Jeanne Marrazzo, new leader of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, everyone:
Can I make a quick digression? We recently had a long Covid [research] meeting where we had about 200 people, in person. And we can’t mandate mask-wearing, because it’s federal property. But there was a fair amount of disturbance that we couldn’t, and people weren’t wearing masks, and one person accused us of committing a microaggression by not wearing masks.
And I take that very seriously. But I thought to myself, it’s more that people just want to live a normal life. We really don’t want to go back. It was so painful. We’re still all traumatized. Let’s be honest about that. None of us are over it.
So there’s not a lot of appetite for raising an alarm, especially if it could be perceived subsequently as a false alarm.
Edit - thanks for the help in bypassing the paywall.
wearing a mask isnt traumatizing but having my health completely fucking ruined by long covid certainly was
That’s just projection of her own preoccupations onto the rest of us. (Which I suppose is extremely common among those who pursue seats of power.)
we really need re-education camps for these ghouls
like… they need to be taught basic empathy and ethics
“they” means every american
But I thought to myself, it’s more that people just want to live a normal life. We really don’t want to go back. It was so painful. We’re still all traumatized. Let’s be honest about that. None of us are over it.
honestly? no it wasn’t. I didn’t love it, it didn’t improve my life, certainly, but by and large life just went on, for me and for most people I know. It felt like we were mostly all doing the right thing and cooperating as a society for once, for a brief while. When things really got traumatizing was for immunocompromised people when society just gave up on them
Wearing a mask was the least traumatizing thing of the pandemic! It’s the most comfortable my autistic ass has felt in years, don’t even know why, but it was so nice to be able to just have my face covered in public for the first time
Fuck these ghouls
I’m pretty sure it’s not that wearing masks is traumatic per se. It’s that experiencing the pandemic - a deadly years long event where the government did nothing to help people - was traumatic, and the response these people are having to their trauma is to try to ignore it as best as possible. Which means not masking, and freaking out when people mask. We’re so cooked.
The government wants us all to die.
Ok I know that & basically said it anyway. Unfortunately all the people outside the CDC freaking out about masks are not the government
I went four years without even getting a cold. Masks are amazing. My only regret is that I wasn’t wearing one before the pandemic.
Fauci should have been replaced in the transition of powerOh no. A piece of cloth. My one weakness
Checks out.
Well at least i didn’t catch heart disease like that clown kakarot. He says its a heart virus but its really because he eats like crap
Plague country at it again
I went to the US recently and literally got covid on the first day
And I take that very seriously. But I thought to myself, it’s more that people just want to live a normal life.
This kind of smug ‘we see you and we hear you’ followed by a tacit rejection of whatever it is we just said is the most enraging part of talking with libs. Just say you want us dead! Stop the act, stop pretending, and just say the quiet part out loud the way the fascists have no issue doing.
Also, while I commend any covid conscious people taking a stance no matter how small, I can’t help but find the framing of not masking as a microagression laughable. Greeting a mixed gender group with “hey guys” is a microagression. Not wearing a mask during an ongoing pandemic, a mass disabling pandemic that has made all hell break loose for immunocompromised people, isn’t a microagression: it’s violence. It’s a clear use of violence against the disabled by our ableist institutions, and the fact that powerful healthcare professionals can go along with the pretend end of the pandemic is evidence of a rot at the core of the healthcare system. Shame on them.
Your second paragraph reminds me. I just read Devon Price’s Unlearning Shame, and was somewhat shocked by his read on Covid, where he talks about how we shouldn’t shame people who don’t follow health guidelines. The point of “Don’t blame individuals for a systemic problem” is fine, but when it comes to actively and repeatedly endangering people’s health, there’s plenty of room for individual shaming. Like - don’t shame someone for having a DUI on their record, fine. But if they still drive drunk every day, that person is dangerous, no matter how acceptable drunk driving might be in their culture.
Racism is a systemic problem but that doesn’t mean I have to tolerate someone yelling slurs in line at the bank
Masking divides who means what they say and who is just talking
In my experience people get really weird and defensive when they feel guilty about the masking stuff, so while it’s for the wrong reasons, using mostly positive motivation instead is still good advice. Usually. Sometimes you get assholes ofc and they need to know it
Price did provide plenty of examples and research showing that shaming people is counterproductive, but it seemed (I haven’t investigated all of the endnotes) like that was all for matters of personal motivation. I’m willing to listen to contrary evidence, of course, but don’t we know that shame has worked in matters of public health before? There’s a lot less secondhand smoke than there was when I was a kid, and not just in places where ordinances prohibit it. That is, shame doesn’t get people to stop smoking, but it might get people to stop smoking around infants.
I think it’s exactly what I said, then. Shame is a strong social motivator but not a good personal motivator. I think that’s because social shame stands in the way of being seen as cool and good by people around you, which turns it into sort of a positive motivator by making friendship and social interaction necessitate self-moderation of the thing shame is being used to moderate.
Arm the disabled
Dune but Paul is adamantly against wearing a still suit in the desert.
So there’s not a lot of appetite for raising an alarm, especially if it could be perceived subsequently as a false alarm.
That’s the whole damn point in raising an alarm! “The fire alarm going off allowed the residents to stop the fire with just a quick blast from a handheld extinguisher. But since there wasn’t a lot of fire I guess we really don’t need the fire alarms after all. I mean, they’re so loud and annoying!”This made me recall an article I read very early in the pandemic. Just found it, and it’s a real time capsule: “It’s hard to accept these sudden recommended changes to our routines, and the open-endedness is horrifying—or even worse, the prospect that this could be the new normal, at least until a vaccine is developed.” Ahahahahahaha. But the relevant section:
Susan Joslyn, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, studies people’s responses to weather forecasting and finds that “false alarms” in major weather events, like tornado warnings or hurricane evacuations, result in a loss of trust. If you evacuate five times and nothing happens, you might believe the forecasts mean nothing; if you socially distance for two months and the virus never reaches your town, you might believe it was a false alarm, too, even if that social distancing is what kept the virus from taking hold. The same holds true with focusing on the worst-case scenario.
But she goes on to talk about how officials know this, and know how to mitigate it. Well, at one time they did. Now they’ve given up on that along with any semblance of public health.
Nanny state
'Let ‘em touch the hot burner! They’ll learn…’ Dad state
:jumper-cables:
America will.never improve because Americans are literally the most spoiled, self centered, selfish, antisocial dipshits in the history of the world.
If wearing a mask into a grocery store to stop a global pandemic was too big an ask what does anybody expect us to overc9me when there’s a real issue.
Same with climate change, how many times have you seen people pitching about having to use plastic straws or reusable grocery bags.
Americans are tough and smart and resilient, so long as they dont have to make LITERALLY any personal sacrifices.
“The world is going to literally explode unless you skip going to this one specific movie showing, we will give you a full refund and a personal chariot to another showing at a later date” is a test 60% of the country would fail.
There’s not a lot of appetite for raising an alarm, especially if it could be perceived subsequently as a false alarm.
I wish the interviewer had asked her what her take on seatbelts is.
Huh I never personally felt that wearing a mask was traumatizing, my mom dying directly as a result of people just deciding covid was over and not masking anymore certainly was though. My brother helplessly watching dozens of people die in front of him as a healthcare worker probably was more traumatic than wearing a mask but idk maybe we’re just too inconsiderate of the poor folks that had to suffer the inconvenience of wearing them
