it is so infectious and kills many of us if it goes unabated — and large corporations can compel us to wear masks for the general health and welfare. But our government can’t, which in the U.S. Constitution talks about preserving the general welfare. How many people have to die before we get to the general welfare threshold?

And then there is that alleged radical Republican belief that all government is bad and they abhor centralized authority. And yet Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott use the centralized power of their state governments to impose their will on local school boards when it comes imposing mask mandates on school children who are not vaccinated and are therefore completely exposed to the Delta variant in indoor school settings. Whatever happened to the Republican philosophy of leaving these decisions to local government who are in the best place to make these decisions/

When will that general welfare threshold kick in, when Florida and Texas school children begin to die in greater numbers? Will it come when Florida and Texas schools become uninhabitable and useless because there has been so much COVID-10 infections in those buildings? Since when is it an individual’s right to ignore all public health advice and guidelines and infect 6-7 people with COVID-19? Don’t I have a right to life, liberty and happiness? Being hooked up to a ventilator is not my idea of happiness.

What dark road are these radical Republicans taking us down? At what point will everyday people start to look at the actions of DeSantis and Abbott as premeditated murder, willfully putting people’s lives at risk for purely personal political gain?

And so I am glad I live in a state with a governor who won’t be issuing such edicts to our local governments and school boards. They are in the best place to make that determination according to the science of the disease. I am so glad that Governor Evers isn’t trying to take us back before the 1700s and the Enlightenment period and the age of scientific awakening.

I might not like it — I dislike masks — but I am so glad that Madison/Dane County has reinstituted the indoor mask mandate. Yesterday, we hit 98 new COVID cases per day, up from seven on June 30. I am fully vaccinated, but I sure am willing to have the mask mandate for the sake of the health and welfare of the children I see every day.

Whatever happened to the notion of American sacrifice? Whatever happened to the social contract of living in a community? I mean, if you want to live your life unencumbered by any rules — reminds me of my teenage rebellion years — then I think there are parts of Alaska and the Mojave Desert and Death Valley in California that can accommodate your “me first and only” attitude.

But I live in a community where people have certain responsibilities to each other. Yes I love my independence and love to make decisions about my life. That might be why I haven’t been married for 32 years. But within that context, I have responsibilities to maintain the general health and welfare of the community in which we live.

And sometimes standards have to be imposed for the general welfare.

I can just imagine what it would be like if my children were in a middle school where masks were optional during the midst of a pandemic. If just a few students ended up not wearing masks, would they be shamed and ostracized. Or maybe it would become “cool” not to wear masks and so some students wouldn’t want to wear masks because they wanted to belong. I could see voluntary mask wearing as a huge distraction to our schools and their mission, to educate each and every child. I am so glad that the Madison area schools are mandating masks and we have a governor who is not threatening to cut off their funding if they defy his no-mask decree.

I hear that a booster shot to keep our COVID-19 vaccines effective may be available soon. I am someone who never gets a flu vaccine. Sometimes I welcome the flu because I have to completely stop working for four days, a type of imposed vacation.

However, I would be first in line to get a booster — I’ve been fully vaccinated since March 19 — under one condition, that economically-challenged countries have a realistic access to COVID-19 vaccines. It doesn’t make any sense for the U.S. to be super vaccinated while large pockets of the world have no or few vaccines. There is no sense being that protected while other parts of the world are places where COVID-19 can keep evolving and produce variants that will make their way to the U.S. Remember where the Alpha and Delta variants came from?

Nationally and internationally, we have to realize that we are all in this together in the War against COVID-19. Get vaccinated today!