Gov. Reynolds on potential new COVID mandates: Hell, no

I had hoped that absurd COVID restrictions were behind us. But following rising case numbers and the discovery of two new, “highly mutated” COVID-19 variants, some colleges, businesses and hospitals around the country decided last month to reinstate mask mandates in their facilities.

Perhaps to those subject to them the latest round of mandates seem a bit reminiscent of the first mandates and shutdowns of the pandemic in March 2020. In response, some political leaders have gone on the record to address concerns. Gov. Kim Reynolds made her position on a potential return to restrictions in Iowa clear: Hell, no.

Yes, I’m paraphrasing, but Reynolds’ actual statement issued by her office 10 days ago left equally little room for doubt: “Since news broke of COVID-19 restrictions being reinstated at some colleges and businesses across the U.S., concerned Iowans have been calling my office asking whether the same could happen here. My answer — not on my watch!”

That works for me. Naturally, the “other side” balked, but let’s face it — they do that every time Reynolds flaunts her Big Kim Energy. (I came up with that term myself and used it in a previous column. It received enough of a backlash from readers that I definitely have to keep using it.)

Reynolds was not just reassuring the concerned constituent weary of a return to the dreary days of social distancing. Nor was she just posturing for her base. She wasn’t speaking just to the people who want to hear it. She was saying it to the people who need to hear it: We are not going back to that.

Was there a political element to her statement? Most certainly. But COVID was political from the onset of the first school closings and industry shutdowns — which, it should not go without saying, Reynolds herself initiated under authority as the state’s chief executive.

As “two weeks to slow the spread” turned into two months and beyond, our ideology dictated our opinions on fighting COVID. Liberals and progressives demanded universal masking, keeping schools closed in favor of remote learning, and continued shuttering of businesses, with some even calling for Reynolds to issue shelter-in-place orders. Conservatives and libertarians resisted the idea of mandatory masking and demanded the reopening of businesses to slow the economic devastation, contending that measures to avoid overwhelming our health care system had destroyed plenty of other crucial systems.

When Reynolds and the GOP legislature gave the orders to get our kids back in school and our adults back to work, the reaction was partisan as one would expect in a 2020 world, with Reynolds’ Democratic opposition and its base fighting every step of the way to keep Iowa closed out of fear. COVID Kim and the evil Republicans prevailed. Iowa was one of the first states to reopen for business, and Iowans affirmed that strategy with growing Republican legislative majorities in 2020 and 2022. But Iowa was not unscathed — either by COVID itself, or the strategies we took to mitigate it. Those who decry Reynolds’ recent “not on my watch” declaration over new COVID restrictions seem to forget that much of what we did to prevent illness in some took a terrible toll on others. But I remember.

I remember how kids suffered from the loss of their normal daily routines and their lack of ability to socialize with their peers, and that too many children fell significantly behind in their educational development, struggling to this day to make progress.

I remember feeling heartbroken for kids for whom school was a place of refuge from an unstable home life, knowing that to keep them out of school in the name of being “safe” was to leave them stuck in environments that were anything but.

I remember that some had to work desperately to track the well-being of elderly loved ones stuck in their rooms in senior housing and nursing homes — many alone with no company — while their buildings were on lockdown.

I remember learning that deaths from drug overdoses were skyrocketing, though it wasn’t hard to imagine why if in-person support systems were shut down and mental health issues were becoming difficult to keep in check.

I’m not done yet. I remember how some people chose to treat those who couldn’t tolerate a facial covering as heedless and selfish, refusing to consider that for some, masking was a genuinely distressing experience. And I remember that when my own health took a beating and masks became excruciating to wear, my hospital of 30 years turned me away, even with a doctor-provided exemption letter in hand. I have to remind myself that previous columns confirm my position early on that mask mandates impose an undue burden on those who can’t tolerate them. Still, I’m embarrassed that I did not understand the extent of that burden until I began experiencing it myself when, two years into the pandemic, wearing masks suddenly started to result in excruciating headaches.

I also remember feeling shock and dismay in the pit of my stomach when a federal judge in Iowa interpreted the Americans with Disabilities Act to allow a disabled student to demand their classmates be forced to wear a mask — even those who found it burdensome or downright harmful. As a disabled person myself, I cannot to this day fathom how “reasonable accommodation” can include compelling another person to engage in a specific activity against their will.

I’m still not done. I remember how then-presidential candidate Joe Biden cast doubt on the development time frame of the first COVID vaccine under his predecessor only to cast shame not even a year later on those who opted to wait to receive it until its long-term effects were better known.

I remember that as we started returned to our places of work, the federal government tried to force private companies into threatening millions of us with the loss of our jobs if we didn’t get the vaccine, being stopped only by the U.S. Supreme Court.

And I remember that even without that mandate in force, many employers — both public and private — created that same policy on their own, brazenly terminating unvaccinated employees who were otherwise in good standing.

None of this is to say that the COVID-19 virus should not have been taken seriously. On the first day of the “15 Days to Slow the Spread” guidelines, I was quite sad to turn down a request for a ride from an 80-year-old man I used to occasionally transport to medical appointments. But I had decided to “do my part” and “socially distance” for two weeks. I never saw the man again. He passed away later in the year from COVID.

Indeed, that’s very sad. Everything about COVID is — especially what it’s done to our communities and our culture. But it is a fundamental reality of life — one that I’ve learned by waking up in pain every day for 30 years — that bad things outside our control sometimes happen to good people for no apparent reason. That doesn’t mean it’s fair, or that it’s right.

It’s neither right nor fair that a kid can be so sorely afflicted with things like arthritis or cancer. It’s neither fair nor right that some are more susceptible to illness than others. It isn’t fair that some seemingly healthy people died out of the blue from an illness that didn’t exist only months earlier. It isn’t right that many who died did so without their loved ones there to comfort them because those family members weren’t allowed in.

It’s also not fair that kids were made to put their development on hold. It’s not right that they were seen first as dangerous little vectors of disease and as innocent children only after that. It’s not fair to the adult with chronic headaches to have to tough out a real piercer while waiting to be seen by a doctor. (And speaking from personal experience, they’ll be removing that mask anyway to vomit.) It’s not right to make a teenager with asthma wheeze through a mask that increasing numbers of studies now contend makes little to no difference in preventing the spread of COVID. And it is just not right to tell a little kid with eczema on his face to suck it up and keep his mask on so he doesn’t make anyone sick.

What ailed too many of us was not the coronavirus, but the methods of prevention forced upon us. And if our governor saying “hell, no” helps make it crystal clear that we mustn’t let ourselves be guilted into new restrictions, then I’ll say “hell, yes” to that.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com