Iowa’s COVID-19 public health emergency officially ended this week. The pandemic, of course, continues.
But Gov. Kim Reynolds has decided it’s time to treat the coronavirus like any other infectious malady, such as influenza. The state’s COVID data dashboard website has gone dark, although her administration says it will still report data weekly, just not all the data it was reporting.
This is hardly surprising, given that the governor has been downplaying COVID and trying to change the subject since the spring of 2020 when she declared that Iowa was “well into the recovery phase.” Each time the governor has tried to move on, the virus and its variants have said “not so fast.”
We’re all sick of the pandemic. But Iowans are still getting sick. Some are in the hospital. More will die. Ignoring Reynolds’ latest “mission accomplished” moment and doing what we need to do to protect ourselves and others remains the best policy, unofficially.
Some of her allies have been pointing to the fact that Iowa’s age-adjusted death rate per 100,000 people is below the national average. I don’t recall the moment when the Reynolds administration declared that nearly 9,000 Iowans dead would be OK so long as our death rate was below the national average.
During the fourth quarter of 2020, including some of the darkest, deadliest days of the pandemic in Iowa, the state’s age-adjusted death rate per 100,000 was 274.5, according to the CDC. Only five states had higher death rates during that three-month stretch from October through December.
October 2020 was when Reynolds stopped doing COVID briefings for nearly a month and hit the campaign trail to support Republican candidates. That included the Oct. 14 Trump rally in Des Moines that drew thousands of maskless supporters.
Republicans did great. Iowans with COVID, less so. On Oct. 1, the pandemic death toll in Iowa stood at 1,367. By Dec. 31, 3,898 were dead. Reynolds waited until after the election to put new public health measures in place, but by then the fire was out of control.
But really the worst legacy of her COVID response, or lack thereof, is who she ignored and who she empowered.
Instead of using her bully pulpit to shoot down rampant misinformation about masks and vaccines and quack cures, she ceded the megaphone to the loudest bullies. Instead of being the voice of reason, she crafted a pandemic response that pleased folks who had abandoned reason and facts.
Instead of listening to the clear advice of health care and public health professionals, Reynolds deliberately muddied the waters to provide cover for fringe beliefs running rampant in her party and within the Trump base, folks who saw public health pros as a tyrannical enemy. She signed a bill banning school mask mandates in the middle of the night alongside two Ankeny moms who had waded into the fever swamps of right-wing COVID conspiracies and who equated masking to child abuse.
Other moms awoke to a confusing new reality the next morning. Enjoy your “freedom.”
Now, Reynolds has canceled the emergency. Let’s hope the worst is over. And pray we don’t have another health emergency under this governor’s watch.
www.thegazette.com
But Gov. Kim Reynolds has decided it’s time to treat the coronavirus like any other infectious malady, such as influenza. The state’s COVID data dashboard website has gone dark, although her administration says it will still report data weekly, just not all the data it was reporting.
This is hardly surprising, given that the governor has been downplaying COVID and trying to change the subject since the spring of 2020 when she declared that Iowa was “well into the recovery phase.” Each time the governor has tried to move on, the virus and its variants have said “not so fast.”
We’re all sick of the pandemic. But Iowans are still getting sick. Some are in the hospital. More will die. Ignoring Reynolds’ latest “mission accomplished” moment and doing what we need to do to protect ourselves and others remains the best policy, unofficially.
Some of her allies have been pointing to the fact that Iowa’s age-adjusted death rate per 100,000 people is below the national average. I don’t recall the moment when the Reynolds administration declared that nearly 9,000 Iowans dead would be OK so long as our death rate was below the national average.
During the fourth quarter of 2020, including some of the darkest, deadliest days of the pandemic in Iowa, the state’s age-adjusted death rate per 100,000 was 274.5, according to the CDC. Only five states had higher death rates during that three-month stretch from October through December.
October 2020 was when Reynolds stopped doing COVID briefings for nearly a month and hit the campaign trail to support Republican candidates. That included the Oct. 14 Trump rally in Des Moines that drew thousands of maskless supporters.
Republicans did great. Iowans with COVID, less so. On Oct. 1, the pandemic death toll in Iowa stood at 1,367. By Dec. 31, 3,898 were dead. Reynolds waited until after the election to put new public health measures in place, but by then the fire was out of control.
But really the worst legacy of her COVID response, or lack thereof, is who she ignored and who she empowered.
Instead of using her bully pulpit to shoot down rampant misinformation about masks and vaccines and quack cures, she ceded the megaphone to the loudest bullies. Instead of being the voice of reason, she crafted a pandemic response that pleased folks who had abandoned reason and facts.
Instead of listening to the clear advice of health care and public health professionals, Reynolds deliberately muddied the waters to provide cover for fringe beliefs running rampant in her party and within the Trump base, folks who saw public health pros as a tyrannical enemy. She signed a bill banning school mask mandates in the middle of the night alongside two Ankeny moms who had waded into the fever swamps of right-wing COVID conspiracies and who equated masking to child abuse.
Other moms awoke to a confusing new reality the next morning. Enjoy your “freedom.”
Now, Reynolds has canceled the emergency. Let’s hope the worst is over. And pray we don’t have another health emergency under this governor’s watch.
Reynolds’ COVID legacy: Empowering the fringe and ignoring the pros
Iowa’s COVID-19 public health emergency officially ended this week. The pandemic, of course, continues.
www.thegazette.com
