Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and the Centers for Disease Control have announced that masks can soon come off indoors in most places. On Wednesday, the governor set the state threshold for mask removal at 70% of Maryland adults receiving at least one dose of vaccine. And a day later, the CDC followed with guidance saying fully vaccinated people, meaning those two weeks past their final shot, can stop wearing masks inside, and outside in crowded spaces.
Is the timing right? There are quite a few experts, including a former state health secretary, who think it’s premature; we tend to side with them. The country has certainly made strides in both reducing positivity rates and getting vaccines into arms, but there are also areas that are seriously lagging. And that’s not even considering that kids younger than 12 are not yet approved to receive any coronavirus vaccine, while 12-to-15-year-olds just this week got approval to receive the Pfizer vaccine.
We realize lifting indoor mask mandates doesn’t mean people have to take off their masks. Local governments can keep restrictions in place, and people can choose to act responsibly indoors and stay masked up until more groups are vaccinated. To all that we can only say: Seen any lines at your local filling station lately?
If Americans needed any reminder of how individuals left to their own devices are not always to be relied upon, they need only look to the gas pumps. This past week has been a lesson in the me-first nature of human beings left to their own devices. The recent ransomware attack that temporarily shut down the Colonial Pipeline, the biggest single source of fuel (including gasoline) to the East Coast, was made dramatically worse by the gas hoarding that’s followed. Long lines, higher prices and spot shortages struck as people freaked out and filled every vehicle and container they could get their hands on. Gas stations emptied like the toilet paper shelves at grocery stores a year ago.
Look, we believe in individual liberty and freedom as much as anyone else. It’s a bedrock principle of this nation. But we also believe in stop signs, speed limits and other civil laws that help keep people from inadvertently doing serious damage to each other. The COVID-19 pandemic has required this kind of government involvement.
There are far worse things people must deal with in life than wearing a strip of cloth or paper across their nose and mouth for a few more months. Contracting a virus that has killed more than 583,000 Americans, for example. Things are clearly getting better on that front, but a bit of patience is still required. Better to put an emphasis on encouraging more people to get the vaccine than to drop our defenses before we’ve achieved herd immunity, which is widely believed to 70% to 80% (and that’s not just adults or one-half of a two-shot vaccine course).
No doubt, most people make the correct decisions when it comes to public health without executive orders or health department mandates. Alas, that’s just not good enough.
This editorial first appeared in The Baltimore Sun on Thursday. This commentary should be considered another point of view and not necessarily the opinion or editorial policy of The Dominion Post.
