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ICYMI: Kansas City Star Editorial: On masks and more, what Missouri Gov. Mike Parson says about COVID-19 is just not true

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“He’s distinguishing himself in his handling of this crisis, but not in a good way.”

Another day, another searing editorial for Missouri Gov. Mike Parson – this time from The Kansas City Star on his dishonesty throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Kansas City Star slammed Parson for spreading lies to his constituents on a multitude of topics, including:

Parson’s poor handling of the pandemic has already resulted in devastating increases in coronavirus cases and amplified the stress on rural hospitals. His decision to deceive the public on important guidelines and developments during the pandemic will only endanger the lives of even more Missourians.
Read the scathing editorial below:
Kansas City Star: On masks and more, what Missouri Gov. Mike Parson says about COVID-19 is just not true
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson keeps saying things about the global coronavirus pandemic that are just not true.
More than once, he has said that the current guidance on wearing a mask is this: “It’s up to the individual what they want to do.”
No, it isn’t. The current CDC guidance is that if you have to be in close contact with others in places where social distancing is not possible, you should absolutely wear one, to protect them in case you have it yourself and are asymptomatic. This is no substitute for social distancing, the guidance stresses, but is a necessary additional measure.
[…]
Yet when Parson was asked if he’d wear one, he not only said no but behaved as if the question was an affront to his manhood. 
[…]
Parson has consistently set expectations based on hopes and dreams rather than on science.
“The truth is,” he said last week, “this virus is going to be around several more months.”
No, the truth is it will be around a lot longer than that. “We’re going to have to close down at least three or four times over the next 24 months if we do this well,” Archer said.
And that’s a big if.
[…]
As for “fast and decisive action,” Parson was among the last governors in the country to issue a shutdown order, and when he finally did, put out one so porous as to be almost meaningless. The number of cases and deaths in Missouri is still climbing: On Sunday, the tally of COVID-19 cases in Missouri jumped by more than 100, to 5,667 cases, and the total deaths reached 176. To speak as if the crisis is mostly behind us now is incorrect and irresponsible.
[…]
Parson insists that such testing is right around the corner, saying that he expects testing to jump up significantly in the near future. Members of Congress have told him, he said, that “testing and availability are coming more and more online by the end of the month, and when we do that we’ll be able to move forward much more quicklier.”
We keep hearing that, and hopefully at some point it will be true.
But by May 4?
Last Thursday, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said that if Missouri needs 40,000 tests a week to reopen safely, we have a long way to go. “Right now the state of Missouri has 3,000. So we’re about 37,000 short right now in Missouri to match our testing goal.”
To keep the contagion from roaring back, Archer said, everyone exposed to someone who’s tested positive would need to be quarantined and tested at least twice. “We don’t have that capacity,” he said. Not even close.
In an interview last week with Springfield’s KOLR10, Parson threw some more fairy dust in the air: “Hopefully, the vaccine comes out before the fall” so we can all “get back to a little bit of (what) we consider normal life. I want to get them people back out.”
Everyone does. But no one in a position to know has ever said an effective vaccine might be ready before fall, so why say something so fanciful? If we’re lucky, we could have one in a year to 18 months. Even then, ramping up production of enough to vaccinate everyone will be a major hurdle.
While Missourians continue to die of COVID-19, our governor continues to whistle and talk nonsense. He’s distinguishing himself in his handling of this crisis, but not in a good way.