Why Did Mississippi Drop the Mask Mandate?
In Studs Terkel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Good War, there is an interview with an American soldier who was on the German front on V-E day, the day Germany surrendered. In his account, when victory was announced, many of the troops fired their guns in the air in jubilation. The bullets, being subject to gravity as bullets typically are, did not disappear into space, and instead rained down on the very army that fired them. The solder lamented that, although the military covered it up, many soldiers died on V-E from from falling bullets. From friendly fire.
That interview haunts me. I can’t think of many things more awful than making it through the horrors of World War II, only to die on the very last day because some moron in your own army thought it was a good idea to fire a gun in the air.
This also applies to COVID. We have a vaccine. We have a path to getting over this pandemic. Instead of being careful in the last weeks and months of Coronavirus, many people have chosen to abandon all caution at the precise time when a little care could bring this nightmare to a peaceful close. Shooting guns in the air on the last night of a war or throwing our masks away just as the vaccine is becoming available are morally the same thing. The exact same moronic thing.
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On March 3, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves made Mississippi the second state after Texas to drop the mask mandate and relax capacity restrictions for businesses. Reeves may think this is the right move for the Mississippi economy, but for the safety of citizens, it is indefensible.
Consider these facts.
Mississippi is in the top ten nationwide in coronavirus deaths per 100,000 people.
Mississippi is in the bottom ten nationwide in vaccination rate. At the time the mask mandate was dropped, about 10% of Mississippians had gotten both shots. At the time of this writing, this number has risen to only 13%, and we now rank 49th among the states in two-shot vaccination rates.
Coronavirus disproportionally kills Blacks, the poor, and people with obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.
Mississippi has the highest percentage of Blacks of any state in the U.S., the highest poverty rate, and among the highest rates of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.
We are 47th overall in percentage of citizens without health insurance, with about 15% having no insurance at all.
This is as combustable a combination as I can imagine. Mississippi should not be the first or second state to open up. It should be almost the last. The COVID death rates alone should have been enough to give the governor pause.
The most perplexing thing about dropping the mask mandate is that the mandate costs the state no money whatsoever. The state doesn’t buy masks, citizens do. And mask wearing does not necessarily negatively impact businesses. It may, in fact, be helpful for the economy. The mask mandate makes it safe for businesses to open by protecting employees, and by allowing potential customers to feel more comfortable going out. The only thing dropping the mandate does is ensure that more people will get infected. How can more sick people be good for the economy? Hospitalizations cost money. Disability from “long COVID” — coronavirus infections that can last months without clearing — will become a huge burden for our society. Every case prevented can reduce such calamities.
Mississippi had one of the worst economies in the nation prior to COVID. It ranked 51st in the nation in household income before the pandemic, behind every other state and Washington, DC. More that most states, protecting the Mississippi economy isn’t about reducing restrictions on big businesses. It is about protecting low income citizens, for whom one terrible break such as a COVID infection could saddle a family with costly medical bills, plunging it into destitution.
There was no rational reason for the state to open up now. None. Vaccinations are proceeding at a reasonable pace, even if slower than in other states, and every day that the number of vaccinated people rises, the risk of opening up falls. Time is on our side. The improving odds as time passes could even be leveraged (how about that for a business term, Governor?) to the state’s advantage. Suppose the state of Mississippi, instead of opening up, set a vaccination goal and promised to begin opening up when more people show up for their shots?
It could, for example, promise to open up when 70% of the state’s citizens are vaccinated. There could even be a graduated approach, with restaurants allowed 30% capacity when 25% are vaccinated, 50% when 50% are vaccinated, and 100% when 75% are vaccinated. This simple plan would would encourages people to get vaccinated, and it would strongly incentivize (another fancy MBA word, Gov) businesses to pitch in to advance the community effort. It would encourage people to get vaccinated with the goal of helping themselves and their neighbors get back to work. How often have communities worked together towards a common political and social good lately?
But a plan like that has a huge drawback. It would make sense. It would show care and concern for others in the civic arena. Good behavior, but hardly the thing that wins elections. Instead, Gov. Reeves has decided to take a path that is much more expensive and selfish, but likely to provoke the kind of division that will benefit him and his party in the polls. Expensive and selfish make great politics in Mississippi.
