In his latest attempt simultaneously to avoid
taking responsibility for and to drag out needlessly the state’s sorry policy reaction
to the pandemic, last week Edwards said he would
keep in place for at least two weeks proclamations that had reduced the
size of gatherings to 50, closed bars even with food service permits (unless they
have video poker machines) for anything on premises, and mandated face
coverings. At week’s
close, Louisiana ranked second in cases per capita (Edwards
erroneously claimed the state had the most), ranked fourth in current hospitalizations
per capita, and sixth in mortality per capita. Only Georgia,
which held down, respectively, first, first, and eighth places, rivals
Louisiana in pandemic severity at this time.
The reason, said Edwards, is you. Enough
of you don’t wear your masks enough to let the state register improved
metrics and then move towards more economic openness. And maybe those nasty
Republicans had something to do with it, one
of his functionaries last month charged, saying that Edwards had resisted imposing
this kind of restriction previously because of “political considerations.” Mainly
GOP politicians have led the public fight against a heavy-handed state response
that included a mask mandate.
If so, that merely tells us that Edwards is a weak
leader who didn’t have the courage of his convictions to do what he thought
right. Never mind, of course, that the face
covering mandate allows for a large portion of ineffective instruments that
won’t do much to stop transmission, although even largely ineffective is better
than entirely ineffective. Or that by far physical distancing reduces transmission
which the order addresses only indirectly with the capacity limit and selective
closures. Too much attention to the former as a prophylactic and not enough to
the second is why since the latest Edwards proclamation went into effect three
weeks ago Louisiana’s metrics have decreased only slightly.
And the same Edwards who at one point said the state
“can’t
enforce our way” to compliance in desperation seems to have moved past
that. Last week, state
authorities busted several bars for violating the mandate, which Edwards has
justified by noting that the state had traced 464 confirmed coronavirus
infections to 41 bars. Never mind that by the beginning
of last month over 7,900 cases had appeared in nursing homes causing over 1,300
deaths, with the numbers
still rising. That carnage got
kickstarted when Edwards responded too slowly at the beginning of the pandemic,
waiting over two weeks after Mardi Gras (as Carnival
acted as a virus accelerant obvious even then) to act and, specifically
to nursing homes, delayed for days after the first presumptive positive
case to commence restricting access to nursing home residents.
When a case under study scores far outside the
norm, there have to be reasons, and some blame potentially attached to that.
Louisianans probably are an independent lot who more than most in general don’t
like to be ordered to cover nose and mouth in public and to stay adequately away
from others. Louisianans, largely because of dietary choices and refusal to
engage in adequate physical activity that makes one in three of them obese, collectively
have the worst health over time in the country, which makes them more susceptible
to the virus.
But policy matters, and almost no elected policy-maker
in Louisiana has had input into the pandemic response other than Edwards. The
main reason Louisiana has suffered the most from the virus, despite his
protestations otherwise, comes from decisions made by the adult male residing
at 1001 Capitol Access Road, Baton Rouge.
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