Ducey Signs Order Promoting Public Illness

 

[Hey...been off for a couple days due to work demands. I had a choice of what to post about today, but I'd be remiss if I didn't cover this particular topic.]

Yesterday the Arizona governor dropped another Ducey, signing an order prohibiting universities from mandating vaccines or masks. You can't require people to be vaccinated, and you can't require those that aren't (or can't be) to wear masks to prevent them from catching or spreading disease. 

This is—straight up—an order to promote public illness. It's like when Ducey decided in spring 2020 to ban local government mask mandates, only to change his mind when Arizona became the worst place in the world for COVID-19. If we needed masks to prevent illness then, why are they bad now?

Of course, Ducey says this is all about individual freedom. But it's not just about individuals. If you don't get vaccinated and also don't wear a mask, you are endangering not only yourself but others around you. Some of those people can't get vaccinated for medical reasons, or the vaccines don't work for them because they're immune compromised.

This public illness order also comes as young people—you know, the same ones who attend universities—are filling up the covid beds in hospitals.  It also comes as the dangerous delta variant is getting a foothold in the U.S., and the Arizona vaccination effort is petering out with only about a third of residents fully vaccinated.

In his statement Ducey also blathers about education rights. "Public education is a public right, and taxpayers are paying for it." This is too much, coming from a guy who ignores his duty to uphold an Arizona constitution that says university instruction "shall be as nearly free as possible."

People who also happen to be taxpayers may be paying for it, but state tax revenues aren't, at least not much.  The latest numbers from the Arizona Board of Regents show that state appropriations for ASU (which Ducey criticizes in his statement) cover only about 20% of its budget. Why should a minority partner be allowed to set policy like this? 

Ducey also said, "We need to make our public universities available for students to return to learning." OK, except giving students a choice between being vaccinated or wearing a mask in no way makes universities "unavailable" for students.

This is a turd of a policy, and the governor can't even make a coherent case for it.  This all goes to prove the maxim that you can't fix stupid.

Image by Corona-zona



 

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