The End Stage Of The Panic Continues Apace

As of yesterday, Los Angeles County, one of the major holdouts on loosening COVID restrictions throughout the pandemic, dropped its indoor masking rule.

County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said that given the CDC revision of the county's classification, a new Health Officer Order will be issued that removes the county's long-standing mandate for people to wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status. That move will put the county in alignment with the state, which dropped its mask mandate on Tuesday.

Mask-wearing, however, will continue to be "strongly recommended,'' particularly in crowded settings or while interacting with people at higher risk of severe illness from the virus.

Masking will continue to be required in higher-risk settings, including health care facilities, transit centers, airports, aboard public transit, in correctional facilities and at homeless shelters and long-term care facilities.

It's still likely to take years until you can do things like ride a bus without a mask. The extreme reluctance of the authorities to relax controls was illustrated in an exchange between Florida Gov DeSantis and CDC Director Walensky:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis admonished a group of students for wearing face masks at an indoor event Wednesday, saying it was time to stop what he called “this COVID theater.” The Republican governor has been a fierce opponent of mask and vaccine mandates.

asked about DeSantis's remarks, Walensky replied,

“Those students should have been comfortable wearing a mask if it makes them more comfortable. . . It's absolutely their choice.”

Well, it's my choice to dress up like Napoleon, it makes me comfortable, but what message does it send to the world? I tend to go along with Fr William Nicholas, a Roman Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, who has often spoken in his YouTube homilies about the downside of masks. He notes that masks can be a way of retreating into fear, and Christians shouldn't be afraid. To the extent that they're superstitious, totem-like remedies, we shouldn't be relying on them. I get the sense that he isn't too far from Gov DeSantis in suggesting that some measure of good-humored tough love is appropriate at this stage.

As I ran some errands yesterday, I noted that roughly half the people I saw on the street were wearing masks outside, a requirement that has long been dropped even in LA County, and this on a day when even most indoor settings no longer require them. Why? Here's a Babylon Bee story: Progressive Christians Sad They Have No Way To Love Their Neighbors Now That Mask Mandates Are Gone:

Progressive Christians are saddened this week following the removal of COVID mask mandates. They allege that with no masking, there is no way for them to love their neighbors anymore.

"COVID enabled me to show the world that I'm a good Christian who actually loves people," said Alisson Forrest, who hasn't been to church in 22 months. "Masks were uncomfortable and inconvenient, but I was proud to wear them every day to show everyone how much like Jesus I was. Now what am I supposed to do?"

But that's not the Bee's only insight for the week: Putin Receives Nobel Prize In Medicine For Ending COVID Pandemic:

{T}he Nobel committee of medicine deciders have awarded the coveted Nobel Prize in Medicine to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for singlehandedly ending the COVID pandemic practically overnight.

. . . Thanks to the Russian President’s decisive blow against the COVID pandemic, Democrat-run states across the U.S. immediately began lifting draconian, life-crushing, and statistically racist mask and vaccine mandates in workplaces, restaurants, and even schools.

Strange coincidence, no? It's as though Putin suddenly slapped the world upside the head and gave it something real to worry about. Think about it -- before Ukraine, the big topic was COVID, and other than that, it was tic tac UFOs. Now we suddenly have real people fighting real problems, showing real courage, and setting real examples.

Which is not to say that everyone suddenly went sane. As I predicted, although the US Senate voted to end the COVID state of emergency -- this of course just one of who knows how many layers of emergency superimposed at every level -- the House defeated the measure, and Biden's handlers said he'd veto it if it reached his desk. This, of course, is what Gov DeSantis means by "COVID theater". It will still take years of work to eliminate it completely.