Another Thing that Republicans Should Really be Thinking About COVID

 

I hear the liberals are seriously pissed

The good new about the latest COVID outbreak, our fourth wave, is that other countries' experience of the delta variant is that it peaks and drops rapidly.  We can hope that the same will happen here.

But here is a disturbing thought. So far the vaccine has not been approved for children under 12.  And the school year will be starting soon.  

And Republican leaders are determined to have schools reopen and proceed as  usual.  Ron DeSantis has forbidden schools from instituting mask mandates, even as Florida is in the midst of a serious outbreak.  How many other Republican governors will also ban vaccine mandates and mask mandate for schools?  And what if this leads to a fifth wave of infections -- this one among children?  Maybe the current wave of the delta variant will scare some sense into parents and they will get their children vaccinated as soon as the vaccine is approved for children under 12.  But what if there are still large numbers of holdouts?

Up till now, COVID has not been dangerous to children, so schools could safely reopen with only the teachers vaccinated.  The delta variant is looking to be a different matter.  At the very least, we risk it spreading like wildfire among children.  Presumably at least some of these children will get sick.  And while the proportion of serious cases will no doubt be small, given the total number of children in school, it will not take a very high rate of serious cases to make for high numbers.

Have Republicans thought this through?  I am cynical enough to believe that Republican leaders made a concerted effort to discourage their followers from getting vaccinated because they believed they could ride the resulting disaster back to the White House.  If some of their own people died or developed long-term medical problems as a result -- well, presumably their people would consider returning Trump to the White House to be something worth dying for.  And probably for a lot of Trumpsters returning Trump to the White House really is worth risking their lives and health.

But I am going to guess that the number of supporters who are willing to risk the lives and health of their children (or grand children) to return Trump to the White House is a lot smaller.  In fact, it seems safe to assume that if COVID had posed a high risk to children, the politics of the disease would have been very different.

And if the anti-lockdown, anti-mask, anti-vax push, plus the delta variant, lead to a major outbreak among children, there will be the devil to pay.