Viewpoints: Is Quarantining Kids In Kansas Illegal?; Mandates May Backfire In Rural Communities

Kansas City Star: COVID-19 Mask Mandates, Quarantines Not Necessarily Tyranny 
Is it reasonable to quarantine unvaccinated and unmasked students who’ve been exposed to the COVID-19 virus? You would think so. Is it legal? It may not be, at least in Kansas. And that would be weird, not to mention foolhardy. Yet an Olathe law firm’s cease-and-desist letter warns the Gardner Edgerton school district that it’s illegal under state law to single out unvaccinated students for quarantine. (Michael Ryan, 9/13)

The Washington Post: In My Community, Biden’s Vaccine Mandates Could Put More Lives At Risk 
In rural Tillamook County, Ore., the coronavirus pandemic rages out of control. We would welcome more help from the state and federal governments. Unfortunately, sweeping policies such as those announced Thursday by President Biden could make our situation worse. As in so many areas of American life, the response to covid-19 has exposed a rural-urban divide. On one side are policymakers, experts and journalists living mostly in large cities and dense suburbs. The debate around covid tends to reflect their experiences. But what works for Portland or Washington or New York doesn’t necessarily work for the rest of us. (David Yamamoto, 9/13)

The New York Times: Some States Fell Far Behind In Vaccinating Against Covid-19. How Many Lives Could Have Been Saved If They Had Caught Up? 
The Covid-19 vaccines save lives. Unlike much of the world, the United States has an overabundant supply. And yet many areas and groups of people in the United States are undervaccinated. This has led to preventable deaths throughout the country. To quantify just how many deaths, we set out to estimate how many lives might have been saved if all states had managed to vaccinate their residents as quickly as the state with the highest vaccination rate (usually Vermont in the period we looked at). This provides a benchmark for what would have been possible with vaccination rates that we know are, under at least some circumstances, achievable. (Emma Pierson, Jaline Gerardin and Nathaniel Lash, 9/14)

Los Angeles Times: Biden Was At His Best And Boldest On Vaccine Mandates 
Faced with a surge of Delta-variant COVID-19 cases, especially in areas with low vaccination rates, President Biden spoke and moved with great clarity of purpose in mandating vaccines for federal employees and contractors, and imposing a vaccination-or-testing requirement on employers with staffs of 100 or more. The nation is in near-crisis as we try to avoid a return to packed ICUs and closed businesses. The intransigence of the ill-informed or simply stubborn cannot be allowed to override the actions of those doing the right thing. (9/13)