Chris Christie is getting a lot of kudos for this:
Former New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie says in a new national TV ad that he regrets not wearing a mask while visiting the White House earlier this year, a choice he acknowledges led to him contracting the coronavirus and spending a week in the ICU https://t.co/xQ4sCS3Kbw
— CNN (@CNN) December 17, 2020
I’m reluctant to be churlish about this since Christie is, finally, telling people to wear a mask. At the same time, he’s still playing coy. He didn’t contract COVID-19 at the White House because he didn’t wear a mask, he contracted it because no one else was wearing a mask. He’s just afraid to say so because that’s an implicit criticism of Donald Trump.
Does that matter? Am I just being churlish? Yes it matters, and no, I’m not just being churlish. The problem here is that Christie is fooling people into thinking they can avoid the coronavirus if they wear a mask, and that’s plain wrong. What he should be telling people is that they can avoid the coronavirus if they refuse to attend functions where everyone is going maskless. This is, perhaps, a more difficult message and a more partisan one, but it’s also the one that can actually save lives.
