Earlier today, poopdogcomedy posted a story about how Florida mayors are fighting the “no mask mandates because free-dumb” policy of the governor (Ron DeSantis).
Here in Arizona, we’ve had a similar situation. Arizona State announced (prematurely?) that they were going to open up the campus to their 80,000-ish students again. However, since packing students into lecture halls is a completely moronic idea, ASU was intent on implementing common-sense policies. (If you hadn’t had the vaccine, you had to wear a mask inside of every building, submit daily health checks, and be tested at least once a week, and a probably few that I’ve forgotten.)
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey [R, as if there was any doubt] passed an executive order saying, nuh uh. Because freedumb. Tuesday, he re-affirmed this in a tweet.
Arizona does not allow mask mandates, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports or discrimination in schools based on who is or isn’t vaccinated. We’ve passed all of this into law, and it will not change.
The CDC today is recommending that we wear masks in school and indoors, regardless of our vaccination status. This is just another example of the Biden-Harris administration’s inability to effectively confront the COVID-19 pandemic.
Public health officials in Arizona and across the country have made it clear that the best protection against COVID-19 is the vaccine. Today’s announcement by the CDC will unfortunately only diminish confidence in the vaccine and create more challenges for public health officials 一 people who have worked tirelessly to increase vaccination rates.
Here in Arizona, we’ve been consistent from the beginning: Arizonans should get this vaccine. Over 51 percent of our population has received at least one dose of the vaccine, and over 46 percent are fully vaccinated. That’s great news, and we’re going to continue to work to distribute this vaccine to Arizonans and build public confidence in its effectiveness, despite this unnecessary and unhelpful “guidance” from Washington, D.C.
As Admiral David Farragut may or may not have said, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”
Several major Arizona cities are reinstituting mask-wearing requirements for people in city-owned facilities in response to new federal guidance aimed at reducing the spread of the coronavirus.
- Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said she directed the city manager on July 28 to require masks in city facilities, regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status.
- Officials in Flagstaff announced that masks must be worn in city facilities beginning July 30.
Mask mandates in other cities:
Outside of Phoenix,
Arizona’s Department of Health Services says our state will match the CDC mask guidelines for K-12 students, despite Gov. Ducey's mandate against them.
“Everyone in a K-12 setting, teachers, staff and students, should wear a mask,” said ADHS Director Dr. Cara Christ. “I think the masks provide another layer of protection.”
(Side note: Dr. Christ is leaving in about a month.)
As a post script, the school districts might have have other ways to fight the executive order.
“The school districts can sue the state regarding that law and say that the state is now putting their students in danger … and they could ask that that law be found unconstitutional based on the schools’ power to operate and do what the feel is best for the health and safety of their students,” [Barry Markson of the Gust Rosenfeld law firm] said.
A district could also go ahead and implement a face mask mandate and wait for the state to challenge it, sparking a legal showdown, Markson said.
“A judge could issue a temporary restraining order, or a more permanent order, that would suspend the law and allow school districts to implement the safety procedures regarding masks or home-schooling or whatever they wanted to do in order to protect the safety of their students,” he said.