Are Trump and other Republicans fighting imaginary demons as they vow to oppose new Covid restrictions?

It seems to me, at least, that more people have been wearing masks in the Washington area over recent weeks.

That’s not based on any scientific assessment and the numbers involved are minuscule in comparison to those when the Covid-19 pandemic was at its peak. But with the incidence of Covid again ticking upwards, the numbers wearing face coverings on trains or in shops have risen in parallel.

Even walking in the open along the Potomac river, one sees people wearing masks.

Of course, Washington is not reflective of attitudes in other parts of the United States. Polling by YouGov in August suggested that overall only about 12 per cent of Americans now typically wear a mask outside the home always or most of the time.

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The Trump administration, to its credit, poured billions of dollars into the development of Covid vaccines in record time. But conservatives have largely disowned the vaccines and even Trump does not brag about this real achievement much any more

Washington is a Democrat city and attitudes towards Covid-19 are, in general, likely to be different there than in more conservative parts of the country.

Covid, vaccines and associated public health measures have, after all, become another front in the culture wars.

The Trump administration, to its credit, poured billions of dollars into the development of Covid vaccines in record time. But conservatives have largely disowned the vaccines and even Trump does not brag about this real achievement much any more.

‘Guinea pigs’

Earlier this week US medicine regulatorsgave the go ahead for updated vaccines.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that everyone six months and older, who had not received a Covid-19 shot in the last two months, should receive a booster.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who is running for president, quickly rejected this advice and urged residents in his state aged under 65 not to take the new vaccine. “I will not stand by and let the Food and Drug Administration and CDC use healthy Floridians as guinea pigs for new booster shots,” he said.

With the uptick in case numbers over recent weeks, some on the right have suggested that the government would again seek to impose lockdowns or mandatory mask wearing.

Conservative politicians were quick to follow, especially amid the backlash following incidents in which two schools, in Alabama and Maryland, sought to introduce temporary masking requirements.

De Santis promised that as president, he would “usher in a reckoning for those who devised the failed and destructive biomedical policies that caused damage throughout our country, because until there is accountability they will try to do it again”.

Trump told a rally in South Dakota that “the radical Democrats are trying hard to restart Covid hysteria”. He urged Republicans to stop the Biden administration from bringing back lockdowns, mask mandates or restrictions of any kind.

Trump and DeSantis have sparred for weeks about who locked down the most, or least, or who listened most attentively to Anthony Fauci during the initial stages of the pandemic

Of course, the White House has strongly denied it has any such plans.

Joe Biden joked with reporters earlier this month that they should not tell his staff that he was not wearing his mask – they had told him he should do so for ten days after his wife contracted Covid.

Shrewd move

So are Republicans fighting imaginary demons or is there some smart politics involved?

Republican strategists believe that opposing Covid restrictions was good for the party politically – particularly in relation to the closure of schools, for which they tend to blame teacher unions and Democrats.

Seeking to attribute responsibility for restrictions to the other side or for one candidate to profess how much more opposed to such measures they were compared to an opponent is viewed as a shrewd move.

[ The story of a vaccine: how Moderna’s big bet played out ]

[ How Anthony Fauci became a superstar: ‘People were looking for someone they could trust’ ]

Trump and DeSantis have sparred for weeks about who locked down the most, or least, or who listened most attentively to Anthony Fauci during the initial stages of the pandemic.

Trump said in an interview on Thursday that he “wasn’t a big fan of Fauci”, who served as the top adviser on the virus during his term in the White House.

Fauci has become something of a hate figure for many Republicans, and Trump sought to portray DeSantis as following Fauci’s advice more than he did.

Fauci said in recent interviews that he did not see any government-imposed mask restrictions being put in place again although there could, he said, be some local requirements.

This was probably a realistic assessment as to where the attitude to Covid stands at present in the US. People may opt voluntarily to wear face coverings.

But it would probably take the emergence of some Covid strain of far greater lethality before politicians would dare to force the public to accept new mandates or restrictions.