Publisher’ Note: Thanks to Vermonter Pete Garritano, who has spent hundreds of hours volunteering his time over the past two years analzying CDC, WHO and Vermont public health data for many of our stories, for contributing this Op/Ed. Stupor Bowl Sunday!

The NFL has become the first organization to realize that the economic hardships caused by testing and lockdowns outweigh the benefits.  The NFL’s chief health official announced that after a year of data observation, asymptomatic spread is not something significant. Symptoms are what matters, so only players who come to them with symptoms will be tested, regardless of their vaccination status. Both Pfizer and Moderna used this same standard during their COVID vaccine trials labeling asymptomatic subjects as non-infectious. So the game cancellations, schedule changes and league losses as a result of million dollar quarterbacks being sidelined due to COVID protocol has made the billion dollar industry of the NFL look at the science and come to a logical, scientific, and fiscally responsible conclusion. That is, diagnosis and required isolation based on a lab derived genetic sequence, rather than based on symptoms of infectiousness, was and still is destructively stupid.

Hopefully, economic drivers will, despite the Omicron hysteria, keep regions like the southern U.S. open and free as business thrives there. Florida is currently responsible for 25% of all new jobs created in the country. The south is winning this new “economic civil war.” In places like cities in Vermont where masks and vaccine passports are required, they have resulted in a new kind of discrimination, segregation, and negatively impacted businesses.   Where the south once fought to retain segregation, the north has now chosen this path.  Take a trip down south to see what freedom feels like; maskless children playing in the schoolyard, restaurants filled to capacity, tailgate parties, barbecues, large gatherings filled with visibly happy maskless people. Ah, the good old days just 18 months ago. Rebels be free!

Sadly, Vermont has chosen a path that will continue to destroy small business, impact people of color disproportionately increase mental illness, child abuse, suicide, and spousal abuse,  hamper education, and destroy people’s lives. Isolation and emotion hiding masks are really, really bad for mental health. The negative impacts of isolation are well documented. Populations continue to take advice from ” experts” who have lied or been totally wrong dozens of times. Vermont recently debated town by town whether maskless people should be allowed to participate in open consumerism while millions around the country enjoy restriction free life.   Amazon, Google, Facebook, Zoom, Big Pharma, and others who have profited enormously from this pandemic have had no interest in challenging the narrative but maybe capitalism, as modeled by the NFL’s recent decision, based on science not fear, will save us after all.