Corona Roundup: Maskholes Metastasize
Yay! The pandemic is over, right? Not so fast.
The impact of a couple-plus years of behavior changes means no matter how much we want it, the before-times aren’t coming back.
The concept of public health being inclusive of the entire population has ended. Call it a victim of the culture wars. Call it a win for America’s mis/disinformation industrial complex. Call it a loss for the supermajority of Americans who were willing to do their part.
Had the Axis powers in WWII realized the potential of the ‘me first’ pitch, I doubt that the rationing efforts of the Roosevelt administration would have been successful. Now we have nimrods comparing wearing a mask to the mass murders of the holocaust.
Those most susceptible to serious cases of COVID-19—those who have borne the virus’s burden the most—are now being asked to bear another load more, since new guidelines don’t apply until hospitalization rates spike ( too little, too late).
A gradual relaxation using the community infection rate as a metric would have made much more sense. What we’ll see next coming from the “personal choice” set will be harassment of those who exercise that “freedom” to protect themselves and others.
It makes me want to wear one of those tear off shirts used in movies so I can flaunt my masses of scar tissue and the breathing hole on my neck to maybe –just maybe– some maskhole will get a clue that some of us make those choices for good reasons.
Critical Mask Theory? And if you think the CDC’s new regulations effective freeing most of the nation of the need to mask up, watch the video of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis bullying a bunch of high schoolers into removing their masks–even though wearing them was an “individual choice,” the freedom that conservatives supposedly love so much.
When it comes to getting vaccinated, the one thing capable of reducing the infection rate and/or impact of COVID-19, we’re also going down the road of getting the jab being a simple behavioral choice.
Here’s Benjamin Mazer at the Atlantic:
The pandemic’s greatest source of danger has transformed from a pathogen into a behavior. Choosing not to get vaccinated against COVID is, right now, a modifiable health risk on par with smoking, which kills more than 400,000 people each year in the United States. Andrew Noymer, a public-health professor at UC Irvine, told me that if COVID continues to account for a few hundred thousand American deaths every year—“a realistic worst-case scenario,” he calls it—that would wipe out all of the life-expectancy gains we’ve accrued from the past two decades’ worth of smoking-prevention efforts.
The COVID vaccines are, without exaggeration, among the safest and most effective therapies in all of modern medicine. An unvaccinated adult is an astonishing 68 times more likely to die from COVID than a boosted one
Allowing more people the freedom to die won’t be the primary legacy of the maskhole movement. Although it’s obvious to most of us that the days of mandates (where they existed or were enforced) are drawing to a close, the screaming mimis are by no means finished.
Mob rule organizing is metastasizing nationwide. Republicans, should they triumph in November, are ready to impose a national mandate on education calling itself the Parents Bill of Rights.
Of course the real winners in national or state level “Bill of Rights” of this sort will be angry parents; angry about their kids learning about racism, sex ed, the existence of LGBTQ humans, germ theory, and, sooner or later, the moon landing.
Not all the angry maskhole people will end up torturing school boards. They’re already contributing in significant numbers to those opposing building housing (in their neighborhood, of course), and in the misdirections whose result will negatively impact steps to mitigate climate change.
Look for any scenario where the public good might impact personal preference, and you’ll find them lurking there, hiding amongst those who might simply want to tweak a few changes.
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com