On Tuesday this week, South Carolina Governor, Henry McMaster issued a new executive order. He cut the legs out from the tyrannical city mayors and councils and school districts across the state with their silly mask mandates. It literally was CHECKMATE on the tyrannical actions of local schools and cities. It was brilliant.
There was immediate pushback from some places as seen on various posts on Facebook. Greenville County Schools which has been a huge proponent of the mask, was not going to give up their masks quietly. They issued a statement to the effect that they weren’t sure if McMaster’s EO was legal and their lawyers were taking a look. I believe it was then the next day that South Carolina’s School Superintendent issued her own statement saying they would drop the mask mandate due to to the Governor’s EO. I believe it was after that that Greenville County Schools succumbed to the dropping of the mask. However, I believe students need written permission on the specific state form in order to show up maskless. Then one by one, the mask mandates were dropped…cities and schools started to fall in line. The biggest one was the City of Greenville had to finally cave as they had no standing any longer.
All of this just shows me that this was all theater and there was no benefit to the mask. It just finally took political courage and leadership from our Governor to finally stand up to this nonsense. The maskers are ticked off of course. I’m sure the school districts are besides themselves and panicked as to what to do now. I like to say that Greenville became the Mask Capitol of the South. Good riddance to the mask but something tells me this isn’t over yet.
Apparently it’s still a Federal rule that school children must wear masks on buses. Good luck enforcing that. Businesses can still require masks so I’m sure there are plenty of restaurants in downtown Greenville who will leave their mask signs up and require their employees to be masked. But really, how silly is it at this point to require masks? Costco won’t give them up, that’s for sure. Put Best Buy in to that crowd as well. If they ever do give them up, you will know that the “pandemic” is truly over.
Earlier this week, a crowd of parents and students gathered outside of where the Greenville County Schools Trustees were having their meeting. They were calling for an end to the mask. Many of the maskers on Facebook were ridiculing these parents and kids for their efforts. However, the next day, the Governor dropped his Executive Order.
Now it’s on to continually reminding the voting public that these people put in the mask mandate. Every mayor, council member or school board member who voted for the mask must be voted out. Oh, and particularly for those in leadership at Greenville County Schools who are making it difficult just to drop the masks, I do hope you will continue to wear your mask until the last mask on a child is still showing up to school.
This week, both the City of Greenville as well as Spartanburg extended their mask mandates another two months. This means they will expire mid-December just in time for the final 10 days or so of Christmas shopping. Don’t hold your breath that they are going to drop their mask demands.
The City of Greenville took the mask mandate a step further. Whereas the previous mandate required masking in grocery stores and pharmacies, the new dictate is for ALL retail establishments across the city. The mask mandate carries with it a $25 fine if charged. This is for retail establishments just within the city limits. This does not pertain to the rest of Greenville County. The citizens seem to have mixed feelings about the latest mask ordinance based upon comments on the City of Greenville’s Official Facebook Page.
The South Carolina Department of Education has come out with busing protocols for the 2020-2021 school year. They have an entire web site called Dedication to Education to provide guidance as to how schools should operate this year during Covid-19. This comes from the work led by State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman who convened school administration leaders and teachers from all over the state to participate in the AccelerateED task force.
From Dedication to Education:
“The first thing you should know is that all our focus, and every single one of our priorities, are directed toward protecting the health, safety and wellness of students and staff while giving students the best possible learning experience that is as close to normal as health and safety allow.”
There still appears to be a lot up in the air yet for this coming school year. We are waiting to hear from Greenville County Schools supposedly by July 21st as to what their plan will be for opening.
Governor McMaster yesterday suggested that schools should delay the opening until September 8th due to the spike in Covid cases right now in South Carolina.
At some point maybe people will start looking at the data that is staring us all right in the face. South Carolina has seen an increase in Covid-19 positive cases by 400-700% over the past 6 weeks. We had been tracking about 250-300 cases per day to now 1500-2200 per day. And yet today, we heard from SC DHEC that they had NO CONFIRMED DEATHS due to Covid-19. WOW!
We’ve seen no uptick in deaths in the past 6 weeks. We have seen an increase of hospital usage in the past 6 weeks but nothing at this point to worry about.
Today there have been discussions about opening or not opening schools in person. We’ve also seen the SCHSL decide to delay the start of the fall sports season for now with the potential to cancel it altogether.
My guess is if we just stopped wearing masks and moved on to other topics, people would soon enough forget about the virus.