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State bureaucrats are moving to impose permanent regulations that would mandate the following and more on all Michigan businesses: mask wearing whenever employees are within six feet of someone else, daily health screenings, extensive record keeping, and keeping a “COVID-19 safety coordinator” on-site. Retail stores, personal care services, and other businesses open to the public would have to become the mask police: They would be required to make all customers wear masks, vaccinated or not.
Many of these rules are based on mandates put in place last spring by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. As such, many are based on outdated scientific knowledge about how COVID-19 spreads. For instance, employers must “increase facility cleaning and disinfection” and “prohibit workers from using other workers’ phones, desks, offices or other work tools and equipment.” These rules were dreamed up when public health experts thought the virus could easily spread via surface contact. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently said there’s a one in 10,000 chance [3] of getting infected from touching a contaminated surface.
The rules make no accommodations for vaccinations. The word vaccine doesn’t even appear in the rules. This means that even if a movie theater or bowling alley has fully vaccinated its entire staff and is in a community with no cases, masks are mandated at all times.
Other mandates in the proposed rules may be impossible for businesses to comply with. Sports stadiums must, for instance, “establish safe exit procedures for patrons,” such as dismissing attendees by section. Would the Detroit Lions need to prevent people from individually leaving Ford Field early during a blowout loss (a common occurrence)? That may be illegal [4].
Alberto Mingardi writes wisely [5]. A slice:
During the last year, I have asked myself a number of times what [Vilfredo] Pareto would have made of the public debate in the time of Covid19- of our increasing inability to cope with the tragedy of death, the tendency to “medicalize” the public debate, the many attempts (at least, in Italy) to lay the blame for the epidemic on the allegedly reckless behavior of youngsters, the faith in increasingly bestowing public funds on society as a way to mend whatever social ills, including those the pandemic brought about, the need for “magical” solutions which feed the public debate, the new role of scientists in public policy making and the transformation of some of them in “influencers” with star power.
I cannot say what Pareto would have made of all of it, but I suspect it would not have made him more inclined to any optimism about the fate of liberalism.
To describe Anthony Fauci as a menace to humanity is to engage in extreme understatement. And kudos to Rep. Jim Jordan for standing up to this menace [6]. (HT Phil Magness)
Wall Street Journal columnist James Freeman also takes on the menace-to-humanity who is Fauci [7]. Two slices:
Dr. Anthony Fauci is the government infectious disease expert who now refuses to provide his expert opinion on infectious disease. It’s a safe bet he won’t stop appearing on television—as long as polite media folk don’t demand too much transparency regarding his Covid advice. But questioned by Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) at a Thursday congressional hearing on Covid-19, Dr. Fauci simply refused to answer an appropriate question about Covid-19.
…..
Dr. Fauci’s refusal to consider the larger societal impact of his Covid advice is an ongoing national tragedy. As politicians were following his advice and locking down last spring, Dr. Fauci described [8] the impact on Americans as “inconvenient.” Millions of lost jobs and more than $4 trillion in federal debt later—amid abundant evidence that lockdowns didn’t work—he’s still urging restrictions on normal life. Last year he also acknowledged [9] that he did no cost-benefit analysis and really had no idea what the consequences were for students: “I don’t have a good explanation, or solution to the problem of what happens when you close schools, and it triggers a cascade of events that could have some harmful circumstances.”
Dr. Fauci’s defenders might argue that he was simply doing his best to apply his expertise on infectious disease and that it’s not his job to notice the economic and non-Covid health problems resulting from his policies.
But there is no excuse for today’s refusal to share his expert opinion on the appropriate Covid measurement to determine when normal life can resume. Dr. Fauci spent several minutes fencing with Rep. Jordan and saying liberty could be restored when the level of infection is “low enough.” But the government doctor repeatedly refused to put a number on it.
It’s impossible to believe that Dr. Fauci hasn’t thought about this question and formed an opinion. He may be able to dodge accountability for all the non-Covid destruction. But he owes the public a straight answer to the most important question at the center of his area of expertise.
How many patients in America would tolerate this behavior from their own physicians?
John Tamny sensibly asks “Where’s Dr. Fauci as another Corona-myth dies? [10]”
Jay Bhattacharya accurately calls Fauci “probably the number one anti-vaxxer in the country. [11]” Here’s the full comment from this courageous co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration [12]:
“Dr. Fauci is probably the number one anti-vaxxer in the country in some sense, because he has modeled behavior that has made people think the vaccine won’t give you back your life, but it will. It’s an incredibly effective vaccine. You know, he was wearing a mask. He has been vaccinated, I don’t really understand what he’s trying to do here.”
“Lockdowns do not suppress the virus, studies show. [13]”
J.D. Tuccille decries the terrible impact of Covid-19 lockdowns and school closures on children [14]. A slice:
Anecdotally, my wife, a pediatrician, has seen a huge surge in depression, anxiety, and self-harm in the months of the pandemic. Deprived of social interaction with classmates, teammates, and friends for a period of time that constitutes a significant percentage of their short lives, kids are falling apart [15]. Too many of them are having suicidal thoughts [16] in a world distorted beyond recognition and acceptability. And there’s no doubt as to the culprit.
“Pandemic life is not conducive to normal developmental events and this is having a significant impact,” comments [17] Mamilda Robinson, a specialty director and clinical instructor of psychiatric mental health at Rutgers School of Nursing.
As Phil Magness would say, the straw man is stomping across Ontario [19].
Here’s GMU Econ alum Dan Mitchell on vaccine passports [20].