The growing, grudging Republican acceptance of COVID-19

One by one, they’re coming around. Governors and senators and even, if briefly, a mask-wearing president.

This week it was Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who announced a move she’d previously resisted: a statewide mask mandate in the face of surging COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. “We’re almost to the point where our hospital ICUs are overwhelmed,” Ivey said Wednesday. “Folks, the numbers just do not lie.”

This week it also was the Republican Party, which announced in a letter to delegates that it will hold a scaled-back convention in Jacksonville, Fla., next month. The new RNC 2020 will include a mix of outdoor and more-sparsely-attended indoor events - a concession the party and President Donald Trump resisted just weeks ago when the convention was to be held in Charlotte.

Are Republican leaders finally starting to catch up on COVID-19? Maybe some, at least. They’re wearing masks and pleading with people to do the same. They’re pulling back on state reopening plans they once defiantly announced. It is, we hope, part of a fundamental shift in Republican thinking about COVID, one that’s necessary for the country to slow the surge of infections. We also hope it’s a message for others - whether they’re public officials or private skeptics - that it doesn’t matter if you doubt the threat of COVID. It’s real, and it’s growing most in places where officials underplayed the threat.

To be clear, no one should be gloating when officials come around on the virus, because that acknowledgment usually comes after COVID has risen to dangerous and costly levels. Certainly, no one should take joy when a coronavirus skeptic is suddenly confronted with the virus in a personal or deadly way, as is happening with more regularity.

And while Republican leaders have largely been the slowest to acknowledge COVID’s potential - and some are still holding out - Democrats also have mistakenly underestimated the virus. Missteps early on from N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de DeBlasio were costly, and recently California Gov. Gavin Newsome has had to dial back what appears to be a too-ambitious reopening in his state.

It’s a reminder of the value of caution with COVID. North Carolina has avoided the spikes that are hitting Sunbelt states, thanks in part to Gov. Roy Cooper’s thwarting of Republican attempts to accelerate reopening. Governors who were less careful have now scrambled to pull back on reopening or reverse course on masks. “COVID-19 is not going away,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said earlier this month as he issued a statewide mask mandate. “In fact, it’s getting worse.”

Such caution also is what’s prompting school districts, including a growing number in North Carolina, to move to remote learning for at least the early part of this school year. It’s a reasonable decision for schools in COVID hotspots, although it’s possible those districts are being too cautious, especially given the costs to many students of staying home.

If so, officials should be open to revising policies, as they’ve done before when more is learned about the virus. N.C. officials initially closed public parks before research showed that COVID-19 was less likely to be transmitted outdoors with social distancing. Similarly, as schools reopen nationwide, we may learn the risk of transmission for students and teachers is minimal. If so, N.C. schools should get their students back in class.

Those decisions, however, should be based in research and learned expertise, not politics or ideology. COVID-19 has killed more than 130,000 137,000 Americans in less than half a year, despite months of shutdowns and restrictions across the country. It is not the common flu nor anything close it, and it doesn’t care whether you believe that or not. We’re glad more leaders are bowing to that reality.

This story was originally published July 19, 2020 at 5:00 AM.