You have to give the Washington House GOP an A-Plus for their anti-science, heads-buried-in-the-sand consistency. Despite the emergence of a new and even more contagious strain of COVID-19, the South African variant Omicron, their Quixotic and ultimately doomed efforts to repeal President Joe Biden’s vaccine and mask mandates for government positions and private businesses are continuing unabated.

Never mind the fact that Omicron is infecting several new states each day as it continues to cut a slow-moving swath through America, though still leagues behind in numbers compared to the Delta strain. And forget that the nation’s health experts and disease scientists, the infection-oriented specialists who have actual knowledge of the virulence, contagiousness and spread-capabilities of these viruses, have universally agreed that our upping the vaccination numbers to achieve herd immunity is our best and only chance of stemming the ongoing flow of daily death.

Currently around 70% of Americans have received at least one COVID-19 shot, and a total of 500 million doses have been administered. This has been proven to be insufficient, as the protective antibodies created by the first dose, be it Pfizer, Moderna or J&J last only a few months at best. The 2nd dose has been a known necessity since vaccinations began last December for an important repeated influx of antibodies. And for full protection the 3rd (booster) shot is warranted as well, especially with the advent of Omicron which luckily seems to respond to the current treatments.

GOP Sen. John Barasso of Wyoming last Wednesday offered his take on Biden’s mandate-necessity : “I’m pro-vaccine, but I’m anti-mandate”. Millions of other short-sighted Americans share that same opinion, forgetting the fact that unless we succeed in convincing or mandating more Americans to roll up their sleeves it won’t matter if Barasso gets vaccinated, or if you and I do. Unless we reach an overall percentage that is generally considered to be at least 80% in total immunizations the pandemic will continue to grow, seven-day positivity rates will continue to climb, and a health crisis that could have been a couple years in duration will continue forever.

This is because the virus has an infinite number of possible mutations, which will continue to manifest themselves going forward unless it is wiped out completely, or as nearly so as near-100% population immunization compliance will do.

Fortunately, the Republican efforts have almost no chance of passing in the House if they ultimately decide to take it up, and would be vetoed by Biden if it ever reached his desk. The Senate last week on a 52-48 vote nullified Biden’s resolution as well, thankfully failing to reach a majority that would override a Biden veto.

But just the fact that the United States has a political party whose myopia and ignorance are followed blindly by such an amazing number of citizens, people seemingly unable to read and understand any authoritative scientific treatise on the subject, and would rather take the word of a group of Donald Trump-beholden politicians instead of the people in the daily pandemic trenches who are truly in the know about this world-affecting tragedy, is certainly disconcerting.