The Patriot Post® · Team Biden's Mask Mania

Thanks to the COVID-19 vaccines, “15 days to flatten the curve” may finally come to an end after about 15 months.

All around the nation, even a few left-wing governors have relented in the face of mounting evidence that the shots are working. They’re in the process of opening up to life as it used to be, without the need for face masks if the subject has already been inoculated. Some without the masks may merely identify as vaccinated, of course, because this is all on the honor system. And Americans should continue to reject vaccine passports.

So, despite the outward signs of normalization inside the White House — such as restoring 50% capacity at press briefings — why is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) set to finalize an emergency temporary standard (ETS) that could mandate employees continue to wear the hated face apparel despite being vaccinated against the Wuhan flu? Is it just a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing?

Considering OSHA was supposed to have guidance ready by March 15, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s claim that OSHA needed “time to get it right and time to ensure it’s right” rings ever more hollow. OSHA’s tardiness has also drawn the ire of Republican members of the House Committee on Education and Labor, who sent a letter to Labor Secretary Marty Walsh calling on him to drop the standards entirely.

“Given the latest and ever-evolving science and current state of the virus,” writes the committee, “it is unfathomable that OSHA would continue to pursue this rigid, one-size-fits-all national ‘emergency’ regulation. Now more than ever, an ETS is a completely unnecessary response that would only tie the hands of business owners who have already taken extraordinary and unprecedented efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus in the workplace.” Add in the fact that OSHA has not issued an ETS since 1983 and it’s clear that the agency’s “time to get it right” was time enough for the danger to pass.

This isn’t to say that all people will be comfortable with the decision to shed the masks, but it’s their prerogative to exist as a maskaholic. We don’t have an issue with individuals or businesses making such a choice, but we draw the line at the “one size fits all” edicts that some states have kept in place months after their more aggressive peers opened up their economies and reaped the benefits, all without a significantly worse infection rate than states remaining masked and regulated.

In the last 15 months, we have seen two different styles of governance that couldn’t be more diametrically opposed to each other. Some governors (and our president at the time) applied the lightest touch possible to a once-in-a-century pandemic. They were also the ones who lifted state emergency regulations the quickest and have basically brought their little corners of the country back to what could pass as normal.

On the other hand, we have the tyrants — those who have dragged out their states of emergency and tried to assume and maintain dictatorial powers over their subjects, er, citizens. We don’t have to go over all those names because most have been glowingly portrayed in the mainstream media. But if there were a COVID Hall of Shame, they would be enshrined — along with the Communist Chinese government — for their part in ruining lives. OSHA would be grabbing themselves a late entry into this Hall of Shame by continuing their ill-advised emergency order.