ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

I went there for lunch on Tuesday, just hours before ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Circuit Judge Ellen “Nellieâ€� Ribaudo granted a temporary restraining order stopping the new mask mandate announced Monday by County Executive Sam Page because of the rise of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations related to the delta variant.

I ordered the New York Steamer. The teenager behind the counter asked if I wanted to “round-up� a few cents to donate to first responders. I did.

Tim Fitch used to be a first responder. The ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County Councilman is a former police chief in the county. He’s the reason I went to Firehouse Subs. A week before at the council meeting in which Fitch and a majority of the council rescinded the mask mandate, he told the large, mostly maskless crowd in the council chamber a story.

Before the meeting, , he picked up some dinner at Firehouse Subs. “I was not masked. The 16-year-old working behind the counter said: ‘Excuse me sir, you have to have a mask on.’ I said, ‘I don’t have one.’ He said: ‘You’ll have to pull your shirt up over your face.’�

Fitch got the laugh he wanted from the anti-mask crowd. It struck me as a poignant metaphor for the sad state of affairs that is the current Republican politicization of the pandemic. Fitch, a former cop, would rather disobey a reasonable request from a teenager doing his job, and then make fun of the kid at a public meeting, than simply don a mask to help keep the people around him safe from a deadly virus that is mutating and becoming more dangerous, even to children.

After ordering my lunch, while standing next to another sign inside that asked customers to mask up while walking around the restaurant, another gentleman came into the store. Seeing the signs, he immediately stuck his hand up and got somebody’s attention. “I don’t have a mask,� he said.

A man behind the counter, the supervisor who oversees the work of the teenagers, explained that there were masks up front by the cash register. The man put a mask on. Maybe they were out the day Fitch ordered his food. I don’t know.

But with or without a mask mandate from the county, this is going to be the new norm until America can get past the ever-changing pandemic that has already killed more than 600,000 of our fellow citizens. Next to Firehouse Subs is a McDonald’s. Last week, the nationwide burger chain announced that it was reimposing a mask mandate for all employees and customers. So are many retail outlets. With or without a county order, Firehouse Subs is still requiring masks. Good for it.

Meanwhile, Missouri is going the other way. Republicans like Fitch and Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Gov. Mike Parson argue that any attempt by government to require masks as a strategy alongside vaccination to reduce the spread of COVID-19 — as now recommended by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — is somehow a violation of their freedom to spread the virus so that others, including children, can die.

It’s the wrong application of the concept of freedom, says Dr. Kenneth Remy. A former councilman in Wildwood, Remy is a centrist independent, politically, who used to be a physician and scientist at Washington University but now works in Ohio. Early in the pandemic, he posted a viral video explaining how important masking and social distancing is, trying to appeal to people of his own political persuasion, and his neighbors on the right, that they could avoid their own deaths, and those of others, if only we all worked together to defeat the pandemic. Last week, as Fitch et al were erasing a mask mandate intended to save lives, Remy issued another video.

“Are you going to stake the lives of those who are children or potentially those who are immunocompromised with personal liberty?� he asked. “Is that what you want to stake your whole claim on? Because, shoot, personal liberty in my view comes with personal responsibility, not in the absence of morality.�

In granting the temporary restraining order sought by Schmitt, Ribaudo struck a similar tone, making it clear that there was no victory in her narrow legal opinion, not while America is still stuck in a pandemic that seems to have further broken our sense of community.

“The court notes that although some will take this court’s ruling as a victory, there is no victory while the COVID-19 virus remains a significant threat to public safety and there is no question it remains a significant threat to public health,â€� the judge wrote. “There can be no victory until the residents of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County and the State of Missouri are no longer risking their health, well being and lives at the hands of COVID-19 virus.â€�