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The first version, issued by County Executive Sam Page on July 26 as the delta variant was rising, got caught up in politics. But Circuit Court Judge Nellie Ribaudo confirmed last Thursday that the latest version, endorsed by the four Democrats on the County Council, is indeed in effect — despite the protests of Attorney General Eric Schmitt.

In her order, Ribaudo takes a shot at Schmitt, who is using his battle against vaccine and mask mandates to fuel a race for U.S. Senate, a race in which the various GOP candidates appear to be racing to the bottom to see who can adopt the most extreme and Trumpiest policies of all.

“The Plaintiff’s proposed Second Amended Petition is 47 pages long and includes language that appears to be more in the nature of hyperbole and rhetoric than a legal argument or a plain statement of the facts,� Ribaudo wrote.

Still, she gave Schmitt time to fight the latest mask mandate if he chooses to, and he will. And because of the law passed by his fellow Republicans in the Missouri Legislature — a law the director of the state health department says “haunts� him because it limits public health orders to 30 days — Schmitt might well win another pyrrhic victory down the line.

“Public health is not politics,� said Don Kauerauf last month, shortly after being appointed to the job by Gov. Mike Parson. “It is helping people.�

The county mask mandate, intended like its counterpart in the city to limit transmission of the virus, is in place now. And though it is likely unknown by many residents and business owners — and ignored by others — the existence of the mandate now, as the regional and state COVID-19 numbers are improving, is a perfect representation of the damages Republicans have wrought on efforts to end the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19 numbers in Missouri, once the nation’s hot spot, are getting better, as the surges have moved first to the U.S. Southeast, and now the West and Northwest. But imagine what could have happened in July of this year or even a year prior, if Republican politicians weren’t pushing so hard against commonsense public health measures that most of them, including Schmitt and Parson, supported previously in their careers.

We might not be where we are now, where governors in Texas and Florida are trying so hard to stand up for their bastardized definition of freedom that they are signing executive orders telling businesses and school districts that they can’t act on their own to protect their students or employees. And some Republicans in those states are now making noise about turning back the clock on other vaccines that have long been required in schools, in the military, and in health care, in order to protect the lives of Americans everywhere.

Think about that. The logic of the “hyperbole and rhetoric� that Schmitt makes in his so-called legal filings, and his fellow travelers in Texas and Florida are trying to force on their citizens through executive orders, leads only one place: In a land where personal freedom reigns supreme, there can be no mandated vaccines for polio, or meningitis, or chicken pox, or hepatitis or measles, mumps or rubella. In a world in which freedom means no longer caring about the health of the fellow human beings around us, the next pandemic will kill many more Americans than the rising death toll of the current one, which has topped 700,000 and hasn’t yet ended.

So maybe it’s a bit of an empty gesture at this point, but I’m glad the mask mandate in ºüÀêÊÓƵ County is again in effect. I’m glad the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Public Schools, which implemented a vaccine mandate, have achieved 97% compliance. I’m glad the leaders at all of the major hospital systems in the region are enforcing a vaccine mandate, as is the Boeing Co., one of the top employers in ºüÀêÊÓƵ.

When Republicans like Schmitt try to argue with no evidence that such mandates are about “control,� think instead of the words of SLPS Superintendent Kelvin Adams:

“This is about creating the safest possible environment for nearly 20,000 students and almost 5,000 teachers and staff,� he said. “We need families to know when their children and loved ones are here, we are keeping them safe.�