I've always neglected local news, to my eternal shame, but reading the newspaper in my hometown may nudge me onto the right path. Today it featured an article about a bill that has been introduced into the Indiana state legislature to terminate the year-long COVID-19 public health emergency. There's been some squabbling over who's in control for most of that period, with legislators claiming they'd been shut out of decision-making and Governor Holcomb claiming they'd shown no interest in doing so.
Today's story reported that the resolution would empower the legislature to "terminate a state of disaster emergency at any time and specifies that, if the legislature terminates a state of emergency under the statute, the governor shall issue and executive order or proclamation ending the state of emergency." That seems fair enough, and the only odd thing to me is that such measures weren't in place already. I've heard numerous radio reports in the past year of legislators fussing about Holcomb's supposed overreaching, but I wonder why, if they were so upset, it took them so long to come up with this resolution.
There's more, though:
The general assembly finds that Hoosiers have been living with the realities of COVID-19 since March 2020 and have access to sufficient information to decide what actions should be taken by themselves and their family members.
The general assembly recommends that Hoosiers be respectful of others and the different levels of personal comfort that Hoosiers have [and] that Hoosiers continue to use caution in their daily activities.
The general assembly finds that vaccinations are now available for law enforcement officer, and other first responders, health care professionals, and Indiana residents who are at least sixty-five years of age.
The general assembly needs to update their resolution: the vaccine age requirement has been lower than sixty-five for weeks now, and was just lowered to forty. But to be fair, this is presumably the form that was read and referred on March 1. Holcomb is quoted in the article declaring that it's too soon to lift the emergency, let alone the mask mandate. The bill hasn't passed, and I suspect it won't. It's just some legislators throwing a bone to the more rabid of their constituents.
They do talk pretty though, don't they? Bear in mind this is the same Indiana General Assembly where, just this February, some white Republican members booed and mocked black members during a debate and in the hallways afterward. But they maintained decorum, they left their robes and hoods at home.
Hoosiers, like the rest of America, have had "access" to information about COVID-19 for many months now, and though most of the people I see are wearing masks when they should, a significant minority don't give a shit about "the different levels of personal comfort that Hoosiers have" and are already jumping the gun. One sign is that Marshall County, where I live, had achieved the lowest (blue) level of new cases for a couple of weeks, and then slid back a notch to the yellow level. With spring coming, people are busting out all over, and I don't blame them -- I find I'm increasingly restless with each mild day.
It's because I'm restless and tired of the pandemic that people who refuse to wear masks make me angry. If my county stays in the yellow zone, if the state has to remain under emergency, it'll be because of them. They think that the mean old governor won't let them have any fun, but it's the virus -- in their terms, it's their God. If they got their way and the mask mandate were lifted, who would they blame when illnesses and deaths multiplied? They'd blame the Chinese, probably.
