All In with Chris Hayes featured a great interview with former Director of Arizona’s Dept of Health Services, and current Executive Director (and fellow blogger) of the AZ Public Health Association, Dr. Will Humble. It’s definitely worth a listen.
Dr. Humble spoke about Ducey’s decision to allow local authorities to mandate, and enforce, the use of masks in public. He pointed out, quite rightly, how utterly sane it is to at least attempt to use an essentially costless public health intervention to try to prevent another shut-down (which would cost us dearly) due to the growing spread of COVID-19. He also pointed out that today was actually a big win for public advocacy like what his organization (and this blog, in its own small way) does. Dr. Humble also notes that Ducey also allowed enforcement of business compliance with previously voluntary infection control measures. I would go one step further and socialize those business costs to ensure enthusiastic compliance, but we’re not having THAT conversation… yet. But we should.
The interview with Dr. Humble starts at 18:12, though, as usual, the whole episode is worth a listen.
Stay tuned to the interview that follows Dr. Humble’s, with Jane Coaston, senior political reporter for Vox, for an honorable(?) mention of Arizona’s own conspiracy theory slinging GOP Chairperson and failed Senate candidate, Kelli Ward, whose… unique(?) brain I wrote about visiting earlier this evening. Mention of our Kelli starts at 31:40, if you want to skip right to it.
