School started this week, with a mandate from the governor’s office that all students and staff in Kentucky’s public K-12 schools wear masks. The mandate was rescinded Monday after action by the state supreme court, cheered on by elected officials. A mandate from the Kentucky Department of Education still stands, for now. So who is responsible for protecting public health?
Kentucky schools starting earlier this month have seen hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of staff and students quarantined and hundreds sick with covid-19. There was no mask mandate when these districts opened, so many went without.
School officials here hope requiring everyone to wear a mask will allow them to avoid massive quarantines. If too many teachers, bus drivers, or food service workers are required to quarantine, then districts have no choice but to close schools, and several did last week.
But what has changed since the last school year? The virus has – it’s now much more contagious and spreading to younger people and children. Kentuckians under 18 made up 30% of Friday’s new cases.
And the mandates have also changed. Last year, if the county was in red, no one could step foot into a school building. This year school officials hope for in-person learning, five days a week.
Central City this week canceled their scheduled events due to the high rate of covid-19 in the county. Other officials are slow to do the same. Can you blame them? With division and controversy swirling around any decision to protect people from covid-19, those tasked with the chore risk facing swift backlash.
Without mandates coming down from above, there is little appetite to protect public health. The fear of backlash outweighs the fear of facing the public health crisis at hand. While people can rail online about something the federal or state government has done to protect public health, local leaders face the possibility of hearing from angry constituents in the aisles of the grocery store, in the next cubicle at work, or in the next pew at church.
So that leaves us with the last line of defense protecting public health. The doctors and nurses who staff area hospitals, most nearly full to capacity, are there to hold the hand of dying covid patients whose families aren’t allowed in the room. We put the burden of the pandemic in their hands. They all have tales of combative patients who, even as they lie in the hospital still don’t believe the virus is real, and others who beg for the vaccine after it’s too late.
It’s human nature to be skeptical of new things, whether it’s a novel coronavirus or a newly developed vaccine. In the case of this pandemic, these tendencies are being hijacked by people sowing confusion, distrust, fear and doubt.
Those elected officials working against mandates to protect public health say they are fighting government overreach and protecting individual freedom, without offering any suggestions on how to help keep the public safe and well. Offering solutions is not on the agenda.
But it’s also human nature to care for one another. People tend to want to do good by others. In tough times, we link arms to face the unknown.
It’s time to protect each other and work together for the greater good. The responsibility belongs to all of us.
