Democratic Governor Declares COVID Emergency 'Over': 'You Don't Tell People What to Wear'
One Democratic governor says the time for COVID-19 regulations is over and that Americans should exercise personal responsibility over their health.
“The emergency is over,” Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in an interview last week with Colorado Public Radio.
“You know, public health [officials] don’t get to tell people what to wear; that’s just not their job. Public health [officials] would say to always wear a mask because it decreases flu and decreases [other airborne illnesses]. But that’s not something that you require; you don’t tell people what to wear,” he said.
Polis said individuals have responsibility to make the right decisions.
“You don’t tell people to wear a jacket when they go out in winter and force them to [wear it]. If they get frostbite, it’s their own darn fault. If you haven’t been vaccinated, that’s your choice. I respect that. But it’s your fault when you’re in the hospital with COVID,” he said.
Polis said mask mandates were necessary when masks were the only kind of protection available, but now that vaccines are here, the days of mask mandates should end.
“Our top goal is always to follow the science, and there was a time when there was no vaccine, and masks were all we had and we needed to wear them. The truth is we now have highly effective vaccines that work far better than masks,” he said.
Polis said there is nothing wrong with wearing a mask.
“If you wear a mask, it does decrease your risk of getting COVID, and that’s a good thing to do indoors around others, but if you get COVID and you are still unvaccinated, the case is just as bad as if you were not wearing a mask,” he said.
Polis said people who want to avoid getting COVID-19 have had the chance to do so.
“Everybody had more than enough opportunity to get vaccinated. Hopefully it’s been at your pharmacy, your grocery store, a bus near you, [or at] big events. At this point, if you haven’t been vaccinated, it’s really your own darn fault,” he told Colorado Public Radio.
Polis said that a year after the arrival of vaccines in America should mark the “end of the medical emergency.”
The Colorado governor restores a sense of proportion to the Covid debates. New York’s governor shows off her ”vaxed” necklace and reimposes mandates. | by @michaelbd https://t.co/GOFbzFXLZU
— National Review (@NRO) December 13, 2021
Unlike most of his Democratic colleagues, Polis said the government cannot compel proper decisions.
‘Those who get sick, it’s almost entirely their own darn fault,” he said, adding, “Eighty-four percent of the people in our hospitals are unvaccinated, and they absolutely had every chance to get vaccinated.”
Polis blamed what he called the “alternate misinformation universe” for opposition to the vaccine.
Noting that he was a strong proponent of vaccines over mandates, he said that “everybody has had the chance to get vaccinated. And at this point, I think it’s almost like they made a deliberate decision not to get vaccinated.”
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