Colorado is experiencing another surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. The health care system is reportedly becoming overwhelmed, and a lot of health care workers are experiencing burnout after the last 1 1/2 years.
In this environment Colorado's governor has refused to impose a statewide mask mandate. Instead he says county and local health authorities should decide any mandates. Two counties, Boulder and Larimer, have re-imposed mandates.
Other counties have not imposed mandates, yet many of them are actively lobbying the governor to impose a statewide mandate. If masks are so important one wonders why the county doesn't impose its own mandate independent of the state. While a mandate by one county in the Denver Metro area will do less than a metro area wide mandate (given the number of people who cross county lines daily) a county mandate ought to do some good and say that officials are serious about it. Yet most counties aren't putting their own mandates into place.
Could this be politics? Mask mandates are unpopular, especially among conservatives. One place actively lobbying for masks is Jefferson County. It is in suburban Denver and generally conservative politically. Are they lobbying the governor so that with a statewide mandate the (democratic) governor will get any negative political fallout from a new mandate?
