As COVID cases slide, Republicans seek data justifying continued restrictions

Gov. John Carney gave his last press conference Feb. 15, at least for the time being, as COVID cases continue to drop during an annual post-holiday slide. But House Republicans are questioning him on what metrics the administration has used to continue mask mandates and other restrictions.

“We’ve got some good news,” Carney said, before reviewing the downward trend of hospitalizations, critical cases and overall positivity rate. “The peaks and valleys are somewhat predictable now.”

Two years of COVID data show similar spikes after the holiday months followed by fewer cases over the warmer spring and summer months. Hospitalizations sank to 165 on Feb. 15, with an average positivity rate of 8.5%.

In an open letter sent to Carney, House Republicans questioned what COVID metrics, if any, have been used to justify the many public health mandates, state emergencies and other restrictions instituted by the Carney administration over the past two years.

“Despite repeated requests, there has never been any public disclosure indicating what COVID-19 metrics your administration prioritizes in its decision-making process, what thresholds trigger the imposition of mandates, and what levels need to be achieved to remove restrictions once they have been imposed,” states the letter signed by Republican state representatives including Steve Smyk of Milton, Ruth Briggs King of Georgetown, and Rich Collins of Millsboro.

“Nearly two years after we jointly began this ordeal, we have enough reliable information to chart a path forward. We respectfully ask you to objectively assess our situation and urge you to promptly end all pandemic-related restrictions, return all state workers to their normal places of employment, and restore normality for all Delaware citizens.”

Carney said he hadn’t seen the letter, but he has tried to share information with legislators.

“We’ll continue to work with legislators on the other side to do the best for all Delawareans,” he said.

Republicans also cited a Jan. 19 article published in The Lancet, a medical journal, which stated that the push for vaccinations to fight the recent Omicron variant was futile since the wave came so fast and was over quickly.

“[The] Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation models suggest that the transmission intensity of omicron is so high that policy actions – e.g. increasing mask use, expanding vaccination coverage in people who have not been vaccinated, or delivering third doses of COVID-19 vaccines – taken in the next weeks will have limited impact on the course of the omicron wave,” the article stated.

The medical journal article stands in sharp contrast to the push by Delaware and the Centers for Disease Control that recommended vaccinations and boosters as the only way to stop the spread of COVID. During a press conference Feb. 8, Dr. Karryl Rattay, director of public health, spoke at length about misinformation or disinformation, while also downplaying the role of natural immunity in preventing virus spread.

In the Jan. 26 Wall Street Journal, Dr. Martin Makary, a surgeon and professor at Johns Hopkins University, wrote that efforts to disparage natural immunity are wrong.

“Many clinicians who talk to other physicians nationwide have long observed that we don’t see reinfected patients end up on a ventilator or die from Covid, with rare exceptions who almost always have immune disorders,” he wrote. “Meanwhile, public-health officials recklessly destroyed the careers of everyday Americans, rallying to fire pilots, truck drivers and others in the supply-chain workforce who didn’t get vaccinated. And in the early months of the vaccine rollout, when supplies were limited, we could have saved many more lives by giving priority to those who didn’t have recorded natural immunity.”

On Feb. 3, Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor at the University of Southern California, wrote in The Hill that vaccination lowers risks of death or long-term COVID, and he recommended it for people who are immunocompromised. But he also said those who had a previous infection and remain unvaccinated are also highly protected against serious omicron disease. 

“Those with natural immunity should have equal status as those vaccinated,” Klausner wrote. “Demonstrating a prior infection is no more difficult than demonstrating vaccination.”