On Monday, June 29, 2020, the Kansas Governor’s Office announced that ‘most’ people in Kansas will be required to wear a mask when in public spaces from 12:01am on July 3, after a spike in cases in Kansas over the past few weeks since Gov. Laura Kelly’s Ad Astra: A Plan To Reopen Kansas entered phase 3.
My question is; why now? why was wearing a mask not mandated before now, during the statewide lockdown, when the cases were at their highest, or when reopening commenced? It defies logic to reopen the state and not mandate mask-wearing until two months after Gov. Kelly’s reopening plan started.
Kansas is not the only state to see a spike after reopening their respective states, and now mandating wearing a mask in public spaces. I understand that governors want to reopen their economies and get people back to work, but the decision making has been suspect. I expected such stupidity from states with Republican governors, but I hoped for better in Kansas with a Democrat governor, but it seems not.
It was even dumber to try to mandate mask-wearing over the 4th of July weekend. I looked outside at people setting off fireworks, all standing close together and NOT wearing a mask. And then there is the super dumb “my body, my choice” brigade, in regard to wearing a mask, which, ironically is also so-called “pro-life” conservatives, more than likely, seems that life doesn’t matter after it leaves the womb.
Doctor’s warned that a second wave was likely if people did not wear a mask and practice social distancing. And the people of Wichita certainly did not heed those warnings, I would estimate as many as 70% of people I saw out in public over the past 2 months were not wearing a mask. So, again, I ask why was wearing a mask not mandated before wave 1.5 kicked off, it seems common sense to me.
People may be back at work now, but how long before a second shut down happens? And that’s even before a true second wave, we are still on the first wave, hence wave 1.5, as the first wave never ended. It was on the decline with the lockdown, now that those states are reopening, we are seeing infection rates rise again, with Florida leading the charge with 10,000 daily cases and 57,000 new cases nationwide.
But as long as Wall Street is prospering, then the death of 132,000 Americans is acceptable. And then we have Donald J. Trump, the person that we laughingly call the President of the United States who is on record as saying “if we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases” while refusing to wear a mask at public engagements, attempting to get tens of thousands of his followers to congregate in a big arena.
Yeah. some of this crap defies logic and reason. People in charge seem to get dumber by the day