TThree months ago, the Republican governor of Missouri refused to wear a mask in a store because he said he would not let the government tell him what to do. Mike Parson visited a hardware store to revamp it after he lifted Missouri’s coronavirus lockdown over the objections of health professionals and mayors of major cities.
Parson said the worst of the pandemic was over and the economic impact of the shutdown was worse than the virus. As for masks, the governor vehemently stated “there was a lot of information on both sides” about whether he should wear one so he would not oblige people to do so.
Three months later, Covid-19 was growing up in Missouri and in many other parts of the Midwest thinking they had escaped the worst of the pandemic.
Healthcare professionals predict a sharp increase in deaths in the region in the coming weeks that will be significantly reduced in some states by the politicians who follow Donald Trump’s leadership in undermining medical advice and in the demand for the value of masks.
Anthony Fauci, the president of President Coronavirus, recently warned the political leaders of the Midwest to follow science.
“Some states don’t do that,” he said. “We hope they all think about what happens if you do not stick to it. We’ve seen it in plain sight in the southern states that are growing. ‘
Coronavirus deaths in the Midwest remain a fraction of the nearly 160,000 recorded during the US pandemic. But Missouri is second only to Oklahoma in the number of new positive tests for the virus in the past two weeks. The state has recorded more deaths than Japan and several European countries, and more new cases per day than Germany. Earlier this week, the White House task force listed coronavirus as a primary area of concern.
Modeling by the PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia shows that coronavirus cases are likely to go up by August.
“It is now clear that from Indiana, through Ohio and to Kentucky and Missouri, as well as northern Illinois and Michigan, there is a substantially increased risk in the entire region,” it said.
Some in the Midwest thought they had escaped the worst of the pandemic because coronavirus jumped across the country from Washington state to New York and the northeast, and then struck the south.
That respect can prove deadly, as the initial willingness to take the virus seriously by following lockdown orders gave frustration to job losses in the Midwest, while deaths remained relatively low. Complication sets in when people get tired of staying home.
The PolicyLab study found an example in Milwaukee county, Wisconsin, where social distance has dropped from 73% at its peak to just 30%. Almost no delegates wore masks to the state Republican convention in Green Bay last month, although many were elderly and were sitting close together in a hall.
Alarmed by emerging infections, the Wisconsin governor declared last week an emergency of public health and required masks to wear inside. But that immediately fell victim to the coronavirus policy, because at least 16 county sheriffs said they would not enforce the order.
The Florence County Sheriff’s office told residents, “Wear a mask if you want, if you don’t want to, that’s fine too.” In Oneida province, the sheriff said the governor’s order was “in violation of the constitution,” while the Racine county sheriff called the order “government over.”
Some praised the sheriffs for standing up for individual freedom, while others accused them of politicizing a health situation, and of selecting and choosing laws to enforce.
A doctor at the forefront of coronavirus control at a major hospital in Wisconsin was desperate.
‘This has become so political. There would have been a direct message from the beginning about wearing masks to protect others. It’s too late now. In the current climate, I think this is unstoppable and many more people will die than they would have if politics did not get in the way of health, ‘said the doctor, who did not want to be identified because the corporation that gave the hospital no permission to speak.
The University of Washington’s Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation has warned that Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds’ refusal to require masks in public spaces will cost 700 extra lives over the next three months. It predicted the number of coronavirus deaths at about 13 per day in Iowa at the end of October compared to current policy compared to less than two than 95% of people using face mask.
Iowa has the highest per capita number of Covid-19 infections in the region.
Reynolds has refused to wear masks because she said they are “not a silver bullet” and she trusts people to do the right thing. But research shows that only about one-third of Iowans use masks in accordance with federal advice.
Doctors say the lack of face coverage combined with Reynolds’ decision to reopen businesses and lift social distances contributed to an increase in coronavirus cases in July.
Dr. Louis Katz, the medical director of Scott County, who struggles with one of the largest bends in the state, owes it to the mayor.
“We have no doubt that this is related to rapid reopening than many of us would have preferred,” he told a news conference last week.
Katz said the median age for those testing positive for coronavirus has dropped sharply, from about 50 years old to under 30, due to “failures in social distance by younger adults, who feel ignorant”.
Twenty doctors in intensive care in Iowa signed an open song pleading with the public to take the pandemic seriously after ICU units in Des Moines were completed and extra beds had to be added.
“We are concerned about the path we are on and what will lie ahead for all of us,” the doctors said.
In the letter, the government called for “being part of the solution”.
Even those political leaders willing to listen to the health experts can limit themselves through politics.
In Kansas, Republican-controlled lawmakers are tying Governor Laura Kelly’s hands by preventing them from limiting the number of people in bars and restaurants or closing businesses until mid-September, even if cases of coronavirus increase. Republicans said Kelly did not need to have those powers because there would be no second wave after September.
As it is, the numbers are already climbing.
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