(Big League Politics) – President Joe Biden responded to the end of mask mandates in Texas and Mississippi with a swipe at humans’ prehistoric cousins, describing the decision to end mask requirements as “neanderthal thinking.”

“I think it’s a big mistake… I hope everyone’s realized by now, these masks make a difference… The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that ‘everything’s fine, take off your masks…’”

Texas governor Greg Abbott had cited the near-full year the state had spent under mask mandates, and the progress made in reducing the spread of COVID-19. The governor said he would consider bringing back a mask mandate of rates of infections spiked, but that it was time to allow citizens of Texas to make their own health decisions. Abbott cited the vaccine as the primary justification for lifting the tiring mask mandate.

Mississippi soon followed in terminating its own mask mandate. With infections declining, the states may have set off a national liberation from COVID-19 restriction measures, with citizens pointing to a vaccine and public weariness of dubious policies with questionable returns.

The notion that Neanderthals were lumbering brutes who died out because they were less intelligent than modern humans was once a common scientific view, but research this century has suggested that Neanderthals had brains that were larger than those humans. It’s difficult to determine if the creatures- who were driven extinct around 40,000 BC by a combination of changing climates and interbreeding with humans- were more or less intelligent.

In an ironic twist, scientific research has indicated that genetic traits inherited from Neanderthals may place individuals at a lower risk of suffering from severe Covid-19 infections. Perhaps Biden owes an apology to humanity’s long-extinct cousins, as their contribution to the modern human genome may have ultimately saved millions of lives.

bigleaguepolitics.com/biden-says-termination-of-texas-mississippi-mask-mandates-is-neanderthal-thinking/