We aren't sure if it's like the Ice Bucket Challenge or more akin to feminist bra burnings but Ohio Republicans are burning their face masks on social media.
The celebratory conflagrations come as Ohio's mask mandate and other restrictive orders were officially lifted Wednesday.
Former state treasurer Josh Mandel, who's running for U.S. Senate, posted a 10-second video of himself calmly lighting a mask on fire and unceremoniously dropping it on a concrete floor.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, who had a bad case of COVID-19 in late December, posted a short video of him removing a surgical mask and dousing it with lighter fluid and torching it. Yost added a little theatrical flourish at the end of the edited clip, an intended homage to Jimi Hendrix, who famously burned his guitar at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.
State-set restrictions have waned in recent months: first in February with the elimination of the curfew and most recently with exemptions for fully vaccinated people. Starting Wednesday, there is no state order requiring adults to wear face coverings indoors in Ohio. The mask order had been in place since July 23.
Over the course of the coronavirus global pandemic, mask mandates became a political issue in a sharply divided America. Fights over masks broke out on airplanes, in stores and parks. Some conservatives, who viewed public health mandates as a government overreach, staged protests at the Ohio Statehouse and elsewhere.
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