Yahoo Finance COVID is rising in Kansas City. Now’s no time for politicians to stoke anti-vax fears | Opinion
COVID-19 cases are rising once again, both in the Kansas City region and nationally. That’s no reason to panic. Even at somewhat elevated levels, the number of severe cases and hospitalizations don’t begin to approach the often-devastating highs created by previous iterations of the virus since the pandemic began in 2020.
Unfortunately, some of our regional Republican officeholders seem intent on stoking fear for political gain.
Let’s start with the not-terrible news: On Monday, the University of Kansas Health System reported 16 active COVID-19 patients — up two from last week, and up nine from two weeks ago. An independent tracking organization, Covid Act Now, reported 115 and 285 new COVID-19 hospital admissions in Kansas and Missouri, respectively, during the most recent available reporting period. Those aren’t big numbers — but they’re dramatically higher than just a few weeks before.
“I think we all know people or have heard stories about people who have it,” said Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control at the health system. “I know even in the high schools, there are a lot of kids that are out. There are some teams that are being reduced in the number of participants, just because the kids are out because of COVID. So it is circulating out there.”
But officials also don’t seem overly alarmed. “I’m happy and optimistic that it hasn’t gone up any more than that,” Hawkinson said.
So it’s safe to say that medical officials are not fearmongering about the latest numbers. We just wish we could say the same about two of our Republican U.S. senators — Roger Marshall of Kansas and Eric Schmitt of Missouri.
Fearmongering over lockdowns, mandates
In recent weeks, both men have responded to rising COVID-19 numbers by joining a right-wing campaign to convince conservative voters that a new wave of mask mandates and vaccine requirements are right around the corner.
“No vaccine mandates. No vaccine passports. No mask mandates. No lockdown,” Schmitt wrote online last week.
Marshall, meanwhile, trumpeted an anti-masking bill introduced by Sen. J.D. Vance, the Ohio Republican, and took a verbal potshot at President Joe Biden. “Make no mistake,” Marshall wrote online, “this Administration in lock step with Democrats, would jump at the opportunity to impose these mandates on Americans again.”
Where, exactly, is evidence of this supposed Democratic plot?
Yes, some hospitals and other private institutions — a Hollywood studio, an Atlanta college — have recently reimposed mandates on their campuses. But Biden signed a bipartisan resolution to end the COVID-19 state of emergency last spring, and there is no sign of any widespread government plans to revive the tools used during the pandemic’s darkest days.
Indeed, first lady Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19 last week. After that, President Biden appeared in public with a mask on — he had tested negative for the virus, but had obviously been exposed to his infected wife — and promptly took it off during a ceremony honoring an octogenarian Vietnam veteran.
The president’s personal flouting of COVID-19 protocols wasn’t exemplary. The moment didn’t really suggest a coming wave of lockdowns and mandates, either.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a constituency for Marshall and Schmitt’s demagoguery.
Officials at Olathe ‘revival’ with RFK Jr.
The anti-vaccine group Kansas for Health Freedom in late August hosted a two-day Olathe “revival” featuring Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the thoroughly-discredited anti-vax activist now running for president, who mocked expert assurances about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. “Trusting experts is a function of religion,” he told the crowd, “and it’s a function of totalitarianism.”
KHF co-founder Connie Newcome used her time at the event to heap plaudits on a number of elected Republican fellow travelers — including Kansas state Sens. Mike Thompson and Mark Steffen, both notorious spreaders of COVID-19 misinformation who have helped pushed broad anti-vaccine bills in the Legislature.
“We made a lot of headway this year in Kansas,” Newcome said. “We have more to go.”
That’s bad news for a healthy Kansas and Missouri. We would prefer headway of a different sort.
The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a new COVID-19 booster vaccine, which could be available this week. Folks who want to stay healthy would be well-advised to get their annual COVID-19 and flu shots — and young children and older adults should also get the RSV vaccine.
This is not the stuff of totalitarianism. There is no reason to panic. Just be smart and get your shots — for your own sake, and the sake of those around you. It’s just prudent.
