Utah GOP Gov. Gary Herbert declared a state of emergency last night as the state's COVID-19 situation is now completely dire. Herbert addressed Utahns through the Emergency Broadcast System and announced implementation of several immediate measures designed to arrest the uncontrolled spread of the pandemic across the Beehive State, including an enforced statewide mask mandate.
Utah’s governor declared a new state of emergency late Sunday after the state’s most devastating week of the pandemic, as COVID-19 infections skyrocketed and deaths hit new highs. His big concern is the surge in hospitalizations that may soon overwhelm doctors and nurses.
Gov. Gary Herbert issued a series of new restrictions, including a statewide mask mandate — a step he has resisted for months.
Unlike other restrictions, the governor intends to extend the mask mandate “for the foreseeable future.” Businesses that fail to comply will face fines.
The new executive orders are signed by Herbert and by Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, who is the governor-elect. They limit any social gatherings to people in the same households and place a hold on all school extracurricular activities, including athletic and intramural events.
These restrictions take effect at 1 p.m. Monday and will end Nov. 23, just a few days before Thanksgiving. The governor said the state will offer holiday recommendations in the coming days.
This order doesn’t require any business to close, but businesses and event hosts must require social distancing.
The order does not apply to churches.
It doesn’t require any schools to go online — despite a teachers union pushing for junior high and high schools to go virtual.
The new restrictions don’t stop professional or college sports or the completion of the high school playoffs as long as coaches and athletes test negative and the crowds are severely limited. The order says there can be two attendees for every player or coach.
Restaurants can serve only people from the same households and must be able to keep groups 6 feet apart. Bars must close at 10 p.m. each night.
“Utah is open for business. You can still shop, dine in or carry out, exercise, worship and recreate, and many other things,” Herbert said in a video message. “We are just saying stay within your household group whenever possible, particularly for the next two weeks.”
Herbert did say that state and local authorities would crack down on the “organizers of public gatherings that do not exercise the required precautions of social distancing and mask-wearing.” He said organizers would face fines up to $10,000 per occurrence. This comes after multiple dance parties held in Utah County attracted hundreds if not thousands of young people, many who didn’t wear masks. And some clubs in Salt Lake County ignored the mask mandate there.
This is as good as it's going to get from Herbert, who is outgoing anyway. The problem is now firmly in the lap of his successor, current Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox.
But at least Herbert and Cox are actively trying to do something to contain the spread of the virus. Republicans have been actively sabotaging efforts to fight COVID-19 all year long, starting with Trump. I have no idea if state Republicans are going to revolt and sue to block Herbert's mandates, as if just about any Democratic governor tried this, it would almost certainly involve an armed terrorist cell showing up in their front yard.
And yes, for a Republican to actually do this now, things must be absolutely horrific in Utah.
They are. 2,000 cases per day in a state like Utah, with 3.25 million people, is roughly equivalent to 200,000 cases per day nationwide. They're way out ahead of the national infection curve, and in a bad way.
The United States’ surging coronavirus outbreak is on pace to hit nearly 1 million new cases a week by the end of the year — a scenario that could overwhelm health systems across much of the country and further complicate President-elect Joe Biden’s attempts to coordinate a response.
Biden, who is naming his own coronavirus task force Monday, has pledged to confront new shortages of protective gear for health workers and oversee distribution of masks, test kits and vaccines while beefing up contact tracing and reengaging with the World Health Organization. He will also push Congress to pass a massive Covid-19 relief package and pressure the governors who’ve refused to implement mask mandates for new public health measures as cases rise.
But all of those actions — a sharp departure from the Trump administration’s patchwork response that put the burden on states— will have to wait until Biden takes office. Congress, still feeling reverberations from the election, may opt to simply run out the clock on its legislative year. Meanwhile, the virus is smashing records for new cases and hospitalizations as cold weather drives gatherings indoors and people make travel plans for the approaching holidays.
“If you want to have a better 2021, then maybe the rest of 2020 needs to be an investment in driving the virus down,” said Cyrus Shahpar, a former emergency response leader at the CDC who now leads the outbreak tracker Covid Exit Strategy. “Otherwise we’re looking at thousands and thousands of deaths this winter.”
Expect more Republican and Democratic states to follow suit in the days and weeks here after the election. We won't see Mitch McConnell lift a finger until next year (and the Trump regime will simply continue to let people die to spite them not reelecting Trump.)
It's 100% up to states now as the catastrophe scenario unfolds.
The drug maker Pfizer announced on Monday that an early analysis of its coronavirus vaccine trial suggested the vaccine was robustly effective in preventing Covid-19, a promising development as the world has waited anxiously for any positive news about a pandemic that has killed more than 1.2 million people.
Pfizer, which developed the vaccine with the German drugmaker BioNTech, released only sparse details from its clinical trial, based on the first formal review of the data by an outside panel of experts.
The company said that the analysis found that the vaccine was more than 90 percent effective in preventing the disease among trial volunteers who had no evidence of prior coronavirus infection. If the results hold up, that level of protection would put it on par with highly effective childhood vaccines for diseases such as measles. No serious safety concerns have been observed, the company said.
Pfizer plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization of the two-dose vaccine later this month, after it has collected the recommended two months of safety data. By the end of the year it will have manufactured enough doses to immunize 15 to 20 million people, company executives have said.
And before everyone screams that Pfizer sandbagged their data for a week on purpose to throw the election, understand that they didn't take a dime from Trump's "Operation Ward Speed" vaaccine program, which by all accounts continues to be a complete failure. Pfizer did this because it's a drug company and hundreds of millions of vaccine doses will make them hundreds of billions of dollars, and everyone knows it.
Meanwhile, Utah won't be the last state to declare emergency this winter. Far from it.
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