OPINION

OPINION | NWA EDITORIAL: Covid situation improves, but we’ve seen this before

News about the blasted covid-19 pandemic gets more encouraging by the day. Vaccines are coming soon for unprotected school kids between ages 5 and 11; booster shots are widely available now, and folks soon will be able to mix and match them, eliminating the need to wait on the right shot. Covid metrics in Arkansas continue a slow but steady decline, with fewer people in hospitals and on ventilators. Government mask mandates have been relaxed or ended -- for the most part, voluntarily -- as have social distancing requirements in Arkansas schools.

Heck, even Dr. Anthony Fauci says it's OK for kids to go trick or treating next weekend.

Vaccines seem to be doing what experts said they would: slow the spread of covid-19 and reduce the severity of the symptoms when it takes hold or breaks through. So we're moving deliberately toward "normal," right?

We hope so. But this awful virus has tricked us in the past. So forgive us for adding the word "cautiously" before our "optimistic" outlook.

As the weather cools, people spend more time indoors, which increases the chances of transmission of the virus. Already this fall, some states in northern climates have seen slight upticks in infection rates. Despite the welcome reduction in cases overall, people are still getting sick, and a few of them are dying. And, inexplicably, there as still something like 60 million people in the U.S. who haven't been vaccinated at all, despite the well-established safety and efficacy of these miracles of modern medicine.

One of the great lessons history is supposed to teach us is the right way (or the wrong way) to respond to similar crises that afflicted mankind's previous generations. It's just not that difficult for anyone to find how the scourge of polio -- a crippling, terrifying virus that shattered millions of lives -- has been nearly eradicated from the face of the earth, thanks to vaccines. Same for measles and small pox.

Those potentially deadly diseases have been held at bay for generations by near-universal vaccinations. Covid-19 vaccines may not be able to eradicate it, but they can and do keep people safer, healthier and alive.

We've said all this before. Saying it again probably won't change the minds of people who have convinced themselves that some nefarious political or economic conspiracy is at work; or who put more stock in unverified, anecdotal tales spun out on the Internet than large-scale, peer-reviewed, data-driven scientific inquiry.

But, just in case, we'll say it again. Vaccines are safe. Vaccines work. They're not fool-proof, but they're better than taking your chances with a disease that doesn't care about you our your certainty. Unless you've got a medical condition that precludes it, you do yourself, your family and your world a favor by getting a covid-19 vaccine. Now.


We chuckled a bit when we heard about Arkansas' four Congressional representatives sending a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cordona beseeching the federal government not to "mandate" that public school students get vaccinated.

The congressmen -- Steve Womack, Bruce Westerman, Rick Crawford and French Hill -- told Cordona that they share the desire for as many people as possible to receive a vaccine, they simply think that state and local leaders should be the ones to make decisions about vaccine requirements.

Trouble is, Cordona agrees: Vaccine policies are matters for the state, not the federal government, he says. So the Arkansas delegation was preaching to the choir.

Actually, the letter wasn't really meant for Cordona. It was meant for voters back in the representatives' home districts. They now have something to brag about at the next civic club meeting or campaign stop: "Look how I told the federal government to stay out of your business!" Never mind that the federal government had no interest in getting into this particular piece of business in the first place.

They are right -- and by "they" we mean the four Arkansas congressmen and Cordona -- that vaccine policy is a matter for the states. In fact, it has been for decades. It's highly likely that all four of those congressmen and Cordona were required to receive -- and benefited from -- vaccinations when they were in school. That requirement wasn't the federal government's doing.

Much like the elected county sheriffs who proudly announce they will not enforce nonexistent vaccine mandates, the congressmen are trying to make a little political hay by creating conflict where none exists. It's an age-old tactic employed by politicians of all stripes. But it must still work, because it seems they're all still doing it.

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WHAT’S THE POINT: The news about covid these days is encouraging, but people should still get vaccinated.

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