Republicans want the right to open-carry COVID

1 in 3 new infections are in states with no mask or vaccine mandates

Have you ever been to Florida in August?  I have.  Walk out a door or get out of your car and it’s like you’re wrapped in wet burlap.  The air tugs at you like a rip tide, trying to pull you under.  I haven’t read anything written by medical professionals that specifically states that heat and humidity are an excellent environment if you want to spread COVID, but statistics released by the White House today seem to point in that direction.

One in three new COVID infections are occurring in Florida and Texas, states which aren’t exactly known for their comfy, balmy weather in the months of July and August.  The CDC reported yesterday that the weekly moving average of cases as of Saturday was 72,000 daily.  “This represents an increase of 44 percent from the prior seven-day average and is higher than our peak of last summer,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky said. 

In the face of new figures that one in five new infections in the country are in Florida, and more than 11,500 new hospitalizations were reported today in the state, Governor Ron DeSantis blamed the media.  “Obviously the media does hysteria, you try to fear monger,” he told a press conference today.  DeSantis criticized the press for being too focused on the number of COVID cases in the state and claimed that press reporting was going to lead to people foregoing medical procedures they need.

“At the end of the day would I rather have 5,000 cases among 20 years or 500 cases among seniors? I would rather have the younger,” DeSantis claimed today, trying to put a positive spin on numbers that would be mind-blowing anywhere else.

DeSantis signed an emergency executive order last Friday banning school districts from making masks mandatory when schools open later this month in the state.  The CDC recommended that all children returning to school in areas of the country with rates of high COVID infection wear masks while indoors.  DeSantis has also banned businesses from requiring patrons to show proof of vaccination against the virus or to require masks. 

Republicans like DeSantis in Florida and Greg Abbott in Texas hate regulations and rules unless they have to do with regulating what a woman can do with her own body, then they’re all-in.  And they claim to hate “big government” and love small governments like those of cities and counties, and especially school boards which run local school systems.  The best government is the one that is “closest to the people,” Republicans like to say.

That is until they decide it’s a good idea for the state to come in and ban cities and counties from imposing mask mandates or vaccine requirements.  And oh, yes, those local school boards are just fine until they decide they want to teach children about slavery and the oppression it has caused over the centuries.  Then it’s time for the state to step in and order those same local school boards not to teach the collegiate academic discipline of critical race theory to second and third graders.

In Washington last week, some 40 to 50 House Republicans staged a march across the Capitol to the Senate in protest of requirements imposed by Nancy Pelosi that all House members wear masks when on the floor.  The protest was timed to coincide with speeches by Republican Senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Marsha Blackburn criticizing the House mandate as well as new recommendations by the CDC that masks be worn indoors, even by people who have been vaccinated in states with high rates of COVID infection.  Texas, Tennessee, and Utah all have COVID positive test rates greater than 10 percent, making all three states subject to the new CDC guidelines.

“There is no evidence, none, to suggest that yet another about-face on masking is going to keep people healthier, is going to make them healthier …” said Blackburn in her Senate speech. “So let’s call it what it is: This is left-wing hysteria. This is hysteria.”

“Hysteria” seems to be the Republican cry of the week against any recommendations that states take steps to bring their COVID case loads under control. 

Republican governors like DeSantis in Florida, Abbott in Texas, and Kristi Noem of South Dakota – all three of whom are said to have ambitions to run for the presidency, by the way -- seem to think that “freedom” will take care of the coronavirus pandemic in their states.  They believe you should be able to walk into any business or public place, like the floor of the legislature or a government building, without wearing a mask or being vaccinated.  You might be carrying the disease – there is no way for any business owner or fellow legislator or state employee to know – but in all three states, they believe your freedom to be unmasked and unvaccinated trumps the freedom of everyone else to be safe from this deadly disease.

Which is a little bit like the craze for “constitutional carry” laws that has been sweeping the country.  In the last year, five states have passed laws allowing open or concealed carry of guns without a license or permit.  The Texas “freedom to carry” law will go into effect on September 1.  Laws in Utah, Tennessee, Montana, and Iowa have already gone into effect.  Oklahoma, Kentucky, and yes, South Dakota did away with their carry-permit laws in 2019. 

So if you want to walk around carrying a deadly weapon without a license, or walk around carrying a deadly disease without a vaccination or a mask, those are your states.  Florida has so far escaped the firearm open-carry craze, but with DeSantis in office, give them time.  They already allow you to open-carry COVID because…you know…freedom.