Friday, January 07, 2022

Somehow…

This all connects... A Texas appellate court affirmed a district court ruling that Gov. Abbott overstepped his authority in banning mask mandates by Texas counties. 

The court, in their ruling, stated that a disaster can be both statewide and local, requiring different measures and methods in response. The documents go on to state, "we conclude that the Harris County Parties sufficiently demonstrated that the use of face coverings is an effective tool in controlling the spread of COVID-19."

That’s hardly binding on the Supreme Court (or the Texas Supreme Court), but it may indicate a realization by courts that public health is as important as “public policy.” By which I mean the tide may be turning as the pandemic grinds on and the courts realize public health is a consideration, too.  Like this:

"Mr. Keller, I guess I just don't see as a situation — you know, a typical arbitrary, capricious situation where we say 'Oh, you didn't consider an alternative carefully enough.' We all know what the best policy is. By this point, two years later, we know that the best way to prevent spread is to get vaccinated. And to prevent dangerous illness and death, is for people to get vaccinated. That is by far the best."

"The second best is to wear masks. And so this is a policy that says 'we are still confronting thousands of people dying every time we look around and so we are going to put into place the policy we know works best, which is to strongly incentivize vaccination and insist that unvaccinated people will wear masks and test," she explained.

"Why isn't that necessary? What else should be done? It is obviously the policy geared towards preventing the most sickness and death and the agency has done everything but stand on its head to show, quite clearly, that no other policy will prevent sickness and death to anywhere like the degree this one will," she said.

That's Justice Elena Kagan at the hearing on the vaccine mandate.  Will her argument carry the day?  Or make a stirring dissent?  Well, Gorsuch is still defending his "the-trucker-should-freeze-in-his-cab" opinion:
Let's just drive that point home with a sledgehammer: Then let's pause there a moment, at the risk of derailing this discussion: Justice Gorsuch is 54. He's 12 years younger than me. He doesn't remember the polio pandemic. I do. He probably didn't know many people crippled for life in childhood by polio. I did. Justice Gorsuch is an ignorant ass. No, I don't say that lightly.

One hopes that marks him as an outlier in this case.  Time will tell.

Meanwhile, the Texas GOP continues its outreach to...no one: But you can't get a covid test 24/7 so you shouldn't be able to vote 24/7, right? Houston does have drive through testing, but the GOP made sure we can't have drive-thru voting. It's here the analogy really breaks down. Then again, at least we're not Florida. "Lockdown by stealth"? That doesn't even make sense. People who are symptomatic are pretty sure they have Covid; people who aren't want to relieve the worry they might have it. Who is DeSantis arguing with here? Meanwhile: SIRI! WHERE THE HELL'S ALL THE POPCORN?!?!?!?!!!????
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