The St. Louis city mask mandate is set to finally end on Sunday – a full 10 days after Mayor Tishaura Jones partied down mask-less at her Mardi Gras Ball with hundreds of her closest political allies.
Thousands of revelers also descended -maskless- on the city for what was used to be the 2nd largest Mardi Gras celebration in the country, pre-pandemic. St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones didn’t abide by her own law however, there was a party going on.
Mask Theater of the Absurd
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So why prolong this ridiculous mask theater another week? Neighboring St. Louis County and even the state of Illinois across the river already abandoned the failed policy. So why extend the bad joke? Oh. Because that wouldn’t make good mask theater for CDC Director Rochelle Walinsky’s visit to St. Louis on Thursday. Here is Walinsky touring CARE STL, a federally funded health center.
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Masks were de rigueur for Walinsky to the inner city where Walinsky modeled her mask even for her presentation and interviews with press.
Funny, masks were not insisted upon for her discussion at the Washington University Medical School visit, also in the mask-mandated city of St. Louis.
So what was learned from Walesky’s visit? We learned that “science” is grey, the public really doesn’t understand science, science changes and takes time.
During a discussion on Thursday with Walensky, William G. Powderly, MD, Co-director of the Division of Infectious Diseases asked:
How do you go about making decisions regarding competing risk/benefits? Balancing the infectious risk with competing risk benefits such as the risk to mental health, the economic risk?
Walensky shared:
That is such an important question. I, uhm (laughing). The easy answer is that I know I’ll be wrong for 1/2 the country…It’s a lot…We might be faulted for not making exactly the right decision in the moment, but I don’t want to be faulted for not making a decision. Because that in itself is a decision.”
In an interview with KSDK, Walensky cautions:
“Our guidance says you can remove your mask. Put them aside, but not too far away. If we need them again, we’ll pick them up again.”