Mask mandate is unjustified at this time

The past two and a half years have been hard on everyone. The coronavirus pandemic has upended our sense of normalcy. Millions around the world have lost their lives. It has undoubtedly taken its public-health and economic toll, with the full range of deleterious impacts sure to become clear only years down the line.

There has also been a lot of progress made, too, in getting a handle on this virus. Vaccines which have proven safe and effective at reducing the risk of both being infected and developing serious disease have not only been rapidly developed but distributed as well to billions of people. It’s a profound technological achievement for humanity and a game-changer in saving lives and mitigating the impact of COVID-19.

Effective treatments have also been developed to help mitigate the harms of COVID-19 among the most vulnerable. More are surely on the way. The value of this, too, cannot be understated.

Policymakers have also increasingly learned to counterbalance the real risks and harms of COVID-19 with the real risks and harms of government intervention.

In public policy, there is no free lunch. Mandates and interventions come with costs of their own and must always be weighed against the expected benefits.

Which brings us to the recent push by Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer to bring back mask mandates in California’s most populous county. Ferrer notes the increasing number of cases, which is true, as well as the number of people hospitalized who are Covid-19-positive.

However, as we have all learned, increasing numbers of cases don’t mean what they did in the first year of the pandemic. In fact, according to the county’s own numbers, most people in the hospital with coronavirus aren’t there because of COVID-19, but rather some other condition. They just incidentally tested positive for the virus while being treated for something else.

“It is just not the same pandemic that it was, despite all of the media hype to the contrary,” Dr. Brad Spellberg, chief medical officer of the L.A. County-usc Medical Center said in a recent briefing to hospital employees.

With that in mind, any talk of mandates is at best premature and at worst an unjustified flexing of unthinking government power.

“We can do better than a heavy-handed mandate at this stage of pandemic recovery and endemic recalibration,” warned Tracy Hernandez, founding CEO of the Los Angeles County Business Federation.

It’s time to trust people to make decisions for themselves.

“I don’t believe we should implement a mandatory mask mandate, which further confuses and frustrates communities,” noted Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger in a recent statement. “With this pandemic two and a half years underway, residents know well what tactics are effective to protect themselves.

Wearing a mask in crowded indoor settings and businesses, regular testing, sanitizing your hands, opting to eat outdoors and getting vaccinated are all proven strategies.”

That’s right — there are no shortages of voluntary action people can take and are taking to mitigate the risk of the virus.

The burden is on government to prove mandates are needed. It has not done so, because they are not. Today, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors has a chance to make clear that a mandate is unjustified at this time. It should do so.