Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) tried to get out in front of possible mask mandates by introducing legislation this week that would have prevented the Biden administration from requiring masks on public transit and in public schools.
Vance’s proposal would have prohibited any federal official, President Joe Biden included, from requiring masks on flights within the U.S., buses, trains and other public transit or in schools at any level.
The proposal ended quickly, however, when Vance was opposed by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts).
After he introduced the Freedom to Breathe Act on Tuesday, Sen. Vance (pictured below) tried to get it through the Senate quickly with a procedure usually meant for legislation that draws widespread support. The procedure allows for proposed legislation to be killed by a single objection, however, which came from Markey.
Markey said Vance’s measure would place a burden on public health officials’ ability to make decisions for the communities.
On social media, in an Orwellian-like argument, Sen. Markey called the Let Them Breathe Act a mandate of its own and suggested the government’s effort to correct government overreach is more overreach.
“If the GOP is so concerned about universal mandates why are the Republicans trying to advance one on the floor of the Senate,” Markey wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Markey said Republicans have opposed affordable health care for “millions of Americans” and “the right of individuals to make health care decisions with their doctors,” a reference to pro-life policy.
“I was very impressed with that bill and it’s disappointing it was not accepted,” Dr. Andrew Bostom, an epidemiologist, said on Washington Watch Thursday.
Bostom told show host Tony Perkin he fears American leadership will repeat pandemic mistakes.
“We know that these draconian restrictions not only failed in terms of reducing the transmission of COVID and its accompanying morbidity and mortality, they had catastrophic economic consequences,” he said. “The idea that we might repeat basically a Chinese communist policy of control is really shocking and abhorrent.”
Bostom said both the World Health Organization, a specialized arm of the United Nations established in 1948 to promote global health, and the United States’ own Center for Disease Control, both had a flawed response to the first round of COVID.
“Whether through ignorance or deceit (WHO) fundamentally mischaracterized the basics of transmission. They were skeptical of masking, then they embraced it. They oversold the vaccine. Just like our CDC. They got everything wrong. There’s no other way to explain it,” he said.
Know thy enemy but don't fear
The first step in moving forward with a virus that will remain with us, as does the flu, is to understand its real impact on health, Bostom said.
“The number of deaths caused actually by COVID over the total number of infections was grossly exaggerated,” Bostom said.
Bostom believes the COVID-19 pandemic was on a level with the Asian Flu pandemic of 1957 and the Hong Kong Flu pandemic of 1968, not the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic that caused an estimated 50 million deaths worldwide.
The extreme measures Americans faced with COVID-19 – lockdowns, mask mandates and a hostile push toward a questionable vaccine – were not in place in 1957 or 1968, Bostom said.
According to CDC data, COVID-19 killed 1,070,947 Americans through early November of 2022. During that time, it was the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. behind heart disease and cancer.
Still, the virus did not attack everyone equally, Bostom said.
“It was not targeting the young, healthy, working population, those under 70, who comprise 94% of the world’s population,” Bostom said. “The idea that we would be thinking again along these lines of restrictions and mandates is very anti-scientific I would say at this point.”
Instead, the thinking may be very political.
“I have a feeling it could be even worse next fall when we’re right in the final stages of the election cycle,” Bostom predicted.
In late August Biden addressed a small group of reporters and mentioned his plan to ask Congress for funding for a new vaccine, one “that works,” he said. He went on to say he’ll encourage all Americans -- regardless of circumstances – to get the shot to guard against an anticipated wave of new infections.
Strong public response is needed
One byproduct of the controversial pandemics lockdowns was the rise of public school online learning. Many parents got a closer look inside classrooms and have spoken out at local school board meetings with concerns about curriculum and social engineering.
Bostom said it will take that sort of public engagement again – whether the forum becomes education or other public spaces – to bring about meaningful change if Democrats start leaning to control measures again.
Markey’s reaction to Vance’s proposal certainly left open that door.
“It’s going to be up to the public. There has to be informed, obviously peaceful, but stout and resilient resistance to this,” Bostom said. “Parents have to stand up as they did when they were upset about what kids were learning in school and how that came through in the lockdowns.
“People have to say, ‘No, my kid’s not going to be masked at school,’ and ‘I’m not going to accept a COVID vaccine as a passport to getting entry to the school. There have to be active public protests against these measures," he said.
