THE WRITER'S ESCHEWING REALISM THIS SEASON:

Just a day after testing positive for COVID-19, a Florida Republican official who battled against mask mandates, attacked the vaccine, and railed at CDC officials has died in Tampa.

Gregg Prentice, who was 61, led the Hillsborough County Election Integrity Committee--and his sudden death has sent the local GOP scrambling as it no longer has access to essential campaign finance software without his help.

It may be recalled that one of the chief GOP arguments against the Affordable Care Act in 2010 was that it would institute bureaucratic "death panels" to determine, in the words of former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, whether someone was "worthy of healthcare."

The claim was always pure fabrication. But something akin to death panels are a reality now, specifically in COVID-stricken, and deep red, Idaho.

Hospitals there have become so overwhelmed by COVID patients, almost all of them unvaccinated, that the state has activated its "crisis standards of care." What that means, according to the state Department of Health and Welfare, is that the normal triage standards, in which the more seriously sick or injured are prioritized, are thrown out.

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