Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis pushed back on leftists demanding that he reimplement mandates to combat the pandemic, declaring the pandemic “over.”
“Everybody had more than enough opportunity to get vaccinated,” he told Colorado Public Radio on Friday.
“Hopefully it’s been at your pharmacy, your grocery store, a bus near you, [or at] big events,” he continued. “At this point, if you haven’t been vaccinated, it’s really your own darn fault.”
Polis argued the only people at risk of COVID-19 anymore are those who aren’t vaccinated.
“Those who get sick, it’s almost entirely their own darn fault,” he explained.
“I don’t want to say that nobody [will get the virus if they’re] vaccinated, but it’s very rare,” he added. “And at this point, I think it’s almost like they made a deliberate decision not to get vaccinated.”
Local jurisdictions in the state can still implement their own mandates, Polis said, but the state will stay out of it.
“The emergency is over,” he said. “You know, public health [officials] don’t get to tell people what to wear; that’s just not their job.
Polis noted that if health authorities had their way, Americans would remain in masks constantly, not only to mitigate the spread of COVID, but also other airborne diseases.
“Public health [officials] would say to always wear a mask because it decreases flu and decreases [other airborne illnesses], but that’s not something that you require,” he said.
“You don’t tell people what to wear,” he continued. “You don’t tell people to wear a jacket when they go out in winter and force them to [wear it]. If they get frostbite, it’s their own darn fault.”
Polis’s comments follow several Democratic officials’ decisions to reinstate mandates.
In Denver, for example, city officials implemented a mandate requiring businesses to demand proof of vaccination or masks indoors.
New York City also reinstated its mask mandate last week, and Oregon’s health officials moved towards making its indoor mask mandate permanent.
