After Republicans won big on election night in the state of Iowa, in America’s heartland, Governor Kim Reynolds claimed vindication for her light-handed approach to the coronavirus pandemic.
“It was a validation of our balanced response to Covid-19,” Reynolds said of the vote. “One that is mindful of both public health and economic health.”
That was two weeks ago. Since then, the trajectory of the pandemic in Iowa, as elsewhere in the American midwest, has taken a sharp and tragic turn.
Daily confirmed cases of Covid-19 and hospitalizations are up 100% in Iowa since election night, and daily deaths are up more than 50%, hitting 41 on Tuesday. Nationwide, the United States has passed 250,000 confirmed deaths – about twice as many as any other country.
Like other Republicans torn between fighting the pandemic and fighting the culture wars, Reynolds spent months dismissing the need for a mask mandate in her state, calling it a “feelgood” measure. But new warnings from local hospitals of a dangerous overload finally drove Reynolds to reverse course this week.
“The pandemic in Iowa is the worst it has ever been,” she said. “No one wants to do this. I don’t want to do this.”
The reluctance to “do this” is not exclusive to Reynolds – but it is exclusive to one of America’s two major political parties.
Since the start of the pandemic, Republican officials across the country, cowed by Donald Trump, conspiracy-swayed constituents and lesser political calculations, have resisted asking voters to take personal action to stop the spread of Covid-19. Until recently, many of those states had escaped the worst consequences of the official dereliction, enjoying some luck in the mysterious dynamics of the virus’s spread.
But with the arrival of cooler temperatures, an increase in indoor activity and widespread pandemic fatigue, that story has changed terribly this fall, as public health experts predicted it would. With each passing week, the unwillingness of elected Republicans to act against the virus is taking an increasing toll, health experts say.
And the mistrust in basic public health guidelines that Republicans have sown has a further, potentially destructive cost yet to be paid: the climate of mistrust seems likely to hamper the country’s imminent effort to escape the virus’s clutches through universal vaccination.
“It’s not just that the anti-mask, anti-distancing, anti-testing Republicans are wrong as a matter of public policy,” tweeted Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative anti-Trump Bulwark. “It’s not even that they lack empathy for those who suffer. They relish their lack of empathy. They glory in their callousness. They are proud of their inhumanity.”
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
