From the right: The Needless CDC Panic
In the face of the Delta variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should have reiterated that vaccines overwhelmingly prevent serious COVID illness and death, period — instead, the agency created a “fiasco” by offering “murky new guidance without backup evidence,” fumes The Wall Street Journal editorial board. “The CDC should be a source of fact and reason, not a hair-on-fire spreader of fear. The agency could start by explaining that COVID cases have been increasing across the US and that more vaccinated individuals are testing positive. But most of these ‘breakthrough’ cases are mild or asymptomatic.” As for the re-masking guidance, “the risk is that some people may conclude from this new CDC guidance that, since we still need masks, there’s no need to be vaccinated,” thus undermining the vaccination drive. “Time and again in this pandemic, the CDC has been a source of confusion or ineptitude. And Washington wonders why Americans have lost confidence in COVID experts.”
Libertarian: Adult Irrationality Hurts Kids Again
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation of universal masking in schools in the fall will ratchet up “classroom-infectiousness fear” and “encourage public schools to not open,” laments Reason’s Matt Welch. To make matters worse, “this accommodationism rests on a faith-based hunch, unsupported by available evidence — that masking vaccinated people in schools will make a damn bit of difference in the spread of COVID-19.” And since even “unvaccinated kids rarely get it, spread it or suffer from it,” the rule basically amounts to “masking vaccinated people who will probably not contract COVID to protect a population that gets it the least and suffers from it less than it suffers from the flu. At what point are we going to admit this is crazy?”
From the left: Dems Need a Response to CRT
Republicans’ attacks against critical race theory may be a “largely specious” weapon of choice for 2022, but Democrats “better figure out how to respond,” cautions Albert Hunt at The Hill. The right’s focus “on the most radical interpretation” puts Democrats on the defensive: If they “don’t oppose bans on critical race theory, it could alienate black supporters; if they do, it could offend moderate white voters.” The truth is “that racism is a systemic shame,” but “America has made enormous progress,” and “no child should be made to feel guilty because of the color of his or her skin.” Proposals “to ban the teaching of certain concepts” have become a national pattern “that Democrats, so far, have not countered.”
Marco Rubio: Stop Big-Tech-Dem Collusion
“The love affair between Big Tech and the Democratic Party is not a secret,” writes Sen. Marco Rubio at FoxNews.com. “Through campaign contributions, censorship and woke nonsense, it’s perfectly clear that Silicon Valley giants are working together with the left to destroy conservative values in America.” But the White House’s recent admission that it’s directing the tech giants to censor certain posts escalates the “dystopian” nature of the threat. “To combat this attempt by the Biden administration to compel Big Tech to censor Americans’ speech, conservative policymakers must act now to safeguard free speech on the Internet.” Specifically, Congress should require tech firms to disclose any government pressure to censor posts. “Americans should know when governments — especially their own — request or pressure Internet companies to censor legal speech. Doing so will shed light on insidious, government-Big-Tech censorship efforts, as well as empower consumers with additional information about how open the Web sites they’re using really are.”
Liberal: Masking for the Vaxxed Is Ridiculous
The vaccinated were promised liberation, but now health officials are “rolling back that freedom,” huffs Neal Pollack at Spectator World. “It’s wrong to place restrictions on people for a disease they almost certainly don’t have, are vaccinated for and have a 99.8 percent or higher chance of surviving, even if they do get it.” Masks are “the gateway drug” to more lockdowns. “Somewhere along the line, liberals forgot that” choice “was something to value.” — Compiled by Ashley Allen & Sohrab Ahmari
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