Let UW determine its own Covid response

Some people just don’t like rules, unless they are the ones who get to make them. Wisconsin state Senator Steve Nass thinks schools in the UW System shouldn’t be able to set their own rules when it comes to Covid protocols. He is introducing legislation that would require UW La Crosse and other system schools to submit their plans for dealing with Covid to the legislature’s administrative rules committee, which he chairs. Rules vary by campus, but Nass doesn’t want the schools to be able to force their students to, say, wear masks, or even stay six feet apart. Common sense steps which campuses have embraced, and which work. Our university system has done a great job dealing with the virus. They were among the first to put safety measures in place based on the latest data. As the data evolved, so did the rules. But Nass says some chancellors want to “take advantage of the delta variant hysteria to enact excessive Covid-19 mandates.” Being practical to prevent the spread of a virus is not hysteria, it’s common sense. What UW is doing is working. There are few new cases, except for the unvaccinated. The reason students can be back in the class without masks right now is because the precautions they took worked. Preventing schools from determining how best to respond could mean a return to distance learning or mandatory mask wearing. Let’s let schools continue to chart their own course, because what they are doing seems to be working.