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Farce: DC Mayor Rejects Mask Compromise at Gyms, Warns Mandate May Extend Through Thanksgiving

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  August 12, 2021 12:00 PM

Last we heard from Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, she was flagrantly violating the spirit, then the letter, of her own preposterous mask mandate.  But she's made clear that she considers herself a special person who deserves special treatment --  and ultimately just does whatever she wants.  Alas, the little people have no choice but to respond to her various edicts.  Some gyms in the District approached the city with a compromise offer in order to resolve the issue of masked exercise being inconvenient and unworkable (and, in fact, potentially dangerous).  The imperious city government responded...predictably:

Masks, unlike getting the vaccine, are a perpetual irritation, especially in certain circumstances like conversing, eating, and exercising. On that last front, a coalition of Washington, D.C., gym owners decided to approach the city with a bargain: They would require customers to be vaccinated if the city would grant them a waiver from the mask mandate. This deal was a win-win and should have been a no-brainer for the city. The vaccines are a much, much more effective and enduring anti-coronavirus measure than the masks are. Getting people vaccinated is the whole point: No one should want to wear masks forever. If business owners would rather require vaccination than masks, then the government should absolutely let them do that.  So of course, the city said no. "I asked about the fitness coalition's request for a waiver from mask mandate if they go vaccine only," Christina Henderson, a member of the city council, said in a tweet. "DC Health is not granting waivers at the moment. I asked what metrics we need to meet to rescind the mask mandate. They are hesitant to tie to any particular metric."

They won't allow private businesses that basically rely on customers being able to breathe freely to substitute a vaccine requirement for the mask mandate.  Indoor masking is required, even for the fully vaccinated.  And they won't even publicly commit to benchmarks under which the masks can come off.  It's just indefinite, open-ended control.  And the government, whose leader clearly doesn't really care what her rules are, is saying that the mandate could stand through Thanksgiving, or longer.  Based on what?  Who knows:

D.C. health officials hope the indoor mask mandate can be dropped by Thanksgiving — but that may not be possible if the numbers don’t improve.  As D.C. enters its second week of a new mask mandate and the delta variant spreads, the number of people getting tested at pop-up testing sites has jumped. The number of new cases is rising daily, though, and the number of people getting vaccinated is stagnant, at about 1,000 people per day.  Patrick Ashley, a senior deputy director of the D.C. health department, said the mask mandate is likely to be in effect for weeks to come. 

"Weeks"? Try "months." And why not "years," just to be "safe"?  DC would be in the upper third of all states on vaccination rates, but that's not good enough, apparently.  As for Bowser's refusal to set standards for lifting the requirements, her hesitancy could stem from how weak the implementation case was in the first place. Cases are up a bit, but as Allahpundit points out, hospitalizations haven't really budged (hospitals in DC aren't even close to being overwhelmed), and deaths remain flat -- as in, flat-lined: "In mid-July, shortly before Bowser ordered the new indoor mask mandate, the city was averaging 56 hospitalizations for COVID. Today, 12 days after the mandate took effect, it's averaging ... 58. Average deaths per day are 0.0. The last time Washington averaged as much as one death per day was May."  

And yet, the indoor mask mandate for all people, including fully-vaccinated residents trying to run on a treadmill, is firmly in place and not going anywhere.  Science.  Blue state residents might want to brace for more restrictions if and when seasonal surges come their way.  The South and other warm areas are seeing their numbers go up right now (very badly in areas with low vaccination rates), but seasonal effects could well mean that spikes will be delayed and hit elsewhere in the fall and winter (thus, the UK Delta curve 'preview' might apply on a rolling scale in the US, dependent on region, climate, and other factors):


These tweets claim DeSantis has "essentially banned" mitigation measures in Florida, which is wrong.  He's instituted a compromise plan on school masking, and while statewide requirements have been largely lifted, businesses and local governments have flexibility and are implementing different rules.  The absence of sweeping government mandates is not the same thing as a "ban," which is curiously difficult for some people to comprehend.  DeSantis has also championed the vaccines. Florida now boasts an above-average vaccination rate, compared to other states, and one of the highest vaccine rates of any Trump-won state.  They're still getting clobbered right now, almost entirely among unvaccinated people.  As the Delta spikes start to come down in warm-weather, high-risk places and vacation destinations, cooler temperatures may shift the Delta wave to northern states.  That's likely a truism, not a "deflection."  Fending off major problems is much easier, of course, with more people vaccinated.  For instance, New Jersey is now having an issue (as the governor heads to Italy for a vacation at his estate), but they're a top-ten vaxxed state, so their overall pain will likely be less acute or overwhelming than it otherwise could be. I'll leave you with a visual illustration of the vaccines working:

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That graph comes from Texas, incidentally, where Governor Abbott is trying to curb an ongoing Delta spike: