While COVID-19 marches over us like William Tecumseh Sherman’s scorched earth march to the sea, most of the South’s Republican governors – especially Tennessee’s Bill Lee – dither.
White House COVID-19 adviser Deborah Birx was in Nashville on Monday to warn that Tennessee is at an “inflection point” on the virus’ spread, saying that with coronavirus positivity rates now hitting 10% and higher, all 95 county mayors should mandate residents wear masks, close bars and implement social distancing to show the spread of this dangerous disease that in our county alone has infected more than 5,000 that we know of and killed 45.
And though most rural county mayors are not now mandating mask use in public, Lee could order it statewide. He just doesn’t. He has declined to make the call, leaving it instead to local officials who apparently fear their voters and business donors. Only 14 days ago, Lee, who has said he trusted Tennesseans to make the right decision, was modeling a no-mask “trust” as he talked with Fox News at the Bristol Motor Speedway.
For Lee and Georgia’s Brian Kemp and Florida’s Ron DeSantis, it seems the dithering is more to please a national audience of one. Never mind that in mid-July, even President Donald Trump gave them de facto permission by finally allowing himself to be photographed wearing a face mask as he walked down a hallway at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
Birx said that while she spoke to the governor about a statewide mandate, her purpose in speaking with Lee, a Republican, and Nashville Mayor John Cooper, a Democrat, and other officials was to emphasize among other things that Tennessee is now in the “red zone” category in terms of coronavirus infections increasing.