Other Views: Reviewing two years of COVID-19

Published 7:00 am Thursday, March 10, 2022

On Saturday, the indoor mask mandates imposed by the governors of Oregon, Washington and California will be lifted.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has also announced that the state of emergency that was put in place on March 8, 2020, will expire April 1.

Huzzah!

Officially, the lifting of the mask requirement reflects declining COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the West Coast states. Others suggest the announcements were coordinated with other Blue state governments to suggest a return to “normalcy” before President Biden’s State of the Union address and in advance of the midterm election campaign.

Whatever the reason, we are nonetheless thankful for the reprieve — even if it later proves temporary.

Two years and change into the pandemic, it behooves us to take stock of where we have been and offer some observations.

• COVID-19 qualified as a clear and present danger as it unfolded in the early spring of 2020. Little was known about the disease when it arrived in the United States.

In that context, the “two-weeks-to-flatten-the-curve” shutdown made some sense. But as those “two weeks” dragged into more than three months, this seemed less like a thoughtful strategy and more like a desperate effort to outlast the virus.

• While government can quickly shut the economy down, starting it back up again isn’t that easy.

• State government was unprepared to deal with the impacts its measures inflicted on working people and their employers. Shuttering the economy left more than half a million people on the West Coast scrambling for a paycheck.

• We have been told to “follow the science.” Being strong believers of facts, we put a lot of stock in science.

But, the exhortation to “follow the science” has too often been used as a cudgel with which to beat critics.

Science is not religious dogma. It is an open question, not a declarative statement. We don’t say this to benefit crackpots and conspiracy theorists, but to encourage reasoned debate.

Officials conveying science have too often failed to concede that the body of knowledge is ever changing.

We have always been strong advocates for vaccinations, and still are. Initially, we were told the vaccines would prevent infections and transmission in most cases. Then we were told that in most cases it would only keep people from getting really sick. That’s still a worthy outcome, but not what conveyors of science promised in the beginning.

Policy makers have been the strongest proponents of “the science,” but have been willing to forego the science for political expediency.

• No elected official should be allowed to rule indefinitely by decree. Emergency powers should be limited in duration and subject to mandatory legislative oversight. A benevolent dictatorship in all but name is nonetheless tyranny.

Most people learned to live with the virus months ago. We are happy that the governors are learning it, too. We hope in future emergencies that they put more trust in the instincts of their constituents.

— Capital Press