Blue States, Cities Loosen COVID Restrictions Less Than One Week After Biden Inauguration

blue states indoor dining

A surprising number of mostly blue states and cities have announced a return to indoor dining and loosened other COVID restrictions less than one week after President Biden’s inauguration.

“Millions of jobs have been lost,” Biden lamented during his inaugural speech. “Hundreds of thousands of businesses closed.”

Some of the hardest-hit have been restaurants and bars, with restrictions or flat-out lockdowns being imposed.

Many have been put out of business, never to return.

RELATED: Biden Press Secretary Says He’s Got ‘Bigger Issues’ After Being Caught Maskless On Federal Property

Blue States And Cities Suddenly Happy To Open Restaurants

Many businesses were the victims of draconian measures put in place by Democrat (and some Republican) politicians who justified their decisions by citing science and expert advice. But now, some of those same politicians are suddenly experiencing a change of heart.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo got the ball rolling just before Biden’s entrance to the White House.

Cuomo, who had micromanaged the pandemic response to extreme degrees – implementing curfews and even dictating what kinds of food were acceptable to eat when out at a bar – suddenly had an epiphany.

“We simply cannot stay closed until the vaccine hits critical mass,” Cuomo announced.

Other blue state politicians dutifully agree now. 

RELATED: CNN Called Out For False Report On Trump’s Vaccine Rollout

Relaxing Restrictions

A slew of Democrat politicians have announced relaxing restrictions on restaurants and bars in the week since President Biden was inaugurated.

  • California Governor Gavin Newsom surprised his state’s residents with an announcement just hours ago “allowing the reopening of outdoor dining, indoor salons.”
  • Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s virus mitigation plan allowed indoor dining to resume over the weekend at limited capacity in Chicago and its Cook County suburbs.
  • Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who told residents to stay home during the holidays, also cheered the return of “limited indoor dining and more.”
  • Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser lifted a ban on indoor dining on Friday, and is going as far as having a “Restaurant Week” promotion.
  • Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that Michigan is reopening indoor dining on the first of February.
  • Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott announced that eateries would reopen for indoor and outdoor dining at a limited capacity last week.

Has the ‘science’ suddenly changed? Is this simply a response to the vaccine created under the guidance of the Trump administration being distributed?

For Whitmer, she credited her shutdown as having worked: “The pause has worked. The efforts we have made together to protect our families, frontline workers and hospitals have dramatically reduced cases and we have saved lives.”

The average daily death rates in the United States are actually higher than they were back in April and May of 2020 when many of these businesses were initially being shut down.

And while cases are on the decline of late, the New York Times reports that new strains of the coronavirus “could erase progress.”

California in particular has seen the emergence of a “home grown mutation” of COVID. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer the economy be opened back up to full capacity, but it was some Democrats and the media who insisted under President Trump that any suggestion of opening up businesses meant you wanted to kill seniors and children.

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough at one point accused Republicans seeking to rescue the American economy of wanting to “euthanize” senior citizens.

“They [Republicans] want to make sure that people that own businesses in their district or in their states will keep giving them campaign contributions,” Scarborough claimed.

“I grew up in a Baptist Church and I heard a lot about abortion on the front end of life and euthanizing seniors on the other side of life,” he continued. “That is killing.”

Anybody care to ask him how he feels about Democrats suddenly becoming the party that wants to see businesses opened back up under President Biden when they insisted on keeping them shackled under President Trump?

Rusty Weiss has been covering politics for over 15 years. His writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, Fox ... More about Rusty Weiss
Mentioned in this article::