Top Three Takeaways – April 28th, 2021
- And it begins. Technically you could say it began when South Florida’s School Districts started speaking out against Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran's directive to not mandate masks for classroom education in the fall. But the education commissioner isn’t the governor and Broward and Palm Beach County’s School Districts said they’ll follow CDC guidance, which may be exactly as the education commissioner has directed – since the CDC’s policy for several months from now hasn’t been provided. The joke could end up being on them. Actually, perhaps since one of the two outspoken superintendents has since been arrested and is on his way out of his job, it already has. So, what is it that’s really beginning? The battle over vaccine passports. And ground zero may now be the Palm Beach County Tax Collector’s Office. Tax Collector Anne Gannon issued a vaccine mandate to all employees that they either vaccinate or they aren’t allowed back at work. Quoting Gannon to the Palm Beach Post...There's no reason anybody should be getting COVID now with the availability of vaccines. Except that’s not true as thousands of “breakthrough” cases have occurred because vaccines aren’t 100% effective in preventing infection from COVID-19, even if all 315 of her employees comply with her...
- Potentially illegal demands. This is the first potential battle. One between Anne Gannon and the state. In Governor DeSantis’s executive order, he specifically stated businesses can’t mandate proof of vaccination while stating that no government entity can issue them. There may be enough room inside the order for the mandate to meet legal muster provided no employees status is shared (though if all are vaccinated to remain employed one could argue they’re one in the same). When Nova Southeastern said on the same day DeSantis signed the executive order that COVID-19 vaccinations would be mandatory in order to attend classroom education in the fall, Lt. Governor Jeanette Nunez told me point blank it’s unconstitutional for them to do so. Nova declined to comment to me. But the other problem dynamics like vaccine mandates create is...
- Where it ends. This just in. Flu season never happened this year. The CDC’s flu map reveals the most benign flu season in American history. That’s of course because COVID-19 became this year’s seasonal flu. As I stated going back to last September, The bottom line is that the flu spreads the same as COVID-19 but is less communicable. Common sense is in short supply these days, but it suggests we have the potential for one of the mildest flu seasons in American history. Voila, critical thinking, analysis and logic prevail once again. And that’s the problem here. Staying with logic as opposed to say, a demonstrably false statement backed up a potentially unconstitutional mandate.COVID-19 isn’t going away. The H1N1 virus caused the 1918 pandemic and was the most common strain of the flu until now. If history holds COVID-19's variants will exist well after we’re all dead. I’m speaking as someone who’s vaccinated because I do think that’s the best idea for most people following the actual science unlike Anne Gannon who said...There's no reason anybody should be getting COVID now. Once again, the follow-the-science narrative defies real-time scientific fact - let alone whatever will be. So how long will the COVID-19 vaccine mandate be in place? Especially since we have no idea how long the efficacy lasts. And what happens when inevitably someone who is vaccinated gets COVID-19? Especially since an estimated 104 of the Tax Collector’s employees would get it if exposed to it if immunized with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and 16 with the Moderna and Pfizer. The irony is once again freedom of choice to some on the left only applies to abortion. And as for the end of this story? We don’t know where it ends.
Photo Credit: Palm Beach County Tax Collector