Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended any remaining lockdown restrictions (including mask mandates) in his state and made vaccine passports illegal by executive order.
At a news conference yesterday, DeSantis said:
âI think folks that are saying that they need to be policing people at this point, if youâre saying that, you really are saying you donât believe in the vaccines, you donât believe in the data, you donât believe in the science⌠You look around and there have been areas that have been under the yoke of some serious restrictions and lockdowns for months and months and months on end…And then I think the other thing, quite frankly, is when you have people, particularly in Washington, saying, âYeah, get vaccinated, but then make sure you continue to social distance and wear masks all the time,â well, the message that that sends to people is that the vaccines donât work.â
There is a minor caveat to this; the Florida Department of Education clarified that it does not apply to schools. Still, it’s a healthy step. Especially if you are one of the people, myself included, who believes the government should have never locked down businesses or mandated masks in the first place. It’s not the government’s responsibility to be your father, your nanny, or your doctor. That is your responsibility as a citizen.
All of us need to consider our risk tolerance and make decisions appropriately. If a business didn’t want to close down for COVID and you as a customer want to voluntarily patronize that business, the government should have never been involved in that. The same thing goes with a mask mandate. If you want to wear a mask, wear one. If a business wants to require a mask or doesn’t, they should have that right. The government should have never been involved in that whole process and in the end, the government did an awful lot of harm and there’s not much evidence it did a lot of good.
John Hawkins is the author of 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know. He also owns Linkiest.com.
