One Small Voice: Don’t let pols decide Covid for us

by Lynn Mandaville

We are still experiencing a deadly pandemic in this country.

This pandemic is a health crisis that has been manipulated by a particular political faction to be a partisan political issue, complicated by what may or may not be legitimate interpretations of the US Constitution.

Whereas, under normal circumstances, we would be looking to medical and epidemiological experts for guidance, politicians are telling us what they think is fact, and giving us their opinions on methods of mitigating COVID-19, which is now mutating alarmingly due to the fact that there was no effective leadership in stemming the tide when it first appeared in 2020.

Finger pointing and the assigning of blame has taken a more prominent role than studying the disease and gathering data that would be useful in protecting Americans from the varying degrees of harm this virus has and can continue to cause.

As of today, more than 625,000 people have died in the US from COVID-19.  There have been almost 38 million reported cases of it.  The newest variant, Delta, is present in all 50 states, and is raging in some of them, most notably in FL, where the governor has banned school districts from mandating masks in the classrooms of FL schools, at the peril of losing state funding to districts, and lost pay to school administrators who defy the ban.

Though here in AZ COVID’s Delta variant is not quite raging, we are seeing a significant uptick in cases among school age children who are not eligible to receive vaccine.  But here in AZ, we also have a governor who has banned school districts from mandating masks in schools, with the same threats for disobedience.

AZ Governor Ducey has put a cherry on top of his COVID sundae by making residents eligible to receive funding earmarked for public schools if they must make other arrangements for their children to be educated should they contract the disease and need to be quarantined.

In other words, if you send your kids to public school, where mask mitigation is only voluntary, and your kids get COVID, you can quarantine them and you can siphon off public dollars and have your kid educated some other way, thereby depriving the local school district of its legally entitled revenue.

While this alone is insane (in my opinion), what our governor, and Governor DeSantis of FL, is doing is essentially taking local control of school districts out of the hands of the voting and tax-paying residents by hamstringing the local boards of education.  And this, in my estimation, is entirely inappropriate, and maybe even unconstitutional.

I know that people are painfully divided over the issue of masking, as they are over the issue of vaccinating.

And I don’t think we’re ever going to get over the emotional attachment most people have to their chosen stand on either.

But a couple of things I am sure of.

First and foremost, it is entirely wrong for people on either side of the issue to be mean-spirited (or worse, threatening and violent) toward those who don’t adhere to their particular view.  In America we are free to hold our own opinions, and even to talk about them in a civil manner.

We do not, however, have a right to assault others physically (tear masks off the faces of those who choose to wear them), or to abuse them verbally if they wear or do not wear masks.

Second, I believe that local boards of education should have sole discretion over the operations in their school district, and that, in general, they have the overall welfare of children at heart, and do not seek to do children harm intentionally.

Some citizens forget that school board members have been elected to office by those who care to go out and vote, believing that these people are qualified to speak and act for them in the best interests of their kids.  And those who forget that think that they, themselves, are better qualified to make or override decisions made by those boards.

Many people don’t realize that members of school boards, particularly those in MI, spend many hours of their own time getting further educated in the areas necessary to make those decisions for the public.  They attend conferences, they take supplemental classes and courses, and they keep themselves abreast of trends, issues, and, maybe most importantly, the feelings of their voters, when they come together to decide important things like health and safety in the face of a deadly pandemic.

Third, science is getting treated with disdain by people who don’t understand or have forgotten the scientific process, or the fact that, while science doesn’t change, the findings of the scientific process DO change.  That’s the nature of the beast.  Study continues, new theories are posited, study continues, findings are published and more theories abound, more data is collected and studied, and newer findings are uncovered.  Each new iteration reveals new truths that supersede the old.  (Hence the changes in recommendations for mask-wearing.)

New information does not mean science purposely misled us.  It means we are too impatient, and we expect perfection from science from the get-go, instead of respecting the process and using the best information and practices we have along the spectrum of discovery.

At this point in COVID-19 we know some things, and only suspect some other things.

• We know COVID can kill some people.
• We know that some survivors of COVID exhibit long-term effects of the disease, some of which can be life-threatening, life-altering, and life-long.
• We know that the disease is mutating, and that the newer strains seem to be hardier, quicker to infect, and that children are becoming more susceptible than they were to early SARS-CoV-2.
• We know that with kids back in school more children are becoming infected.
• We know that when there is a surge of infections, hospitals fill up with patients who are suffering badly with the disease, and that when that happens medical personnel become overburdened with critical care responsibilities, and, subsequently, those personnel develop mental health problems due to that stress (PTSD, severe depression, and suicide among the various disorders).
• We know that mask-wearing can be tedious among those of us whose health situations allow us to tolerate them.

We only suspect that we have certain rights as Americans to make certain decisions about our own bodies.  These rights seem to be disputed on different levels by different sexes at different times, and don’t seem to take into account that the very social contract by which those rights are granted also has some bearing on the social obligations we have toward our fellow Americans in certain, unusual and uncertain circumstances.

The single thing that bothers me most is the seeming lack of compassion on the part of those with the biggest mouths, specifically the politicians who seek to either add to their political power bases (Governors Ducey and DeSantis) or to line their own pockets (with allegiances to drug companies in which they invest their personal fortunes) or fill their campaign war chests.

These are the people who care the least about the American people and their American school children.

These are the people who care the least about the democratic process, particularly at the local level in local school boards of education.

These are people who choose to ignore what they learned in school about the scientific process and are more than willing to let misinformation and disinformation rule the day.

These are the people who stir up dissent and division rather than seek bipartisan cooperation at a time of extreme need for seeking the common good.

I see these people, who exist on both sides of the political fence, as an enemy to be aware of, and from whom to steer a wide berth.

These politicians are failing us.

It differs from state to state, governor to governor, and politician to politician.

But the thing that remains constant is that we, the people, and our children, have become their victims rather than the people they have sworn to serve.

It would behoove us all to show some respect for our local school boards.  They are being pulled in different directions by health departments and parent groups, and they are being manipulated (in some states) by governors who have no business micromanaging local school districts.

These boards truly want to serve in the best interests of all the children, but too many cooks do spoil the soup, and boards can serve better if left to sort things out without the drama.

Set aside your emotions, if you can, and try to see things from a purely academic point of view.

In other words, think for yourselves.  Do your own research from reliable sources and talk openly about your true concerns.  Don’t rely on the pols to tell you how you should react to a health problem which is unlike anything this country has seen in a hundred years. Offer solutions instead of recrimination.  Share information in a spirit of cooperation.  Act respectfully towards those who have willingly placed themselves in a position of serving education through locally elected office.

Our approach needn’t be difficult.  In fact, it can be quite simple.

As Kurt Vonnegut wrote in his novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, there is only one rule here.  “Goddammit, you’ve got to be kind.”