Philadelphia has decided to ignore the memo about COVID being here to stay and is, instead, choosing to subscribe to the liberal mindset that masks will save us all. With still low but sharply rising COVID case numbers, the City of Brotherly Love is telling people that their month-long break from masks failed and they can no longer breathe easy. Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole held a press conference to discuss the plan.
“This is our chance to get ahead of the pandemic… knowing that every previous wave of infections has been followed by a wave of hospitalizations, and then a wave of deaths, then it will be too late for many of our residents.” Bettigole’s words here make it seem like this is a significant jump and that the city’s residents should be getting prepared to possibly go Shanghai style and get locked down.
Yet, their daily average for new cases is only 142. At the start of 2022, they were averaging 4,000. This is a significant decline in new cases per day, and given the comparison, the rise to 142 is nothing worth going nuts over. Yet, the liberals in charge want to do everything they can to capture the opportunity to exert their power over the good people of Philadelphia. Since the mandate won’t go into effect until next week, it leaves even more questions.
Since they are delaying this idea, why even bother with it? It isn’t important enough to be put into action immediately and by Bettigole’s statement, they are convinced that time wasted is potentially going to lead to more people being infected. As such, by limiting their ability to get this put into place faster, they are putting their residents at risk.
At best, this is a poorly managed mixed message. At worst, this is the start of real tyranny coming to Philadelphia. With the great history this city has with freedom here in America, this is not the kind of treatment their citizens have come to expect. With the latest influx of liberals comes their latest ideas. This latest idea is the imposition of levels for different responses. In their current case, Bettigole has explained that they are at level 2. This means numbers are still low, but they have experienced a 50% increase over the previous 10 days.
Given the current CDC requirements, Philadelphia is still considered to easily be in the low level of concern. This is because their metrics are measures based on hospitalizations, and not on the number of cases. While, to many, this might seem like an unimportant nuance, it is vital when it comes to the treatment of their patients and the response of the local government.
Then again, Bettigole showed exactly why this is happening in her briefing when asked about the difference. “We’ve all seen here in Philadelphia, how much our history of redlining, history of disparities has impacted, particularly our Black and brown communities in the city. And so it does make sense to be more careful in Philadelphia, then, you know, perhaps in an affluent suburb.” Her goal here is just to play the race card.
There is a huge advantage for people like her to gain by claiming that this is being done because of previous racial issues. In their eyes, minorities will feel like the liberals are looking out for their best interests and keeping them safe and that they are ensuring their medical needs are being met.
The truth of the matter is that she is using them to justify taking more and more control away from people. Those in lower-income brackets are more susceptible to the loss of their rights, and they have little recourse. So, if she can take them and claim it’s for their own good, then all the better in the liberal mindset.
