Back in March, when COVID-19 was just becoming part of our everyday vernacular, when the usual joy of March Madness was replaced by Pandemic Panic, Torrey Harris got sick.

Governor won’t require masks statewide despite changing GOP attitudes

“I had a 105.1 fever for five days,” said Harris, 29, and a newly elected Democratic state legislator representing District 90 in Memphis. “It was a major thing.”

Nine months later, Kevin Vaughan, 58, a Republican serving District 95 in Collierville, learned he had contracted COVID-19.

“I had a fever for 11 days in a row,” said Vaughan, who says he came out of quarantine Jan. 9. “I just let my guard down for a short amount of time, felt guilty about it and got popped.

“Mine was on a duck hunting trip. A lousy hunt, too. That’s what was worse.

“But when I got the coronavirus, I didn’t say, ‘that dadgum Bill Lee, Lake County should have had a mask mandate.’”

Blame all around

Any report card on America’s response to the pandemic — and by extension the response from Gov. Bill Lee and Tennessee, and for that matter the 49 other states and their governors — is going to come up short of triumphant.

Tennessee state Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Democrat serving District 29 in Shelby County, said of Lee and his administration: “I don’t want to give them that (low grade). I’d give them an incomplete right now.

“Because our numbers have been so high, the highest in the world at one point, I don’t think we can say this is anything close to a success.’

Truth is, at all levels — federal, state and local — early response to the pandemic was “trial and error,” said Dr. Lisa Piercey, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Health. “It was a bumpy start.

“One of the mistakes scientists made was presenting information in a binary manner — it’s either this or that. When something’s moving so fast, you’re going to be wrong sometimes.”

For example, there was a period early on when some in the medical community cast doubt on the effectiveness of masks.

“We had to contradict ourselves, our earlier statements,” Piercey said, “and that undermined us as scientists.”

It was a mixed message that, just like the virus, was spread throughout the land.

A recent analysis by Vox.com, a news site specializing in explanatory journalism, concluded, as the story’s headline proclaimed, “Everyone failed on COVID-19.”

The buck stops where?

A picture of former President Donald Trump accompanies the Vox story, but the news site does not find fault only with Trump — which isn’t to say Trump was absolved.

In fact, Vox summarized Trump’s early response as “borderline denialist messaging on COVID-19.”

But in taking a broader and deeper look — as Vox dug into every state’s metrics, including daily cases per capita, infection rate and test positive rate — no state was doing well overall. And for most of the past several weeks, almost every state had failed to meet benchmarks of progress in two of the three categories, if not all three.

That said, the analysis also determined much of the states’ ineffectiveness flowed from the top down, including the Trump Administration’s “crippling” effect on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“Throughout the whole pandemic, I have never accepted the argument that the problem of America is we have 50 failed governors,” Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told Vox. “That can’t possibly be the right answer. The right answer is not we need better governors — the right answer is we need a different structure and a better federal government.”

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That theory, while not garnering 100% agreement, gets a good bit of traction.

“I’ve been pretty clear we needed a lot more central control at the federal level and the state level. In both instances, they devolved responsibility at the local level.”

Dr. Jon McCullers 
Shelby County COVID-19 Task Force

“I’ve been pretty clear we needed a lot more central control at the federal level and the state level,” said Dr. Jon McCullers, a local infectious disease expert on Shelby County’s COVID-19 Task Force. “In both instances, they devolved responsibility at the local level.”

In December, when Tennessee was seeing a surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths, three physicians in the state who treat coronavirus patients held a virtual news conference. One of them, Dr. Jason Martin, a pulmonary and critical care specialist in Nashville, was especially blunt when discussing the lack of a statewide mask mandate and tepid enforcement of facial coverings and social distancing.

“(The governor),” Martin said, “dumped the burden of leadership on municipalities, individual businesses, teachers and parents, leaving them to fight this global pandemic on their own.”

To Torrey Harris, this was Lee hearing a call from Washington that he believed he could not ignore.

“It follows behind what we consider the ‘Trump Cult,’” Harris said.

Obvious question: If the sitting president had been named Obama, Bush, Reagan or Carter — anything but the force of personality that is Trump — would the response from Washington have been different?

“It would have been more along the lines of a traditional response — listening to the medical experts, not disregarding the World Health Organization, not publicly criticizing governors and trying to diminish the virus,” Akbari said. “I think every governor’s response would have been different.

“Every governor.”

Piercey says of the federal response: “They allowed flexibility to the states. That can be viewed negatively or positively depending on your lens.”

But she does wonder: What if the President had leaned on the science more and the political rhetoric less?

“Some true, humble, servant leadership,” she said, “would have gone a long way.”

Do as I say, mandate or no

While nearly 70% of Tennessee residents are living under a mask mandate, including Shelby, Davidson and Knox counties, fewer than 30 of the state’s 95 counties have a mask requirement, according to the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

A Vanderbilt study released in November showed that counties without mask mandates had about twice as many COVID-19 deaths as those counties that had facial covering requirements.

Governor won’t require masks statewide despite changing GOP attitudes

“Rural people, by and large, are older and sicker,” Piercey said. “And more likely to be hospitalized and die if they get it.”

Meantime, Tennessee is one of just 12 states to not have a mask mandate.

Despite numerous studies showing proper face coverings can reduce the spread of COVID-19, Vaughan does not believe that if Lee had issued a mask mandate that Tennessee necessarily would have fewer cases.

“I reject that,” he said. “The governor didn’t preclude any local authorization from a mask mandate. You can drive to Fayette County and they don’t have one. I live a mile from the border and germs don’t adhere to borders …

“I consider my health to be my responsibility,” Vaughan continued. “But that’s my view, and other people have different views and I understand that.”

As the pandemic nears the one-year mark, Lee has remained consistent in his resistance to a statewide mask mandate. In a December video address to Tennesseans, he said that he believes it wouldn’t be effective because it is “controversial.”

The governor added: “Everyone who wants a mask mandate is already wearing a mask.”

Lee was not made available to The Daily Memphian for an interview, but Piercey echoed his position.

“We do not believe in a one-size-fits-all approach or that the government should be the one to have to tell you (to wear a mask).”

Asked whether a mask mandate ultimately would have mitigated transmission overall and particularly in the latter part of 2020, she said: “That’s something we’ll debate forever and there’s no way to prove it positively or negatively.”

Lee’s wife has had COVID-19 and he was in quarantine. For months, Lee has been encouraging facial coverings.

“When he speaks, he largely says all the right things,” Dr. McCullers said. “The governor says, ‘Wear a mask.’”

To his critics, however, this is not nearly good enough.

Harris is serving his first term in the state legislature and was taken aback by colleagues who refuse to wear a mask. Harris says it is still not too late for a statewide mask mandate to make a difference.

“I believe it would make an impact on the numbers. I’d like to at least say, ‘Let’s try it for a period of time and see if it makes a difference.’ Right now, we can’t say if it does or it doesn’t because we haven’t tried it.”

Also noting some legislative members don’t wear masks, Abkari said: “We still have folks in leadership saying science is divided on whether masks are effective.

“We’re 10 months into a global pandemic. Are we still arguing over that? How many people have to die?”

Tennessee’s death toll as of Jan. 22: 8,684.

Piercey sees good pandemic response

“It’s pretty clear the state is not going to put out a mask mandate,” McCullers said. “So, going forward, the vaccine is going to be the main thing.”

Of course, the supply and administration of the vaccine is not happening in a vacuum. At the start of the pandemic, a vaccine was a distant hope. Counter measures, including facial coverings, social distancing, regular hand washing and the temporary closing of society were the only tools available.

On a state website, there is a coronavirus timeline that shows when directives were issued and extended. It is a snapshot of government reacting in real time and trying to gauge what the future might bring amid an unprecedented public health crisis.

“I don’t think many people understood how long we were going to be in this fight,” McCullers said. “So somebody putting a directive in for two weeks, then an extra two weeks, and an extra two weeks, is fine.

“At the very beginning, we didn’t know how the virus was transmitted and what the numbers would be. We had to shut everything down and then learn from the numbers.”

Tennessee, Piercey says, was at forefront of testing by being the first state to administer tests to people that were symptom-free.

“We didn’t necessarily advertise it as such,” she said. “But by late March or early April, we were saying, ‘when in doubt, get a test.’”

Piercey also says Tennessee outperformed the natural average in caring for residents of long-term care facilities; she says while the COVID death rate nationally is 40%, Tennessee’s is 26%.

Vaughan believes second-guessing what the state government has and hasn’t done is an exercise of politically tinged convenience.

“Given that the information and the technology have been evolving daily in this fight, it’s easy to look back,” he said. “It’s easy for revisionist history to enter into it.”

Not all of the history has been written yet. In fact, maybe most of it hasn’t.

That’s why Akbari shied away from giving Lee’s administration a tangible grade on its response to the pandemic.

But Piercey, Lee’s health department commissioner, did assign a grade:

“I’ll qualify this by saying I can’t be objective. I’d give us a solid ‘A’. We’ve looked at every issue. We haven’t been perfect, but we’ve tried to protect the most vulnerable.”

Told that some people might interpret that ‘A’ grade as her saying they had been perfect, she said: “I didn’t give us an A+. That’s perfect.

“There are people who will disagree with that.”

And some of them are Tennessee residents.

In a study/survey led by a Northwestern University political science professor, Lee’s approval rating on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic dropped from 62% in late April to 40% in late August.

Striking a balance

Vaughan believes there was overreach in response to COVID-19:

“There have been struggles along the way and, to some degree, civics suffered. I remember when Gov. Lee had to intervene and address church gatherings because some in the state, in their zeal to protect people, overstepped their bounds. There were freedoms that were stepped on.”

It is not a universal opinion.

Keith Norman, pastor at First Baptist Church on Broad Avenue in Memphis, hated that parishioners could not attend in-person during the holidays. But Norman, who is on the county’s COVID task force, told The Daily Memphian he believed there was no other option:

“The church has to be responsible. We’re asking these other entities to restrict their gatherings. We have to suffer alongside them, if you will.”

The equation of what businesses should be closed, what gatherings should be off limits, is now more complicated. That’s in part because of learning transmission might be happening at a greater rate in more informal settings, such as gatherings of families and friends, than, for one example, at restaurants properly observing the social distancing and masking protocols.

Piercey, while defending the lack of a state mask mandate, concedes Tennesseans could have done a better job using facial coverings: “We haven’t always worn our masks as routinely as other states. We had a lot of rural transmission.”

McCullers, who is pediatrics chair at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and pediatrician in chief at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, notes, too, the state has continued to allow for in-person worships services and high school athletic events.

“We have seen transmission at weddings, funerals, high school football, girls’ volleyball and cheerleading. And it’s contributed to the bad situation we are in right now.”

To a degree, he says he understands the effect time has had on people.

“Pandemic fatigue is a real thing,” he said. “But I don’t really buy that we can’t all behave now the way we did in March.”

Much of the public, Vaughan said, was “hyper-focused” on observing recommended safety protocols in the early months of the pandemic but he says it never was realistic to expect that could continue indefinitely.

“People are not as vigilant as they once were. They’re just tired of not living their life.”

Thus, the question for officials at the local, state and federal levels now is the same as it is for citizens in general.

“To what degree is closure reasonable or not reasonable?” McCullers said, adding: “You can have a restaurant open at limited seating capacity safely.”

In fact, the latest directive from the Shelby County Health Department will allow restaurants to move from 25% capacity to 50%. That change and the easing of some other restrictions comes in the wake of the county’s virus reproductive rate dropping below 1.

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Shelby County Health Department Director Alisa Haushalter expressed optimism over the “downward trend” and thanked the community for its efforts.

“We’ve all done this,” she said. “It’s been very difficult work. But I want to reinforce there’s still much work ahead of us. We have a long way to go before the pandemic is over.”

Shot by shot

Nowhere has the rollout of the vaccine been without frustrations. Shelby County officials have had to wait for vaccine, and to even find out from the state when the vaccine would be coming.

Piercey has had to wait on the feds. Presently, the state is receiving about 80,000 vaccine doses per week.

At that pace, it would take more than three years to vaccinate Tennessee’s residents.

“We could ramp up five times (the number of people inoculated) overnight if we had the vaccine,” Piercey said. “The limited supply has hindered our efforts. A lot of times, I’m only getting a 48-hour heads-up on what’s coming.”

Said McCullers: “It’s a federal problem. The state of Tennessee has done fine. You can say, ‘What about having (vaccine) two days earlier?’ But I’m not sure the difference that really makes when we’re trying to get everyone vaccinated through the summer.”

As for local administration of the vaccine?

“There has been hiccups in Memphis,” McCullers said, “but I’m sure there have been hiccups in Nashville and Knoxville.”

Said Harris: “The Shelby County Health Department is doing all they can. They’re putting needles to arms. And we’re starting to see people not be as fearful of the vaccine.”

Harris also believes the state’s priority phases have been well thought out.

“We had a meeting with the state health department, and they did a really good job explaining why different groups are getting vaccinated first. They did right by that. The federal government just needs to send more vaccine.”

Getting the vaccine to underserved communities in Memphis remains a concern.

At the end of the first week in January, preliminary data from the Shelby County Health Department showed that white people had received 51.9% of the vaccine (5,417 doses) and Black people had received 24.4% (2,548 doses).

Black people account for 52% of the county’s population.

“As far as our health department, I’d like to see added outreach,” Akbari said. “I’d like to see drive-thru sites set up in the Black community or urban core.”

Limited internet access, Akbari says, also is an issue: “People were registering online and by the time the phone line was up and functioning, those appointments were already taken.”

Science is apolitical, but people are not

Piercey praises her boss for his “personal investment” in the issues that impact Tennesseans’ lives.

“You can be 100% assured he examines issues from every single side,” she said, “whether you agree with his decisions or not.”

Harris tends not to agree with many of the governor’s decisions. And he finds it difficult to count many “wins” for the state in its pandemic response.

“Politicization has created a lot of poor outcomes. Political groups saying,‘masks don’t work, they’re trying to silence our voice.’ No, masks actually work. People were forced to choose between their ‘people’ and the science.”

Dr. Lisa Piercey
Tennessee Department of Health

Harris had the coronavirus in March and recovered, but he has watched as others were not so fortunate. 

“I’ve lost people,” he said. “I lost my grandmother the week before Christmas. She was in a nursing home. We’ve had some legislators come down with COVID. Some have recovered, some have not. We’ve lost so many lives due to COVID and we’re supposed to protect the people we serve.”

Vaughan also has recovered from COVID. But his experience might have been smoother. He has high blood pressure as an underlying condition, and at age 58 he qualified for the recently approved monoclonal antibody therapy drug produced by Eli Lilly and Co.

Problem was, he didn’t realize how readily available it was until he was deep into his COVID journey.

“If I’d have known when it started, I could have gotten it and by all accounts it would have been a game-changer.”

Vaughan mentions that not to bemoan the misery he might have avoided while having the coronavirus, rather to point out how incredibly challenging communication has been throughout the pandemic.

“Government is having to run a PR campaign,” he said, “and that’s not their typical function.”

Add in the politics, stir, and …

“Politicization has created a lot of poor outcomes,” Piercey said. “Political groups saying,'masks don’t work, they’re trying to silence our voice.’ No, masks actually work. People were forced to choose between their ‘people’ and the science.

“And science is apolitical.”

Room for improvement

But if science is apolitical, wasn’t Lee’s refusal to issue a mask mandate a case of making the issue political?

“I see your point,” Piercey said. “It’s more a strategic decision of what we thought would be more effective given our population.”

Vaughan agrees with the limited-government philosophy: “I’m from the country. It’s human nature to want to be free.

“But I’m not living in a vacuum. My decisions can affect others. If our message has been off base, that needs to be what we talk about — being a good human, a good neighbor, caring about the ones you love and the people you don’t know. That is the very essence of community.”

And in some ways, that willingness to wear a mask — and encourage mask-wearing and thinking of others — even as the governor still stops short of a mandate, makes it all the more frustrating for those who believe the mandate could have saved lives.

“I’ve seen the governor with a mask on ... He believes in it,” Harris said. “But I think he believes if he pushes something like that with the majority of Republicans, people will give him backlash. He’s not thinking about the safety of the overall state.”

Whatever his thinking, attempting to assign a fair grade to Lee’s response to the pandemic is not just about the math and the science.

For any evaluation inevitably includes the grader’s own theories about government, personal freedoms and responsibility for the public’s health.

That’s a lot of layers viewed through as many individual lenses as the state has people.

So, how well has Lee and his administration responded to the COVID-19 pandemic?

It might not be an altogether fair question.

It comes with an answer that can’t help but be anything but personal.

“If you had a family member die,” McCullers said, “it might be hard to say we’ve done enough.”