We have now arrived at the holiday portion of the pandemic and we are seeing how bad things can really get.
We all have remained mostly solitary over the course of the last seven months, with intermittent gatherings sprinkled throughout this horrid crisis. As the holidays came creeping up, local and state officials began thinking of ways to interfere with the private behavior of their constituents and worried that these family gatherings could bring a new wave of COVID-19 to spread across the nation at large.
This is when authorities began demanding an extension of our solitude for the sake of the rest of us.
But it appears as though some of these lawmakers believe they are above their own rules and refuse to take their own advise.
Denver’s mayor apologized on Wednesday for traveling out of state to visit his family for Thanksgiving, in a statement that came on the same day that he urged residents to “stay home as much as you can.” Health experts have repeatedly asked Americans not to travel for the holiday, warning that it could lead to a severe spike in coronavirus cases and further tax an already overburdened healthcare system.
“I have shared how my family cancelled our plans for our traditional multi-household Thanksgiving celebration,” Democratic Mayor Michael Hancock wrote on Twitter. “What I did not share, but should have, is that my wife and my daughter have been in Mississippi, where my daughter recently took a job. As the holiday approached, I decided it would be safer for me to travel to see them than to have two family members travel back to Denver.”
“I recognize that my decision has disappointed many who believe it would have been better to spend Thanksgiving alone,” he added. “As a public official, whose conduct is rightly scrutinized for the message it sends to others, I apologize to the residents of Denver who see my decision as conflicting with the guidance to stay at home for all but essential travel.”
The hypocrisy is beyond anything we have ever seen before and it does a great deal of damage to the credibility of the mayor’s office.
