“COVID” is back. I use quotation marks as I’m referring not to the virus, which never went anywhere, but rather to the era (as when we say, “during COVID”): the days, turned months, turned years in which our state and country became something unrecognizable.

This was only a matter of time. Nostalgia for “COVID” has been building among the Faucis of the world. Now, with an apparent uptick in cases, they are making their move. Fauci himself just took to CNN, and mandates are returning in force.

Last week, LA Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, a Fauci imitator whose insane decrees often previewed Newsom’s next move, “emphasized that the possibility of reinstating mask mandates remains a viable option.”

Simply put, we will not let this happen. In fact, we already beat back one attempted Mask Renaissance by Ferrer. And our hand is much stronger now.

We got Biden to terminate the national emergency – even after he pledged a veto – by passing legislation I sponsored in the House; and we got Newsom to do the same through unrelenting pressure (along with an assist from the infamous maskless Magic Johnson photo).

Not to mention that anyone who even thinks about a new child mask mandate will have to answer for HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra’s bumbling response to my questioning. (“We never forced anyone to do anything.”)

And then there’s the track record. My home counties and others that rejected the Newsom Autocracy by adopting our Healthy Communities Resolution achieved dramatically better education, economic, and public health outcomes.

Elsewhere, we had a major victory at the State Capitol, foiling a plan to quietly kill the bill that makes child trafficking a serious felony. Once the Supermajority saw there would be nothing quiet about it, the bill was released from the “suspense file” and is headed for a final vote.

Kevin Kiley