DESPITE RISING CASES, LEADERS OF RED STATES RESIST MEASURES TO SLOW SPREAD
Many Republican governors say people should be free to make their own decisions
With cases surging to new highs and hospital capacity running low, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum teared up describing a state “caught in the middle of a covid storm.”
To weather it, he said at a news conference last week, people would need to keep their distance, wear masks and avoid gatherings. But the one thing North Dakota did not need were legal limits on reckless behavior.
“It’s not a job for government,” said Burgum, a Republican.
The novel coronavirus is hammering America’s heartland this fall, with records shattered daily in states that had escaped the worst of the disease this spring and summer. Case numbers are rising again in other states where the virus was thought to be under control after months of widespread illness.
Yet even as health authorities in small cities and rural towns plead for help in tamping down deadly out
breaks, many Republican governors are resisting new measures to stop the spread. Some are even loosening rules already on the books.
Instead, they preach the mantra of “personal responsibility,” insisting that government interventions such as mask mandates or business restrictions are either unnecessary or harmful, and that people should be trusted to make their own decisions about how to keep themselves — and each other — healthy.
“This is a job for everybody,” Burgum said, describing recommendations for safe behavior, but no new requirements.
Public health experts say that is an inadequate prescription, one that carries great peril as infections climb, the weather drives people indoors and large segments of the population are proving less willing to take the virus seriously.
“This really demands a coordinated, orchestrated higher-level response than just saying to an individual person, ‘Here’s what you might want to try,’” said David Aronoff, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
An overreliance on personal responsibility, health officials say, is one of the reasons America’s struggle with the coronavirus has been so destructive, with more than 8 million cases and at least 218,000 people dead.
COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, sent President Donald Trump to the hospital for four days this month, with doctors deploying the latest therapeutics — drugs unavailable to many Americans. Yet he has continued to cast doubt on the effectiveness of masks while maintaining that people should not be “afraid” of the coronavirus.
Republican governors have mimicked aspects of that stance. While Democratic governors in blue states such as New York, New Mexico and California have rolled back reopening plans in response to rising case rates, the opposite has been true of Republican leaders in red states where the virus is now running rampant.
Coronavirus hospitalizations in Iowa have regularly hit new highs this month, and the state last week surpassed 1,500 total deaths. But Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has not revisited her decision to lift most restrictions on businesses and to allow students back to class without masks.
Trump, the Republican said, was “right. We can’t let COVID-19 dominate our lives.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, meanwhile, has forged ahead with plans to reopen bars, despite the high risk of transmission. The state has been averaging nearly 5,000 new cases and nearly 100 deaths each day. But Abbott, a Republican, said he saw no reason Texas would not “be able to reopen 100 percent.”
In South Dakota — which together with its northern neighbor has had the country’s fastest-growing infection rate — Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has played down the significance of the caseload, claiming that it’s due to testing and is “normal.”
But a rise in tests would not explain why hospitalization and death rates have also spiked.
Noem has become a star in Trump’s circle by joining in his antagonism toward mainstream scientific opinion: She is one of the few governors who did not issue a stay-at-home order in the spring, has repeatedly questioned the validity of using masks to reduce viral spread and hosted the president for a non-social-distanced Fourth of July celebration at Mount Rushmore.
Late last week, the state of fewer than 900,000 people was racking up around 900 new cases a day, with around 300 people hospitalized. More than 300 people have died statewide.
There is no statewide mask mandate and the cities have nearly all declined to impose their own. Brookings, home to South Dakota State University, is the lone exception, with councilors passing a restriction last month following contentious public hearings.
Leaders had feared that without more protections, Brookings would be overrun by outbreaks this fall as students returned to school.
The mandate has helped, with residents largely complying, said Nick Wendell, a council member who backed it. But he noted that outlying areas of the county lack a mandate, and that has led to uncertainty. Wendell said.
“And when you have mixed messaging, that’s challenging,” he said.