(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Arizona's Covid record sucked, so Republicans are investigating why it didn't suck more [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-05-03 Arizona Republicans: "We want to know why the columns on the far right side aren't higher!" There was a moment early in Arizona’s Covid-19 experience, reflected in the first four months of the chart above, when the politicians appeared to be listening to scientists. Gov. Ducey and the state’s top healthcare official, Dr. Cara Christ, were on TV nearly everyday with pandemic news and advice. Some information turned out to be wrong, like when they said the risk of contracting Covid here is rare, and they were often slow in responding to new developments. Still, even though they failed to act when action was necessary, and the lockdowns and other steps Gov. Ducey did implement were incomplete and temporary, Arizona’s Covid record was similar or even better than most neighboring states in early 2020. That was until Donald Trump visited Phoenix in May 2020 to tour a mask factory, which he did maskless of course. Before Trump left he urged Gov. Doug Ducey to “open up” Arizona’s schools and businesses, the same dangerous pro-commerce/anti-science message he was spreading across the country as the pandemic surged. Ducey, who’s never been known to have located a spine, buckled natch, and lifted most of the state’s Covid regulations, against the advice of his own medical team. You don’t have to be an experienced chart reader to notice Arizona’s spike in virus deaths started a few days after Trump’s mid-May 2020 visit. Ducey didn’t stop there. He refused to call for a statewide mask mandate or issue stay-at-home orders when healthcare professionals urged him to (he soon ended the state’s partnership with expert advisors). Ducey did just the opposite—he provided financial incentives to schools and families who rejected mask and vaccine requirements. “Opening up” the state and ignoring healthcare experts led to such terrible daily headlines that Gov. Ducey was forced to reinstitute parts of the lockdown, but the damage was done and for months Arizona saw the worst Covid death rate in the nation. A study published on March 23 in The Lancet found that Arizona had the highest cumulative standardized COVID-19 death rate in the U.S. for a period between Jan. 1, 2020, to July 31, 2022. You’d think state and federal officials might be interested in why Arizona did such a shitty job. That’s precisely what I thought they were looking into when I saw yesterday’s headline in The Arizona Republic: “6 Republicans are investigating Arizona's COVID-19 response.” Fantastic, let’s get to the bottom of Arizona’s terrible pandemic response! Someone should be held responsible for the thousands of preventable deaths! After all, more than 33,000 Arizonans have died so far from Covid-19, while Washington state, which is nearly the same size and population, saw fewer than 16,000 deaths, and nearby Colorado had about 15,000. So now, finally, Arizona Republicans “have established an intergovernmental committee to examine federal, state and local efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic,” in order to understand why their state did so poorly. Not exactly. “From the looks of this committee, they appear to think we did too much (COVID-19 mitigation),” said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, who throughout the pandemic said Arizona was not doing enough to prevent illness and death from the virus. That’s right, this gaggle of nitwits thinks the state’s response to the pandemic was too aggressive, too restrictive! I guess 33,000 deaths wasn’t enough. If there was any doubt about the committee’s charge, just check out the all-Republican membership that’s out for revenge: The committee is chaired by State Senator Janae Shamp, a nurse who lost her job because she refused the vaccination, and she hasn’t stopped complaining about it since. Now the election-denying Trumper has a committee to air her conspiracies! Sen. Shamp is joined by another State Senator, TJ Shope, who sold his IGA supermarket during the pandemic. The legislators are joined by three Arizona Congressmen: Paul Gosar, who urged people to take ivermectin and repeatedly called Dr. Fauci a liar; Andy Biggs, who told Arizonans to avoid the vaccine and take hydroxychloroquine instead; and newly elected Rep. Eli Crane, who just cosponsored a bill with Biggs urging President Biden to sever ties with the World Health Organization because it’s a “pawn” of Communist China. A stated purpose of the committee is to “identify any possible legal remedies against individuals or entities where appropriate.” In other words, they’ll dig for dirt that shows state and federal healthcare professionals are guilty of “persecuting” businesses, schools, and individuals during the lockdown—paving the way for lawsuits. Like Jim Jordan’s weaponization sham, this bogus committee seeks to shift the blame for tens of thousands of needless deaths in Arizona from the Republican leadership to other bogeymen. In their conspiratorial world Trump, Ducey, and their Republican allies who “opened” the state while the virus raged uncontrollably aren’t responsible for Arizona’s high death rate. The fault lies instead with Dr. Fauci and other committed healthcare professionals who followed the science, not QAnon websites. And they must pay for it! [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/3/2167167/-Arizona-s-Covid-record-sucked-so-Republicans-are-investigating-why-it-didn-t-suck-more Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/