After over a year of fine-filled local draconian government mandates and restrictions, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett and Marion County Public Health Department Director Dr. Virginia Caine announced that COVID-related restrictions will be lifted on July 1, 2021.
“Thanks to the efforts of our residents and businesses, Indy is ready to reopen,” said Mayor Joe Hogsett.
Canceled: Masks and Social Distancing
The move removes government-mandated capacity restrictions and social distancing requirements put into place in Marion County last year.
As part of the cancelation of restrictions, masks are no longer required indoors AND outdoors for unvaccinated individuals.
Yet Schools Are Under Review
For some reason (government control) guidance specific to schools during the upcoming semester is expected to be shared in the next several weeks.
Why Now? COIVD-19 Metrics
“Looking at the totality of evidence, we are now in a position to further remove restrictions in Marion County,” said Dr. Caine.
The Data and the Science
For those keeping score at home, all “numbers” have been going down for months, and Indianapolis currently has a positivity rate below 2 percent, as well as a number of new cases below 30 per day (see screenshot above).
The hospitalization rate and death rate are both extremely low now despite the fact that only 49% of Marion County residents have been fully vaccinated.
This is in part because:
- This is historically how viruses of this magnitude work, vaccine or not. Read some history and you’ll often see this played out.
- Healthy people under 60 are far less likely to be hospitalized and/or die from COVID-19, and most of those 60+ are indeed vaccinated.
- There are ample treatment options available that we were unaware of very early on, and they’re not throwing as many people with COIVD-19 on a ventilator now.
Just a month ago the Indy 500 was restricted to 40% capacity, and the vast majority of fans refused to wear masks. And guess what? The “official” number was that 19 cases of COVID-19 can be traced back to the race. And as far as we’ve heard, there were no COVID-19 hospitalizations or deaths directly related to anyone attending the race.
In other words, science doesn’t seem to have been followed for some time now and the people are fed up with government mandates that seem to be created and enforced on a whim or with other motives behind them. For valid reasons, right or wrong, many are no longer trusting what’s being fed to them.
Add on top of that an international media web of regurgitated stories that are focused on the mandated narratives of the moment* instead of investigation and journalism. The media simply is not helpful in matters.
INDYpendence Day
And on that note, we are declaring July 1st INDYpendence Day!
Get Independence Day started early with your friends and family, but stay safe, and for the love, WASH YOUR HANDS! That could easily avoid a lot of viral issues in this world.
*Footnotes (aka Media Narratives)
The current media narrative being, “Get the unvaccinated vaccinated or we’ll all die from the Indian “Delta” variant!”
Probably to be followed up with a narrative of the vaccinated needing to get a booster to avoid certain death.
We wish we were making this up, but here we are.