ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” article. It is an editorial by the editor.
State Rep. Mary Whiteford, who represents all of Allegan County except the City of Wayland and Dorr, Leighton and Wayland townships, is dead wrong in her perception of what needs to be done about Covid-19 in terms of legislative policy.
Her recent newsletter said she and her Republican colleagues in the Michigan House came up with a plan that she maintains gives “the people of Michigan more certainty and control in these challenging times – allowing for data-driven COVID-19 responses that reflect conditions in local communities.
“The plan relies on science-based, county-level data to guide decisions to keep people healthy and determine appropriate safety measures.
“By working in partnership with qualified members of our state’s medical community to shape the best COVID-19 responses for Michigan, this plan will prevent local communities from being forced to conform to the same default cookie-cutter response as all other communities across the state.
“I support this plan because it aligns with the professional advice we’ve heard from local health experts about the importance of local strategies to protect both lives and livelihoods of all Michigan residents. If this plan is implemented, the people of Michigan will no longer be left in the dark about the rationale behind unilateral executive orders imposed on them without their input.”
Horse hockey.
I support a “cookie cutter, one size fits all” approach rather than the disaster that has been America’s political response to the worst health crisis in a century.
President Donald Trump was right when he described the Coronavirus as an invisible enemy, and I’ve come to believe it should be fought collectively by everybody, like a war, in which we all do the same things together to win this war.
We surely cannot win such a conflict by all municipalities practicing different strategies, some none at all. United we stand, divided we fall.
No less than Trump’s favorite TV show, “Fox & Friends” this week included commentary about the different ways Kansas tackled the virus last summer. A mask mandate was applied to the entire state, but some counties opted out of the guidelines, much like Ms. Whiteford and Michigan GOP lawmakers favor in their plan.
The eventual result was the counties with lax regulations absorbed massive increases in numbers of cases and deaths. The counties that enforced masking up more strictly, meanwhile, enjoyed decreases in the same categories.
Time and time again, studies and data have proven masking up reduces risk of catching and dying of the Coronavirus. It’s not an absolute guarantee, but I can’t think of anything that is.
There should be no argument against the assertion that the United States has done the worst job on the planet of handling the pandemic, being No. 1 in cases and deaths. The reasons essentially are that we’ve had a haphazard, every man or woman for himself or herself attitude and too many of us have not heeded advice of science and medical experts.
It’s a savage indictment of what kind of society to which we have deteriorated, politically, socially and economically.
Ms. Whiteford, a nurse by trade, should know better. Instead she apparently opts for being a political toady for backwards Republican Party and Trumpian orthodoxy.
Perhaps the greatest irony is that the last sentence of her December newsletter opines: “We’ve all got to work together toward a common goal to get through this.”
You can’t do just that when everybody is permitted to do their own thing.
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