Days after Salt Lake County put into place a 30-day mask mandate, some individuals and groups, including the six-person Editorial Board of the Salt Lake Tribune, believe more needed to be done. The Editorial Board published an editorial calling upon Governor Spencer Cox to “mandate the kind of mass vaccination campaign we should have launched a year ago, going as far as to deploy the National Guard to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere.”

In our opinion, that type of editorial should list all six persons by name, rather than allow them to hide behind the cowardly anonymity of “The Salt Lake Editorial Board.” (To see who they are, go to https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/editorial/2022/01/10/tribune-editorial-board/). This is full-blown totalitarianism, and it has no place here, “well, anywhere” in our opinion.

Like many of you, our family celebrated New Year’s Day by cheering on the Utes in the Rose Bowl. Some of our family attended the game in Pasadena, while the rest of us watched from the comfort of home. Rob and I stayed home. Four of our kids, however, traveled to California to attend the festivities in person. As you will recall, the game was on a Saturday.

As the kids arrived home on Sunday and Monday respectfully, as usual, they were in and out of the house. They’re all active young adults with jobs, schooling and other activities. By Wednesday, three were displaying cold and flu-like symptoms. By the weekend, three had positive Covid test results. By the following week, we were all sick with positive Covid test results, including those of us who did not attend the Rose Bowl in person.

We share this experience to highlight a couple points:

First, our entire family is vaccinated, and second, Rob and I are convinced we were exposed to Covid within the walls of our home. A mask mandate and a totalitarian call to deploy the National Guard would not have prevented us from catching Covid. It’s now the third week of January. While we’ve gone through copious amounts of NyQuil, DayQuil, and Sudafed among other things, we are, thankfully, recovering.

Like you, we’re tired. It’s been a long two years. We beseech everyone to remain calm. Panic does not produce wise outcomes. The brash call to activate and use our National Guard troops in such a manner defies all logic and common sense. We remain thankful for free and fair elections rather than appointments such as is the case with the ridiculous editorial board of the Salt Lake Tribune.