Govs. DeSantis and Abbott, in denial and risking lives, have betrayed the public trust
In covid-19?s dismal fourth wave, some things haven’t changed. Vaccination still dramatically reduces the chance of serious disease. Mask-wearing and distancing are still effective tools in fighting an easily aerosolized pathogen.
But some of the pandemic’s moral mathematics have become harder to figure. Because of the delta variant, more people who did the right thing and took the vaccines are testing positive for covid (though they are far less likely to become dangerously ill). Whole nations that did the right thing — such as Israel, which has vaccinated as much as 78 percent of its population age 12 and older — are seeing new cases rise. The delta virus falls on the just and the unjust.
The gradual fading of vaccine protectiveness highlights and accentuates global inequities. Who in wealthy countries should get a third dose before health professionals and the vulnerable elderly in poor countries get their first? Are we left with a brutal vaccine nationalism as far as the eye can see? Will such nationalism be punished by new monsters that emerge from the global genetic churn?
In a few areas, however, the fourth wave has brought greater clarity. As covid’s third wave seemed to be fading in the spring, and the promise of normality was in the air, Republican governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas came out strong — through legislative measures and executive orders — against masks and vaccine mandates. The issue had a growing symbolic power among right-wing populists, who are always searching for ways to operationalize their contempt for government. Accusations of covid-related coercion now constitute another front in the culture war. DeSantis and Abbott took full political advantage.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/19/desantis-abbott-florida-texas-covid-denial-risks-lives/
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