With new spikes in COVID-19, this is another round of mandates looming large. Gov. Newsome of California announces reimposed mask mandates, while Gov DeSantis of Florida tells businesses they CANNOT mandate masks.
It has been an exhausting 16 months beginning in March 2020 when the pandemic assaulted American life. Throughout the balance of 2020, there were warring factions on the left and the right on the correct path forward. Stay-at-home orders, reduced public gatherings, and mask mandates were at the core of those disagreements.
In May 2020 as followers of then-President Trump rallied around his call to “liberate the states”, conservative media called the stay-at-home orders as an attack on religious freedom to gather in churches. Protesters stormed the Michigan Capital, and people were equally vocal on both sides of the myriad of arguments and debates.
As President Trump declared that the COVID-19 virus would “disappear” like “magic” in the spring, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths surged. Florida, Texas, and Arizona, three of the larger Republican-run states were among those that saw the largest of those surges.
As Trump’s term in office neared its end, the numbers jumped exponentially again in January 2021. With the introduction of new vaccines to combat the virus, which Trump’s Warp-Speed helped to accelerate. But with no foundational plan to distribute the vaccines in place, the new Biden administration made vaccine distribution and vaccination their first priority.
As the rollout began to take hold in early 2021, as many as 4 million people a week were being vaccinated, and it appeared that COVID-19 was being brought under control. Then, new variants of the virus began to appear. Still, many Americans on the right refused to be vaccinated, again arguing the personal freedoms of their body as their defense.
In May 2021, GOv. DeSantis of Florida stood by his vow to disallow cruise lines to requires vaccination and/or mask mandates to board ships.
Today, new reports state that 99+% of all new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are among unvaccinated people.
Another Round of Mandates Looming
Japan is opening the Olympics next month as they go into a 4th lockdown. As COVID-19 is again on the rise because of the new Delta variant, Governor Newsome in June 2021 has announced another round of mandates in California. At the same time, Governor DeSantis continues to resist any type of mandates in Florida. He refused to allow businesses to mandate masks and/or proof of vaccinations. This affects local business, as well as the cruise industry that docks in Florida.
So, it seems, we’re living in two separate Americas: those fighting to contain and squash the spread of the virus, and those that want to ride it out and let the virus take its own course.
Conservative media continues to thought the “danger” of vaccines, despite many of the Republican leaders and/or media personalities themselves having been vaccinated, and mandates being an assault on freedom. This is aimed at personal freedom, as well as freedom of religion.
In This Episode on ABC affiliate Wink News Florida
Political psychologist, Dr.Bart Rossi, Ph.D. discusses the new orders, the politics of it, and what happens next.
