COVID Restrictions: Ignore Public Health Authorities

We can’t obey our way to normalcy. That shouldn’t surprise people as historically unruly as Americans. Obedience is often abnormal for us.

But it remains true in a pandemic. There is no guarantee of getting out of or beyond COVID-19–era mortifications on public life — masks on toddlers, socially distanced funerals — by compliance with public-health wishes. Nobody in the White House, CDC, or the public-health bureaucracy has put a number on shots in arms that get us back to normalcy. They don’t know. And now their minds are too rattled by the Delta-variant wave to speculate. As we’ve seen in the past week, a study of Bear Week in Provincetown, or a study out of Europe, can knock the confidence out of them almost instantly.

About the Author

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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We can’t obey our way to normalcy. That shouldn’t surprise people as historically unruly as Americans. Obedience is often abnormal for us.

But it remains true in a pandemic. There is no guarantee of getting out of or beyond COVID-19–era mortifications on public life — masks on toddlers, socially distanced funerals — by compliance with public-health wishes. Nobody in the White House, CDC, or the public-health bureaucracy has put a number on shots in arms that get us back to normalcy. They don’t know. And now their minds are too rattled by the Delta-variant wave to speculate. As we’ve seen in the past week, a study of Bear Week in Provincetown, or a study out of Europe, can knock the confidence out of them almost instantly.