The media are trying to goad Gov. Polis back into a statewide mask mandate, because they insist he promised he would punish us with such if COVID cases overwhelmed hospitals.
Leading the pack is the Colorado Sun, which insists Polis was clear on Aug. 12 when asked if he might consider reinstating the order.
“We will not overwhelm our hospitals,” he said then. “We will take the steps necessary to avoid doing that.”
Later, he added: “We don’t wait until we’re overwhelming our hospitals. We watch the trend, and we act before we are overwhelming our hospitals.”
Our hospitals are not overwhelmed, we have a shortage of available ICU beds.
About 1,400 people in Colorado were hospitalized last week with the virus. Colorado can accommodate about 2,000 COVID patients among the 8,800 beds statewide.
That’s 1,400 COVId patients statewide, in the hospital.
Nearly 300 of those COVID patients — 20% — were vaccinated.
That’s the cause for media alarm to get behind masks again, while Polis calls for an increase in hospital beds, vaccine passports to attend events, and expanding vaccine booster shots beyond CDC guidelines to anyone who wants one.
Colorado Public Radio is also clamoring for the mask mandate, and went so far as to suggest the spike in cases is caused by Trump voters not getting vaccinated.
For months, health research groups like KKF have noted a sharp and growing red-blue divide in vaccination rates. Counties that voted for Trump in the 2020 Presidential election are less vaccinated compared to those that voted for Biden.
The article points out that Mesa, Weld, El Paso and Pueblo have high hospitalization numbers, while Eagle, Boulder and Broomfield are at the lower end of the scale.
They’re making assumptions that only those getting the vaccine voted for Biden, while the holdouts voted for Trump.
And yet, according to that same source cited by CPR, we see the vaccine numbers in Colorado are actually broken down by race/ethnicity.
No one we know was asked who they voted for before getting a vaccine. Yet everyone is asked to disclose their race, and states are reporting that information to the CDC.
The breakdown by race of those receiving at least one vaccine by Nov. 1 in Colorado is: 69% of the white population, 63% of the Asian population, 61% of the Black population and 37% of the Hispanic population.
Democrats continue to inflate the myth that only Republicans are turning down vaccinations to play to their base and divide voters.
Polis relied on that stereotype again recently to explain away why he’s not going to reinstate the mask mandate — other than the fact he’s up for reelection next year.
From the Sun:
“I think most Coloradans are sick and tired of wearing masks to protect people who don’t seem to want to protect themselves,” he said earlier this month.
You know who are really sick and tired of wearing masks all day? Our children. But that’s a different matter.
Put aside the assumption Polis is just dissing Trump voters, whom liberals believe deserve to die anyway.
What Polis is saying, is that these people don’t want to save themselves and aren’t worth trying to protect:
The 63% of Colorado Hispanics who have not been vaccinated.
The 39% of Colorado Blacks who have not been vaccinated.
The 37% of Colorado Asians who have not been vaccinated.
The 31% of Colorado Whites who have not been vaccinated.
Somehow, we doubt they’re all Trump voters.