Stats support easing mandates, but only with requisite caution  

On Jan. 18 of 2020, a resident of neighboring Washington, just back from a business trip to Wuhan, China, fell ill. Two days later, he became the first American to test positive for the COVID-19 virus on American soil — the first of 79 million and counting, it turned out.

Globally, the COVID pandemic has come to infect almost 450 million people, 6 million of them fatally. And the hard-hit U.S. accounts for almost 1 million of the deaths.

That’s more than the combined U.S. combat death totals from the Civil and Revolutionary wars, War of 1812 and Mexican-American War, World Wars I and II, and the wars fought in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. It is, in fact, more than the combined combat death total from all of the military engagements in our nation’s history.

But the COVID pandemic could have been worse, much worse. After all, the Spanish flu that broke out in 1918 claimed an estimated 50 million lives as it made its way around the world, aided by the troop movements of World War I.

In fact, our recent pandemic would have proven much worse had it not been for a combination of mandatory and voluntary countermeasures, notably masking, social distancing and vaccination. They gradually served to turn the tide, to the point where mandates on indoor and school masking are due for almost total lifting on the West Coast as of 11:59 tonight.

Do we think that’s the right call? Yes, we do.

Based on detailed statistical tracking being undertaken by state, national and international health authorities, the mandates are being lifted at the earliest moment grounded in science. Paranoid conspiracy theorists will see some nefarious hidden impetus, say the pivotal congressional elections looming in the fall, but the truth lies there in the numbers for all to see.

Thanks to a massive January/February resurgence fueled by the Omicron variant, Oregon has  now logged almost 700,000 cases and almost 7,000 deaths, Yamhill County almost 18,000 cases and almost 200 deaths. But the spike has since collapsed as spectacularly as it initially exploded, and no new threat is currently visible on the horizon.

COVID-19 is transmitted almost entirely by airborne means, making masking and social distancing a highly effective first line of defense, no matter what your local county commissioner might tell you. And the massive global vaccination effort launched just before Christmas in late 2020, also shamelessly panned by two of our three current commissioners, has proven even more so.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control, unvaccinated adults are nine times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID than their fully vaccinated counterparts, and unvaccinated seniors are 15 times more likely. The death risk multiples are even greater.

So far, 554 million doses of vaccine have been administered to 254 million Americans. That leaves 65% of the population fully vaccinated and 81.4% at least partially vaccinated, generally meaning vaccinated but not boosted. And the side effects have proven negligible.

If we’ve won the war, and it appears we may well have, the credit is due largely to extraordinarily successful development and deployment of effective vaccines. They would no doubt have proven even more successful had baseless political opposition not fueled stubborn resistance among some Americans.

We’ve been critical of Gov. Kate Brown on several fronts during her tenure.

However, we applaud the resolute political courage she showed in sticking to the science on masking, distancing and vaccination. It has put Oregon on a vastly better footing than neighboring Idaho and Montana, where adherence to sound public health measures has been lacking among both the populace and political leadership.

Now is no time to relax unduly, though, just because we’ve reached the point where indoor masking mandates can be lifted.

Some stores, offices and restaurants may continue listing masks among their patron requirements, just as they have long listed shirts and shoes. By the same token, some individuals may feel more comfortable continuing to mask up, particularly the ill, elderly and immune-compromised.

That’s their right and it should be honored by all of us without objection or complaint. They should not be subjected to the kind of public rebuke Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently unleashed on some hapless high-schoolers in his state.

We should also implore all Americans to achieve and maintain fully vaccinated and boosted status. That represents our best hope to keep this public health scourge at bay.