Commissioner Mick Wright
Below is a brief timeline of news related to the belated acknowledgement that COVID-19 is an airborne virus and that aerosols are the dominant driver of spread, not larger droplets or surface contamination.
This admission by health officials is significant because it explains why hand washing, social distancing and masks did not work.
Update: The county’s resolution was returned to the floor for reconsideration on June 7. Commissioner Mills and I voted no.
My no vote was for the sake of simplicity, because I don’t think most citizens are aware of the board’s public discussions, the amendment I made, or my summary and explanation of both (as follows in its original form below).
I remain opposed to the 14 concepts condemned by both the state and the county. And I am still hopeful that the state will wisely consider the implementation of this law.
The state should equip teachers with whatever is needed to confidently present a full and complete account of history, and it should provide students with access to a wide array of instructional materials containing both positive and negative concepts, and positive and negative historical events, that are essential to a robust education.
If droplets were the main mode of transmission, as public health experts insisted until yesterday, all of the measures they promoted for the past year would have been successful.
They were not successful.
But because of a stigma against questioning the dogma of experts, reinforced by social media bans and algorithmic disclaimers, we had to pretend as if they were, and as if the main problem was lack of compliance.
Leadership from the Shelby County Health Department is crediting the mask mandate for a reduction in the infection rate. Below is a clip from today’s Joint Covid Task Force news conference.
“There have been two time periods where we had… the reproductive rate pushed below one. The first was last July, after the initial face-masking orders went into place across the county and throughout the City of Memphis, and that – just simply wearing the mask – drove the reproductive rate of the virus down by interfering enough with the transmission of the virus that Rt (or reproductive rate) dropped below one.” – David Sweat
Unfortunately, there are a few problems with this interpretation.
The Shelby County mask mandate is back up for discussion and local journalists are questioning whether the Health Department might lift the rule.
The mandate was imposed on July 3, after Tennessee Governor Bill Lee gave that authority to the state’s six local health departments.
Shelby County Health Officer Dr. Bruce Randolph said lifting the mask mandate “is something we would consider,” but added that, “the mask is the simplest tool that we have that’s shown to be most effective, and we would need to have good reasons to get rid of it.”
According to Fox 13, “Dr. Randolph said this decision would be based on data.”
Well, let’s take a look.