Opinion: Helmets and masks are better protectors than the government

Soon after 9-11, comedian Ron White claimed his mother wasn’t sure what to do when the nation’s Homeland Security Advisory System went from green to blue to yellow to orange and/or to red.

“Mama,” White stated in his routine, “nobody knows what to do.”

The funny Texas Panhandle native instead proposed a simpler, two-level advisory system he thought his mother and others could better understand. When the threat level for a terrorist attack was low, he said each American should acquire a helmet. When the threat level was high, he said the advice should change to “put on the damn helmet.”

White’s routine came to mind several times over the past year as New Mexico’s color-coded system for dealing with COVID-19 changed with the dangers (and political seasons), from red to yellow to green to turquoise.

The “gating criteria” was based on daily COVID cases per 100,000 people, “test positivity” and other measurements we couldn’t compile on our own. Credibility was lost from the beginning when government leaders declared it was OK for hundreds of people to crowd together in big-box retailers, but not OK to see a movie in a theater with a dozen other people, even if they were scattered rows and seats apart.

Perhaps a better system would have been 1) get a mask, 2) put on the damn mask.

That became even more obvious last week, when Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham decided all of New Mexico’s 33 counties would be declared turquoise, meaning it is mostly safe for the citizens to return to their lives with minimal safety concerns. This despite data that showed five counties - including Roosevelt and De Baca - should have been listed as yellow under the state’s standards, having met just one of three benchmarks.

“The Governor’s decision to put all counties in the turquoise category is her latest political ploy to put herself in a good light,” Republican Party of New Mexico Chairman Steve Pearce stated in a news release Thursday morning.

“She even admits that five of our 33 counties do not qualify under her ‘science,’ but decides to do it anyway. … The Governor has been playing political roulette with this silly color-coded system, and there’s no true science or consistency in the use of her crayon box.”

It’s difficult to agree with a political party whose leaders declared wearing masks was “slave training” and ineffective during a pandemic that has killed more than 4,000 New Mexicans. But the Republicans have been right all along in that the state’s Democrats have been more about political ploys than the science of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

If “test positivity” was important a month ago, it should be important still today.

The best advice is for everyone to keep a helmet handy when government is involved.

— David Stevens

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