This week, Nassau County, New York, passed a mask ban. Those wearing face masks will now face the possibility of up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine. Angry at the power of anti-genocide protests, lawmakers banned one of the most basic forms of disease protection just as the world is experiencing a record surge in COVID cases.
While officials insist that the law will not be used against those masking for medical reasons, disabled activists protesting the move say they were intentionally coughed on during the city council meeting where the bill was passed. In a world of airborne contagious diseases, everyone has a medical reason for masking. So why doesn’t our public health policy recognize that? In 2020, at the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, then-President Donald Trump was excoriated for saying that “when you test, you create more cases.
” This statement was met with outcry by journalists and public health professionals and pundits from all major outlets. Trump’s statements and policies on COVID were regularly and widely critiqued. In October 2020, CNN launched a tracker of “every time Trump said that the coronavirus pandemic was over, but it wasn’t,” which juxtaposed Trump’s words with the number of new cases in the United States.
Since President Joe Biden took office, many of the same things that Trump was excoriated for have been implemented as policy. In September 2022, Biden suddenly declared the pandemic over at the Detroit Auto Show,.