(Ryan McMaken) Last month, Colorado governor Jared Polis ended statewide mask mandates and social-distancing provisions, stating that “the emergency is over.” This, of course, does not mean Colorado is now laissez-faire in terms of covid. Public higher education institutions—thanks to Polis’ tacit approval—still have free rein in terms of imposing vaccine and mask mandates, and in forcing classes to “go online” whenever the college bureaucrats grow sufficiently alarmed about covid. Moreover, local officials were quick to react to the governor’s non-emergency by imposing a variety of mandates of their own. More than 80 percent of the state’s population still lives in counties with mask mandates.