth that clouds the eye glasses with steam and adds to the insufferable humidity of St. Louis. We did not even have a chance to whimsically recall the masking days before we were puffing into them again. Now there is no chance I will recall the humor of those days. They came back with a vengeance.
That said, the public outrage about masking again and the legal and economic pressure on county leaders and school districts is ridiculous. It has given the politically ambitious an invented cause to fuel their campaigns and polarized citizens about an issue we should agree upon for our health and the health of our children.
Attorney General Eric Schmitt, having put China in the background, decided to launch against St. Louis County’s masking order for his next target. It’s all about our liberty to wear or not to wear a piece of clothing, if you accept his argument. Ignored is the issue of exposing our fellow citizens to a virus with demonstrated power to transmit among both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Apparently the power to choose to infect or not infect is the ultimate liberty, not to mention the power to stir up an irritable constituency to vote for Eric Schmitt for U.S. Senator. When we go to the polls in two years, we should remember who was most effective in polarizing local citizens over an issue we should have agreed upon.
Meanwhile, down in Florida, Governor Ron Desantis has forbidden school mask mandates, despite the fact that children K-5 can not be vaccinated before the school year begins. With this extraordinary proscription, the Governor has taken his stand among live-free-and-die candidates for President. He most certainly has fired the anger of parents against each other when they send their vulnerable children back to school among their unmasked classmates. In the case of face coverings during the riot of the Delta variant of Covid-19, nothing can be more divisive than permitting some to cover and some to disdain coverings as the virus runs rampant in Florida.
The immortal words “Give me liberty or give me death” have returned to relevance in the South. As we watch the most infectious virus in our history sweep the most unvaccinated states in the country, we have to ask if that is the price of liberty for the vulnerable populations among us. It may be good politics for opportunists like Eric Schmitt and Ron DeSantis, but it is not good health policy for the rest of us. Yes, masking again is damned inconvenient, but adults can make judgments by more than their convenience, the whims of freedom and political opportunism.