Des Moines Public Schools employees receive the COVID-19 vaccine on February 13, 2021. Photo credit: Phil Roeder Vaccinate to Educate via photopin (license).

In October, I wrote a letter to the Des Moines Register (which didn’t publish it, as often happens) about the rise in Iowa COVID-19 cases. I cited New York Times statistics, which showed with a seven-day average of daily new cases in the state that ranged from 638 to 927. Average daily deaths varied from a low of six to a high of 10.

The charts show the state never really got the pandemic under control. While it varied, by fall there were around a thousand new cases and about 10 deaths every day – 70 a week, 300 a month.

Yet it wasn’t until November, when cases hit a seven-day average of around 4,700, that Gov. Kim Reynolds enacted a loophole-filled mask mandate.

She abandoned that requirement, and other preventive measures, in early February, citing a decline in new case and hospitalizations. But the seven-day average of positive tests still is around 455 and even more people are dying – a seven-day average of about 16 (as of Saturday, February 20). That’s 112 a week, 480 a month.

Now we’d be grateful to lose just 300 people a month. The baseline for death has moved up, making what once was horrifying seem acceptable.

As she lifted almost all restrictions on Iowans, Reynolds returned to the mantra she chanted throughout most of 2020 to avoid mandating masks: “I trust Iowans to do the right thing,”  she said, relying on the conservative “personal resonsibility” slogan.

It sounds great, right? Our governor trusts us! We’re all going to be responsible!

If only it were that simple. The idea of “personal responsibility” is complex – and even moreso when it come to science-based pandemic restrictions. For many reasons, we can’t count on it to keep Iowans healthy.

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