Pittsboro, NC – Last week, the Chatham County Board Of Education held an hour of discussion without dissent and passed a mask mandate for every breathing featherless biped in our school system. I would have still had a problem with doing only secondary and high school environments, but their fervency extended to taking the elementary students into the new rules. In doing so, they took on the group of children least likely to get COVID, the least likely to spread it, the highest student mask maintenance for teachers and the group most likely to experience the highest level of inhibited verbal development, as they (especially K-2) are far less verbal and rely on facial expressions for development.
Not to be outdone, this week the Chatham County Board Of Commissioners are using the still publicly data-deprived CDC new guidelines and turning them into a countywide indoor mask mandate for all government buildings. They have the power to do this, but given the state of discussion on this in modern America, I just don’t trust them to stop there. A good rule in any government is that once you get public control, it is remarkably hard to give it up.
If a private business wants to do that, it is their right. If a person wants to continue masking, indoors, outdoors or alone in their car, it is their right. I have no problem with either one. At that point, it is a choice, not a mandate.
The Chatham County Board Of Health worries about the unvaccinated and is wise to do so. I just wonder how they are going to get more people to get a shot, when their first instincts seem to be along the lines of continuing to wear masks anyway. That is not a gesture that even an amateur salesman would get anywhere with.
If this is “reimagining the future”, you can keep it. Who knew that “flattening the curve” would last until the last case of COVID was eliminated? How long did that take with Smallpox, the last great virus that was actually zeroed out?