A growing number of red state governors are finally embracing mask mandates as COVID-19 spreads uncontrolled across the entire country.
The scientific community reached the consensus long ago that wearing masks can save lives and dramatically decrease the spread of the coronavirus.
President Trump, however, helped to turn mask-wearing into a political statement, and many Republican governors have joined him in resisting calls to mandate their use. Continue reading.
A growing number of Republican governors, including some who had written off mask mandates as unenforceable or unacceptable to freedom-loving Americans, are now requiring people to cover their faces in public — a response to escalating coronavirus outbreaks overwhelming hospitals across the country.
After eight months of preaching personal responsibility in place of mandates, these governors have brought their states in line with much of the world by instituting the simple requirement backed by science but, in the United States, shot through with politics.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who once dismissed mask mandates as “feel good” measures, issued a limited order this week, as her state topped 2,000 coronavirus deaths. The state’s senior U.S. senator, 87-year-old Charles E. Grassley, said Tuesday he tested positive for the virus but reported “feeling good.” And a bipartisan group of Midwestern governors, in a joint video address, stressed that widespread distribution of a vaccine was a long way off and advised their constituents that returning to normal sometime next year first required surviving the holidays. Continue reading.
Seven governors — all Republicans — have requested and received federal major disaster declarations for their states for the COVID-19 pandemic but have still refused to issue stay-at-home orders for their constituents.
As of Tuesday, 42 states have implemented statewide emergency orders mandating social distancing in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus and requiring residents to stay home at most times.
But eight governors have resisted explicit guidance from Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who said on April 1 that the Trump administration’s guidance on social distancing should be considered “a national stay-at-home order” that all governors should implement. Continue reading.
