West Virginia Republican Gov. Jim Justice said people should be “a little more prudent” and on “rock-solid ground” before mask mandates are lifted as fellow GOP governors have scrapped requirements amid a downturn in cases.
“When it really, really boils right down to it, I have saying: One robin doesn’t make spring, and when the first robins start coming back, and you just react and run out — ‘Oh, it’s wonderful, it’s spring, it’s spring’ — you’re about to get hit by a winter storm, and absolutely get your butt handed to you,” he told Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan on Sunday when asked about lifting restrictions.
He continued: “In this situation, we need to be a little more prudent and a little more cautious, nobody likes a mask, but for crying out loud, if we could be a little more prudent for 30 more days or 45 more days or whatever it took for us to get on rock-solid ground that’s the approach West Virginia’s going to take, and that’s the approach that I think it should take.”
The Republican added that it is “ridiculous” some of his fellow GOP colleagues think masks are a violation of rights.
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On Thursday, Justice lifted business regulations on bars in addition to restaurants and increased maximum seating capacity to 100 people, up from 75 people previously. The governor also permitted travel for youth sports in his executive order.
His comments follow decisions by governors in both Texas and Mississippi to lift state-sanctioned face-covering laws and allow businesses to operate free of virus-related constraints. The move by the two Southern states drew condemnation from President Biden, who called the loosening of regulations “Neanderthal thinking.”
“Masks make a difference,” Biden told reporters on Wednesday. “The last thing, the last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything’s fine, take off your mask, forget it.”
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves responded to Biden’s remarks by saying his constituents “don’t need handlers.”
“President Biden said allowing Mississippians to decide how to protect themselves is ‘neanderthal thinking’. Mississippians don’t need handlers,” he wrote in a tweet. “As numbers drop, they can assess their choices and listen to experts. I guess I just think we should trust Americans, not insult them.”
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The moves also coincided with an urge against lifting regulations from Centers of Disease Control director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who indicated that “now is not the time” to “relax” COVID-19 regulations.
“Please hear me clearly,” she said. “At this level of cases with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained.”
“Now is not the time to relax the critical safeguards that we know could stop the spread of COVID-19 in our communities, not when we are so close,” Walensky said.
