For those who watched President Joe Biden’s mediocre State of the Union address Tuesday night, it did not take long to notice that most of Congress and other attendees went maskless.
The move was cleared by the Capitol’s attending physician on Sunday as coronavirus cases nationwide have continued to trend downward, Axios reported.
Still, many parents had to mask up to their school-aged children the next morning, and college students like myself still have to wear masks in classrooms due to overzealous coronavirus prevention measures.
While Arizona State University has been significantly less restrictive compared to other campuses around the United States, it’s likely that the only people who feel safer learning with face masks are a few paranoid students and professors. It feels rather pointless when one considers the fact that people take their masks off indoors and outdoors pretty much everywhere else on campus, which some would argue defeats the purpose.
Unfortunately, if they continue to follow Centers for Disease Control recommendations, ASU will not lift the classroom requirement until Maricopa County, Arizona, is no longer considered high transmission.
Also read: Eliminate Science With California’s 1 Weird Trick
While many school administrators and their health advisors seem to have not yet received the memo, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) sent the media into a frenzy on Wednesday after telling high school students at the University of South Florida to take their face coverings off, NBC News Tampa Bay reported.
NEW: @GovRonDeSantis annoyed with USF students—
“You do not have to wear those masks. Please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything. We’ve gotta stop with this Covid theater. So if you wanna wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.”https://t.co/7j1Pb2hV53 @WFLA pic.twitter.com/ZIOyTHLOh3
— Evan Donovan (@EvanDonovan) March 2, 2022
“You do not have to wear those masks. I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything, and we’ve gotta stop with this COVID theater. So if you wanna wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous,” he said before starting his remarks on cybersecurity education.
A few of the students chuckled and instantly took them off–probably because they were also not at all thrilled with the theatrics.
It’s clear that DeSantis is irritated with the visual, but any suggestion that he is not okay if a student wears a mask out of preference is downright false. He said, “if you wanna wear it, fine.”
Everyone from politicians to professors needs to start taking the DeSantis approach and move on from pandemic hysteria once and for all. Healthy young people are at a lower risk for this virus, so they need to stop being the prime victims of government-created restrictions.
The average age of a U.S. representative is 58, and the average age of a U.S. senator is 64, according to CNN. That should tell you everything about the state of the pandemic in Biden’s America.