Never Mind
It sort of slipped by under the radar last week, with everyone paying attention to passage of a bill to more than double the number of IRS agents, and the FBI raid of a former president’s house.
But the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, quietly gave notice that we no longer need to engage in six feet of social distancing…and unvaccinated people no longer need to quarantine.
After being so harsh on citizens who have said all along that the one-size-fits-all rules on such things were inappropriate, now the agency says looser rules are just fine—even though there is really no significant development in the science to suggest why the change was needed.
Immediately, I was reminded of the “Saturday Night Live” character Emily Litella, who would rant and rave about something, only to find out that she didn’t hear it correctly…then she would smile and say, “Never Mind,” as if that made it all okay.
Pardon my cynicism, but it’s warranted given how some in government craved power, and keeping as much of it as possible. Even the Washington Post proclaimed the new government position by noting that this loosening of many of its recommendations was, in their words (no doubt fed to them by the government), “a strategic shift that puts more of the onus on individuals, rather than on schools, businesses and other institutions, to limit viral spread.”
Glad they’ve figured out what we here in the free state of Iowa have known since the earliest days of COVID…individual responsibility was key in all this, regardless of any institutional rules. Individual responsibility—you know, the stuff our entire American experience and government was based upon.
Again, I welcome the change—but it’s obviously much more of a political maneuver than one based on the science. You remember the science, right? Just like everything else this administration has done regarding COVID for the past year and a half—politics over science, and polling results over common sense.
