Speaking as a practicing psychiatrist, I caution you to not take these articles you describe too seriously...don't trust articles/people who claim to link specific sociocultural phenomena (like lockdown) with "brain changes." Depending on what the speaker's definition of "brain change" is (structural change of the neuroanatomical grey and white matter? EEG changes? Psychodynamic restructuring?), the "link" will be, at best, obvious (ie. people who faced psychosocial stressors during lockdown were at higher risk for depressive symptoms?...not exactly a groundbreaking conclusion), or, at worst, vague nonsense serving as a preliminary stepping stone for future non-scientific arguments (ie- eugenics, which was founded on this sort of research). The truth of the matter is- everything "changes your brain" all the time, and that shouldn't be the standard for evaluating the impact of a sociocultural phenomena.
But to comment on your real question- I'm not sure there's as clear of a link as you think. For example, I work in a NYC emergency room, and am still working to process some of the stuff I experienced last spring. However, of the people I know, there seemed to be an INVERSE correlation between exposure to seeing the horrors of last spring and excessive moralizing. The ones who were the most obnoxiously histrionic were the ones who had the LEAST exposure to the pandemic, or any potential socioeconomic consequences.
Trauma research is a very vibrant and interesting field of psychiatry, for sure. But the idea of trauma is quite sticky- for example, according to the DSM, to meet criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD, there are conditions placed on the ways you can have experienced it, etc. And why some people experience PTSD following traumatic events and some don’t isn’t yet answerable, other than to point to the nebulous concept of “resilience” (and proper treatment, of course).
All this to say- trauma research is still in its infancy, as is most of psychiatry. Right now, we study phenomena much like physicists studied elementary particles-not by seeing the material directly, but through analyzing the manifestations of the remnants/byproducts. Neuroanatomical associations are known (yes, the amygdala, the frontal lobe, etc, in trauma), but their significance in understanding the causality and the development of psychopathology is not anywhere close to being well understood. This is my problem with the whole “it changes the brain” argument- this research is in no way, shape, or form in a position to be able to comment on an individual person’s behaviors/cognitions/emotions, etc.
Regardless, you’re absolutely correct that the social ramifications have undoubtedly played a role in the creation of many people’s (understandable) neurotic-like behaviors. So too has the US media which, as a recent study out of Dartmouth showed, has covered the pandemic in a tone that was not only disproportionately more panic-inducing than the international press, but even as compared with the actual scientific research it was purporting to report on! I can think of countless examples of this, but the most salient one currently is the way they covered vaccines- their efficacy (including not explaining what specifically efficacy means in this case), breakthrough cases, their resistance (despite basic immunologic principles as well as mounting scientific evidence) to properly convey that vaccinated individuals are DRAMATICALLY less likely to transmit the virus, etc.
As for “shaming the shame-enforcers”- this is the beginning of “I know you are, but what am I?” logic, so I reject this concept. Because, frankly, I don’t care if these people who are vaccinated want to wear masks in public. But as they are the ones initiating the shaming by projecting beliefs onto others- beliefs that are no longer supported by the science they profess to believe in, the burden is on them, much like the burden of proof lies on the person making a claim, not the person questioning it.
Ultimately, though, COVID moralism is not all that unique- many (though certainly not all) of these sorts of people would be insufferable to be around when talking about other sociocultural topics. But insofar as science has anything to do with this, they can’t really point to it as being on their side anymore.
Some of us are in an awkward situation. After accidentally having my first year free of allergy-triggered sinus infections, I don't want to seem like a mask scold. But I love having one.
I'm curious if people *want* us to be more like east asia. Surely there are some public health benefits to masking being a normal thing in non pandemic times, but I don't particularly want to do it.
Not just masking, but also people just not being around other people as much -- working from home, not going to the mall, not eating in restaurants, etc. I expect masks help, but the real benefit comes from just avoiding people.
For me personally, the pandemic ended after the second shot. While I actually do tell my 15 year old daughter to mask up with an N95. When she gets vaccinated in two months she can do whatever, whenever. She'll be cured of "maskitis".
Here's the secret that neither the woke scolds nor the Q nut jobs want to admit. The vaccines cured Covid. UK & Israel? Over 50% vaxxed. Covid basically eradicated. Brazil & India? Right now under 10% masked. Terrible.
I still wear masks in stores and on the subway. But it's totally performative. I've let my beard grow and I don't double mask or wear a serious one. It's cloth bullshit.
Also, that friend of yours on facebook or whatever? They're the one who needs meds.
I feel like this is as old as the human race. This sort of moralizing is a way, in essence, to have power, and to feel superior to others; to say "no". It is a powerful instinct, and it is often exactly opposed to progress and change.
I think one thing to think about is that the covid scold mindset thrives on social media, but it's rarely encountered in real life because if those people are so worried about the virus then they can just stay home! I live in a very rule abiding place just like you, but I've never actually encountered anyone giving me grief about running outside my mask lowered even though I've been doing it since summer 2020. If anything, I'm still on the rule abiding side of the spectrum. There has always been people in line at the deli or whatever (NYPD particularly) that don't wear masks, but they just don't really post on social media in places that we see.
However, if you leave NYC, you will absolutely encounter people that don't follow any of the restrictions and will happily engage you in discussion about it. During the pinnacle of cases this winter a cashier in a Georgia gas station that I didn't need to wear my mask there (I don't know if she meant Georgia or the gas station). I've had similar experiences in Texas when I was there last year.
I guess I'm saying that the covid scold problem is annoying to people that have an online platform, but the population is vanishingly small, and if anything the broader societal breakdown that covid has revealed is that a large portion of the country was completely unconvinced about the dangers of the pandemic. My other anecdote from Georgia in December is sitting in the drive through of a Panera and watching a very elderly couple slowly walk in front of my car and go in to the restaurant to eat completely maskless. Something about that was profoundly depressing to me and still is. But outside of the coastal elite cities, it's not an uncommon occurrence. So many people (rightfully in many respects) so thoroughly despise the liberal "authority figures" or whatever in this country that we are incapable of actually doing anything collectively that requires even minimal individual sacrifice.
lol I did see that. Massachussetts liberals never disappoint. I wonder if I had been going running in the wealthy Boston suburbs instead of Brooklyn then I actually would have gotten scolded by now.
If someone scolds you for running outside with out a mask, shouldn't the response be "Are you an essential worker? No? Then you shouldn't be outside at all if Covid is still so dangerous even when vaccinated. Masks aren't enough. Go home."
Georgia is interesting because Atlanta (where I live) has been pretty good about masking, but go a few miles out of town and it’s a very different story.
The problem with COVID denialism or safetyism in either extreme is that it's so tied to self-preservation instincts that denying your feelings in the face of logic would be denying such a core, intractable part of yourself that instead folks get incredibly defensive.
It's the same logic where if you are on a highway, everyone driving faster then you is a "maniac" and everyone driving slower then you is a "slowpoke". All we can hope is that is gets better with time and people kind of feel their way back into regular society at their own pace.
The statement in some comments that other than vaccines "nothing else works" is just false. South Korea, Vietnam, New Zealand, Iceland, Finland, ...even China, show that other things absolutely can work. Though these great vaccines are a lot nicer.
Yeah. Completely shutting down as close to 100% as possible can keep the virus out. But for most of the world that was never realistic. And now with vaccines it makes no sense.
And it only works temporarily. India had very low rates until a few months ago. The only thing that seems to keep Covid at bay without full island like shutdowns are the Vaccines.
With the exception of Finland, these countries are all islands and were able to close their borders before there were very many cases in the country. It is easier to stop a pandemic—to isolate infected people and trace their contacts—if you’re dealing with 10 cases rather than 100,000. And Finland, while not an island, is geographically isolated and not a tourism hot spot in early March, so they were able to close their borders and limit infections too. While it might be tempting to point fingers and blame people in countries that have been ravaged by the pandemic, in fact the only thing that seems to make a difference is keeping the virus out in the first place.
Don’t believe me? Continental Europe, where I live, has had some of the highest per capita infection and death rates in the world, even though most of these countries have had strict covid measures such as lockdown, school closures, limits on people’s movements, and universal masking. Unlike in the US, people are following the rules pretty well. And yet infections continue to rage.
In fact, Switzerland, where I live, has been more successful in fighting the pandemic than neighboring Italy, France, and Spain, even though we have had less strict measures than these other countries (we have never had to wear masks outside, and our schools have been open since August, for example).
The example of Europe suggests that no matter how strict the measures are, and no matter how compliant the population, what really matters is keeping the virus out in the first place.
Yes, and they addressed it by 1) implementing a comprehensive test and trace strategy and 2) centralized quarantines. We did a very half assed job of 1 and and never attempted 2. I’m largely with you that being an island helps, but it was some of their other actions that really drove their success.
China is an exception to the island rule because the government was able to impose a total quarantine in which everyone in a city of ten million people was confined to their homes and not allowed to go out at all, nor was anyone allowed to enter or leave the city. The Chinese government essentially turned Wuhan into an island. I doubt even the most worried Americans would be willing to accept such draconian measures.
South Korea is tantamount to an island because no one is crossing its border with North Korea.
I concede that Vietnam is not an island.
So, ok, with the exception of Vietnam, the rule applies: countries that were able to keep infection out in the first place were the ones that were successful. Even here in Europe, the rule applies. The Czech Republic (where I used to live) made a great merit of having stopped the pandemic a year ago. Turns out that they were only successful because late January and early February are the only times that tourists don’t come to Prague. So the Czech government closed the borders in March 2020 and were able to contain the pandemic back then. Then in the summer, when people started traveling again, the pandemic began to rage, and the Czech Republic, in spite of its much-vaunted masking and lockdowns, now has the highest per-capita infection rate in the world.
I really do think we need to stop blaming people and countries for their less-than-perfect behavior and acknowledge that much of the suffering from this pandemic has arisen from factors we couldn’t control. And the one thing we could control, the vaccines, have been awesome and are the way the pandemic will finally end, thankfully.
This topic has come up on Slow Boring as well and I wrote on the comments there that my husband and I (both doctors, happily married) fought over and over about relative risks this past year. Part of the problem was that CDC and public health had a difficult messaging job. In every case, they erred on the side of caution, even when the science clearly showed an activity was fairly safe. So when I advocated for doing something like seeing relatives unmasked after we were all vaccinated (before CDC changed their guidelines), my husband would accuse me of making up rules rather than listening to experts. And when I said, life is about risk calculation, he would say, "sure, but when we go skiing, for example, we risk our own lives and well being, not others."
One of the reasons that I took the CDC recommendations this past year with a grain of salt is that I'm a primary care doctor. I've already absorbed that experts make guidelines, but if you expect to get 100% compliance with guidelines, you're going to fail as a doctor. Case in point: I had a patient early in the pandemic that had almost every risk factor you could imagine: age>65, obese, diabetes, lung disease... She lived alone with lots of family nearby. She wanted her family to come visit and I initially said no. Too dangerous. Well, she got so depressed that her health was compromised by that. So that strict edict obviously had to be modified. We had to find a way where she could see family, but do it as safely as possible. The vaccines are a true miracle and I do think things will loosen up, but we'll probably be masked indoors for a while yet.
Elana, I think there's another level to it. In formulating guidelines, public health agencies have to consider not just their scientific basis, but also the perceived public reaction to it and subsequent behaviors. It's the synthesis of the two. That's why there's even a debate about whether guidelines are "too strict" or "too loose"- how will the public react if we say that, once vaccinated, they can not have to wear masks outside, etc?
Moreover, they're just that- guidelines. Principles to be considered when considering how to act, not absolute rules. I too am an MD (emergency psychiatry), and frequently had a patient remove their mask temporarily because I could not hear them in a loud ER setting (and, conversely, sometimes removed mine so they could hear me). Is it against the guidelines? Technically, yes. Could it be justified given the emergent nature of...being in an emergency room with an acute psychiatric crisis? I sure as hell thought so. I'm sure a COVID moralist might condemn me for jeopardizing people's lives, but aren't their lives also jeopardized if whatever acute crisis drove them to the ER isn't appropriately addressed?
This is precisely the sort of thinking that the COVID moralist avoids like the plague- a value judgment. To them, there should be no consideration as to the relative risks and benefits of behaviors with respect to COVID.
Absolutely agree with you. I think we're saying the same thing. And I probably should've added that I don't blame CDC or public health. That's why I said they had a very difficult messaging job. Of course they had to err on the side of caution b/c they were making recommendations for the public at large, whereas you and I had the luxury of making medical decisions for an individual, which is a very different situation. I may have been frustrated with the messaging at times, but never blamed them. Likewise, I didn't blame leaders for their decisions about the economy/schools (whether Republican or Democratic leaders). This was a situation where the choices were between bad and awful and everyone did the best they could. I'm glad it wasn't up to me and that I didn't have to make decisions for the population at large. Most of the "Covid moralists" you reference were holier-than-thou, privileged people who had the luxury of their comfortable stay-at-home jobs and could judge everyone else.
100% agree. As I wrote in another reply, in my experience, there was a inverse association between the COVID moralism and actual experience to COVID-related trauma, which was itself maddening. Here's the perfect example: https://studyhall.xyz/the-reporters-are-not-okay-extremely-not-okay/
This is the kind of writing I come for that so beautifully encapsulates my bewilderment at current trends: "I am not a joiner, and there are many like me, and we would like a society that is both moral and free, one that brings all of social judgment’s meager powers to bear on plague denial and racism both, but without forgoing the indispensable human quality of discrimination. We would like to feel free to think before we judge." Yes -- a society that is both moral and free...
FdB: how about doing a consideration as to why people feel the need to throw around perjoratives to insult people, usually at the end of their tirade. ‘Respect’ as you say. I believe anyone who turns their body into a virus manufacturing factory by getting the vaccine is uninformed and maybe gullible, but not someone to despise or belittle. [let’s see if I can draw away some of the nastiness from you with *that* statement]
My sense is that you aren't just trolling, but it's weird that you consider others uninformed about the issue, given that your reference to one's body becoming a "virus manufacturing factory" evinces a deep misunderstanding of how these (or any) vaccines work. I'm genuinely not trying to be snarky or sarcastic, but I do sincerely suggest that you read any legitimate scientific source material on how vaccines function in the body, because it's very different than you seem to think, and it might assuage some worries.
By CDC numbers, the results are pretty clear - it's a matter of percentages, not Calculus. People just have to look. There is evidence the spikes on proteins created by the vaccine themselves produce a Covid infection.
[you'll have to pardon his acerbic/exasperated writing style below. If you're not willing to read something you don't already believe, skip this link. I truly hope the next 6-12 months don't deliver a lot of surprises.]
"...So if you're not specifically morbid the shot is one hundred times more dangerous than the disease."
I think a number of folks, while not happy about COVID, were at least looking forward to a silver lining that the epidemic would almost biblically smite their culture war foes. Finally, those unscientific rubes would pay a price for their unenlightened values and behaviors. The worst example of this was that jerk who dressed up as the Grim Reaper on a beach - trying to shame people away from behavior which even at the time we had good reason to think was pretty safe (and we now know was EXCEPTIONALLY safe). I think a number of those folks were immensely frustrated when places like Florida, Georgia, and Texas flouted “the science” and ended up with average COVID performance, rather than having the highest infection and death tolls that they “deserved”. I think some of these masking fights are just displaced anger from this overall COVID story.
The reality is that the virus doesn’t care about your moral value set - places like South Korea were successful because they did 1) lockdowns, 2) comprehensive test and trace and 3) centralized quarantine. We did a pretty decent job at first with 1, but even the best blue states did a middling job at best with 2, and no one even attempted 3. It probably wasn’t intentional, but it seems like places like Florida and Texas figured out that if you aren’t going to do all three of the components that the suppression strategy requires, you might as well open up as much as you can and mitigate the economic pain.
I’m not thrilled with this result, and it depended on immense sacrifices made by health care workers and other front line employees - but it’s not like those groups had an easier time in New York or Massachusetts either. The lesson- if there is one- is that it takes more than intentions and signaling to defeat a pandemic, and difficult adversaries like this virus will rarely award you partial credit.
agree with this. The liberal yearning for the "right" people to pay the price for our collective dysfunction is typically targeted in the wrong direction: not upward at dysfunctional wealthy elites but downward at the rubes in the red states. The pandemic felt like it followed that pattern pretty well, even though if actual case counts did not really support the narrative.
I had a horrifying thought. Would we be in a better COVID place now if Trump had won re-election? I assume he would be out every day touting how “his” vaccines have saved us from “the China virus”. Would vaccine take up be better?
I don't think so. I personally think the vaccine roll-out has been pretty impressive and I credit the Biden administration for that. I think it would've been a mess under Trump. Now, regarding vaccine hesitancy, I think it would help enormously if Trump would brag loudly and obnoxiously about how he gets credit for the vaccines. But he and the Fox crowd could do that now and they don't. I could be wrong, but I don't think their message would be different had he won. My guess it that the Trump/Fox brand seems to to be anti-government so I guess you have this conflict between claiming credit for the vaccines and sticking to the brand. It's really a shame. His support of vaccine use would really help convince people.
I agree that the rollout would have been a lot messier, but ultimately the capacity was there so I’m not sure how badly that would have affected us. As it was, many of our most vulnerable did get vaccinated under his admin. I do think he would be bragging loudly if he were still president and the reason he isn’t is just petulance (“I gave you this great gift and you voted me out? Fine! Have it your way!”) I also think Fox/ the rest of the right wing ecosystem would have turned on a dime to support him. They’ve certainly done 180s on other issues where Trump has challenged traditional GOP orthodoxy. Totally agree he should be pushing the vaccines but I think he would resist doing anything that helps his successor even if it would benefit the country.
I am left to wonder: how much of the general American population that absorbs news and/or social media understand that straight up propaganda was created around Cov19 was in service of political ends? Was it unclear that when the elections ended the rhetoric suddenly and significantly changed? The news organizations have all but admitted it was agenda driven (in some cases they seem to have directly admitted it). I think they did to good of a job in scaring the bajeezes out of everyone - too good of a job at creating an us-v-them paradigm around everything Cov19 related.
I would say it's mixed and I'm not sure 'propganda' would be the right word to use here. The neoliberal media absolutely used it for their own ends, and this is very blatant that by Jan 21 hit, they completely flipped messaging with Pelosi and others going OPEN BIDEN! 1 ft is good as 6 ft, kids don't get covid, and so forth. The heralded "blue leaders" like Cuomo and Newsom and others have done just about as terrible as a job as Rick fucking DeSantis; the only difference is they just handled medial-sphere appearances better. I think it was important to reinforce that it was, and is, still a very serious pandemic -- after all, we're at around +700,000 excess deaths above baseline. I'm reminded of even when Tucker Carlson was scared and called up Trump telling him that he needed to take this more serious, which he did do a bit after that. I don't want to use the word "scare" here, but the fact that the neoliberal media just instantly did a 180 degree heelturn just shows how completely hollow and insincere it was in the end. Trump is partly to blame for how bad it got and that was just a really stupid play on his part to flippantly brush it off and pretend it was nothing, but again given "blue leadership" states it wasn't any better and the difference in death/cases vs had it being Hillary would be fairly negligible. The larger problem is everyone is so atomized, media had thoroughly and completely killed their credibility by just being naked shills for the global neoliberalism hegemony and insincere ghouls at every corner (see also everything written by Glenn Greenwald on the topic), and nobody likes an individual-based scold even if somewhere buried in there is well-intentioned. Everyone has been perfectly detached and decimated over the previous decades having been trained to just point at each other while the elite strip the copper wiring out of the building like the Grinch sneaking the Christmas tree up the chimney.
It seems like there are a few separate things going on here. One is people get particularly frightened when faced with both ambiguity and mortal risk, as we have been all this past year. The other is that some people respond to being afraid by getting mad and behaving badly. Maybe a third thing is that civility is hard to sustain online because people with already lower inhibitions are even less inhibited in this medium.
I'm a pretty inhibited, patient person generally and I have been more irritable with my loved ones this year than any year. I've watched many of my clients get into all kinds of scraps with their loved ones that they don't tend to otherwise. This has been such a hard, hard year for so many people, and even for those of us who it hasn't been unbearably hard for have run out of a certain amount of civility and patience as a result of the long-term stress. If we're having trouble being kind to our loved ones, it makes sense to me we'd have more trouble being kind to strangers.
I don't know who this person is who wrote that foul stuff to you, but it seems to me the moral scolding part is quite secondary to the need they had to just express anger at someone for whatever difficult thing they were feeling in that moment. There's a very thin veneer of content laid over that well of rage.
I'm trying to reserve judgment this year on humanity's lack of civility overall. I know these are trends that pre-date Covid, and I suspect will continue beyond, but perhaps the percentage of a**hole behavior will go down just a little when everyone gets some more rest and recuperation, has a chance to grieve losses, and feels safe walking around again (though I get that some people are sure this will never ever happen).
Your comment was so thoughtful, sane, and spot-on that I found myself wishing you, too, had a Substack I could read.
To me, it's always so refreshing and mentally energizing to read a truly measured take, and that feeling is all the sharper for its rarity of late. It's not entirely an exaggeration to say that it really has a quality of succor to it, as water for thirst. And when that succor is found, I always find myself both disquieted (in that it surfaces and underscores a deep unmet need in myself) and grateful for the need having been met for the time being.
Wow, what a very kind thing to say, thank you for taking the time to do that. I'm a psychotherapist who specializes in trauma and anxiety, so a lot of this past year has been a kind of neck-deep marinating in a well I had already dug, if that makes sense. I've had a few chances to share that background with larger groups of people this past year and that's been a really fun addition to what is otherwise very quiet one-on-one conversation with my clients. The idea of a substack is appealing just because I like words. The thought of having it be a place where people come for a certain kind of reprieve or comfort sounds even better, so thank you for just putting that out there.
I'm likewise generally a pretty reserved/inhibited person. I think that, partly as a way to cope with all the chaos and rancor, I've made it a bit of a goal for myself to be vulnerably earnest in engaging with others when it seems like a reasonable opportunity. In relation to my earlier comment, I think a major part of what I really miss is a sense of sincere humanity in interactions. And as you touched on, it's an issue that pre-existed the pandemic, but it certainly hasn't been improved by it, unfortunately.
Anyway, I'll be sure to keep an eye out for your comments! While by no means perfect, the sense of community on most Substacks is so much better than the average internet space. It's one of my favorite things about it.
And my best wishes to you and anyone else who reads this, as we navigate these rough times.
Speaking as a practicing psychiatrist, I caution you to not take these articles you describe too seriously...don't trust articles/people who claim to link specific sociocultural phenomena (like lockdown) with "brain changes." Depending on what the speaker's definition of "brain change" is (structural change of the neuroanatomical grey and white matter? EEG changes? Psychodynamic restructuring?), the "link" will be, at best, obvious (ie. people who faced psychosocial stressors during lockdown were at higher risk for depressive symptoms?...not exactly a groundbreaking conclusion), or, at worst, vague nonsense serving as a preliminary stepping stone for future non-scientific arguments (ie- eugenics, which was founded on this sort of research). The truth of the matter is- everything "changes your brain" all the time, and that shouldn't be the standard for evaluating the impact of a sociocultural phenomena.
But to comment on your real question- I'm not sure there's as clear of a link as you think. For example, I work in a NYC emergency room, and am still working to process some of the stuff I experienced last spring. However, of the people I know, there seemed to be an INVERSE correlation between exposure to seeing the horrors of last spring and excessive moralizing. The ones who were the most obnoxiously histrionic were the ones who had the LEAST exposure to the pandemic, or any potential socioeconomic consequences.
Trauma research is a very vibrant and interesting field of psychiatry, for sure. But the idea of trauma is quite sticky- for example, according to the DSM, to meet criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD, there are conditions placed on the ways you can have experienced it, etc. And why some people experience PTSD following traumatic events and some don’t isn’t yet answerable, other than to point to the nebulous concept of “resilience” (and proper treatment, of course).
All this to say- trauma research is still in its infancy, as is most of psychiatry. Right now, we study phenomena much like physicists studied elementary particles-not by seeing the material directly, but through analyzing the manifestations of the remnants/byproducts. Neuroanatomical associations are known (yes, the amygdala, the frontal lobe, etc, in trauma), but their significance in understanding the causality and the development of psychopathology is not anywhere close to being well understood. This is my problem with the whole “it changes the brain” argument- this research is in no way, shape, or form in a position to be able to comment on an individual person’s behaviors/cognitions/emotions, etc.
Regardless, you’re absolutely correct that the social ramifications have undoubtedly played a role in the creation of many people’s (understandable) neurotic-like behaviors. So too has the US media which, as a recent study out of Dartmouth showed, has covered the pandemic in a tone that was not only disproportionately more panic-inducing than the international press, but even as compared with the actual scientific research it was purporting to report on! I can think of countless examples of this, but the most salient one currently is the way they covered vaccines- their efficacy (including not explaining what specifically efficacy means in this case), breakthrough cases, their resistance (despite basic immunologic principles as well as mounting scientific evidence) to properly convey that vaccinated individuals are DRAMATICALLY less likely to transmit the virus, etc.
As for “shaming the shame-enforcers”- this is the beginning of “I know you are, but what am I?” logic, so I reject this concept. Because, frankly, I don’t care if these people who are vaccinated want to wear masks in public. But as they are the ones initiating the shaming by projecting beliefs onto others- beliefs that are no longer supported by the science they profess to believe in, the burden is on them, much like the burden of proof lies on the person making a claim, not the person questioning it.
Ultimately, though, COVID moralism is not all that unique- many (though certainly not all) of these sorts of people would be insufferable to be around when talking about other sociocultural topics. But insofar as science has anything to do with this, they can’t really point to it as being on their side anymore.
Some of us are in an awkward situation. After accidentally having my first year free of allergy-triggered sinus infections, I don't want to seem like a mask scold. But I love having one.
Then wear one, by god! Wear one as long as you would like.
Yeah, I wasn't really asking for advice. Just pointing out that there are a range of situations, as much of East Asia has recognized for a while.
I'm curious if people *want* us to be more like east asia. Surely there are some public health benefits to masking being a normal thing in non pandemic times, but I don't particularly want to do it.
Sure, it can depend on things like allergy levels, whether it's flu season etc. Full-time would be a bummer for most of us.
I’ve heard that flu rates and other (non Covid) respiratory illness is way down this year, probably due to masking?
Way, way down. Like ~0. Due to all the measures that reduce R for a respiratory virus.
Not just masking, but also people just not being around other people as much -- working from home, not going to the mall, not eating in restaurants, etc. I expect masks help, but the real benefit comes from just avoiding people.
Due to viral interference. Masking is theater.
Yeah, I wear a mask when I do household chores. I use to get dust allergies something terrible. Perfect cure. Who knew? Thanks Covid! ;)
For me personally, the pandemic ended after the second shot. While I actually do tell my 15 year old daughter to mask up with an N95. When she gets vaccinated in two months she can do whatever, whenever. She'll be cured of "maskitis".
Here's the secret that neither the woke scolds nor the Q nut jobs want to admit. The vaccines cured Covid. UK & Israel? Over 50% vaxxed. Covid basically eradicated. Brazil & India? Right now under 10% masked. Terrible.
That's enough science for me. Vaxes work. Nothing else really does.
#VaxesNoMaxes
*Brazil & India 10% vaxxed, is what I meant, obviously.
I still wear masks in stores and on the subway. But it's totally performative. I've let my beard grow and I don't double mask or wear a serious one. It's cloth bullshit.
Also, that friend of yours on facebook or whatever? They're the one who needs meds.
I feel like this is as old as the human race. This sort of moralizing is a way, in essence, to have power, and to feel superior to others; to say "no". It is a powerful instinct, and it is often exactly opposed to progress and change.
Yeah, exactly. Eventually the Covid scolding will fade away and there will be something new. You just have to roll with it.
I think one thing to think about is that the covid scold mindset thrives on social media, but it's rarely encountered in real life because if those people are so worried about the virus then they can just stay home! I live in a very rule abiding place just like you, but I've never actually encountered anyone giving me grief about running outside my mask lowered even though I've been doing it since summer 2020. If anything, I'm still on the rule abiding side of the spectrum. There has always been people in line at the deli or whatever (NYPD particularly) that don't wear masks, but they just don't really post on social media in places that we see.
However, if you leave NYC, you will absolutely encounter people that don't follow any of the restrictions and will happily engage you in discussion about it. During the pinnacle of cases this winter a cashier in a Georgia gas station that I didn't need to wear my mask there (I don't know if she meant Georgia or the gas station). I've had similar experiences in Texas when I was there last year.
I guess I'm saying that the covid scold problem is annoying to people that have an online platform, but the population is vanishingly small, and if anything the broader societal breakdown that covid has revealed is that a large portion of the country was completely unconvinced about the dangers of the pandemic. My other anecdote from Georgia in December is sitting in the drive through of a Panera and watching a very elderly couple slowly walk in front of my car and go in to the restaurant to eat completely maskless. Something about that was profoundly depressing to me and still is. But outside of the coastal elite cities, it's not an uncommon occurrence. So many people (rightfully in many respects) so thoroughly despise the liberal "authority figures" or whatever in this country that we are incapable of actually doing anything collectively that requires even minimal individual sacrifice.
To an extent I certainly agree with you, but there's also stuff like this: https://twitter.com/AlecMacGillis/status/1389017564421009410
which is just not rational and affects the lives of everyone in that community.
lol I did see that. Massachussetts liberals never disappoint. I wonder if I had been going running in the wealthy Boston suburbs instead of Brooklyn then I actually would have gotten scolded by now.
If someone scolds you for running outside with out a mask, shouldn't the response be "Are you an essential worker? No? Then you shouldn't be outside at all if Covid is still so dangerous even when vaccinated. Masks aren't enough. Go home."
Georgia is interesting because Atlanta (where I live) has been pretty good about masking, but go a few miles out of town and it’s a very different story.
The problem with COVID denialism or safetyism in either extreme is that it's so tied to self-preservation instincts that denying your feelings in the face of logic would be denying such a core, intractable part of yourself that instead folks get incredibly defensive.
It's the same logic where if you are on a highway, everyone driving faster then you is a "maniac" and everyone driving slower then you is a "slowpoke". All we can hope is that is gets better with time and people kind of feel their way back into regular society at their own pace.
Isn't that self-selection bias or something? It's a cognitive distortion for sure.
The statement in some comments that other than vaccines "nothing else works" is just false. South Korea, Vietnam, New Zealand, Iceland, Finland, ...even China, show that other things absolutely can work. Though these great vaccines are a lot nicer.
Yeah. Completely shutting down as close to 100% as possible can keep the virus out. But for most of the world that was never realistic. And now with vaccines it makes no sense.
And it only works temporarily. India had very low rates until a few months ago. The only thing that seems to keep Covid at bay without full island like shutdowns are the Vaccines.
With the exception of Finland, these countries are all islands and were able to close their borders before there were very many cases in the country. It is easier to stop a pandemic—to isolate infected people and trace their contacts—if you’re dealing with 10 cases rather than 100,000. And Finland, while not an island, is geographically isolated and not a tourism hot spot in early March, so they were able to close their borders and limit infections too. While it might be tempting to point fingers and blame people in countries that have been ravaged by the pandemic, in fact the only thing that seems to make a difference is keeping the virus out in the first place.
Don’t believe me? Continental Europe, where I live, has had some of the highest per capita infection and death rates in the world, even though most of these countries have had strict covid measures such as lockdown, school closures, limits on people’s movements, and universal masking. Unlike in the US, people are following the rules pretty well. And yet infections continue to rage.
In fact, Switzerland, where I live, has been more successful in fighting the pandemic than neighboring Italy, France, and Spain, even though we have had less strict measures than these other countries (we have never had to wear masks outside, and our schools have been open since August, for example).
The example of Europe suggests that no matter how strict the measures are, and no matter how compliant the population, what really matters is keeping the virus out in the first place.
Vietnam, South Korea, and China are islands? South Korea and China had no big initial outbreaks?
South Korea is essentially an island. It is almost impossible to cross by land into the country. But your point holds for Vietnam and China.
Yes, but S.K. also had a big initial outbreak, very similar to the U.S.
Yes, and they addressed it by 1) implementing a comprehensive test and trace strategy and 2) centralized quarantines. We did a very half assed job of 1 and and never attempted 2. I’m largely with you that being an island helps, but it was some of their other actions that really drove their success.
Exactly!
China is an exception to the island rule because the government was able to impose a total quarantine in which everyone in a city of ten million people was confined to their homes and not allowed to go out at all, nor was anyone allowed to enter or leave the city. The Chinese government essentially turned Wuhan into an island. I doubt even the most worried Americans would be willing to accept such draconian measures.
South Korea is tantamount to an island because no one is crossing its border with North Korea.
I concede that Vietnam is not an island.
So, ok, with the exception of Vietnam, the rule applies: countries that were able to keep infection out in the first place were the ones that were successful. Even here in Europe, the rule applies. The Czech Republic (where I used to live) made a great merit of having stopped the pandemic a year ago. Turns out that they were only successful because late January and early February are the only times that tourists don’t come to Prague. So the Czech government closed the borders in March 2020 and were able to contain the pandemic back then. Then in the summer, when people started traveling again, the pandemic began to rage, and the Czech Republic, in spite of its much-vaunted masking and lockdowns, now has the highest per-capita infection rate in the world.
I really do think we need to stop blaming people and countries for their less-than-perfect behavior and acknowledge that much of the suffering from this pandemic has arisen from factors we couldn’t control. And the one thing we could control, the vaccines, have been awesome and are the way the pandemic will finally end, thankfully.
Other things can work...like pre-existing immunity in Pac Rim countries, massive propaganda efforts in China, etc.
This topic has come up on Slow Boring as well and I wrote on the comments there that my husband and I (both doctors, happily married) fought over and over about relative risks this past year. Part of the problem was that CDC and public health had a difficult messaging job. In every case, they erred on the side of caution, even when the science clearly showed an activity was fairly safe. So when I advocated for doing something like seeing relatives unmasked after we were all vaccinated (before CDC changed their guidelines), my husband would accuse me of making up rules rather than listening to experts. And when I said, life is about risk calculation, he would say, "sure, but when we go skiing, for example, we risk our own lives and well being, not others."
One of the reasons that I took the CDC recommendations this past year with a grain of salt is that I'm a primary care doctor. I've already absorbed that experts make guidelines, but if you expect to get 100% compliance with guidelines, you're going to fail as a doctor. Case in point: I had a patient early in the pandemic that had almost every risk factor you could imagine: age>65, obese, diabetes, lung disease... She lived alone with lots of family nearby. She wanted her family to come visit and I initially said no. Too dangerous. Well, she got so depressed that her health was compromised by that. So that strict edict obviously had to be modified. We had to find a way where she could see family, but do it as safely as possible. The vaccines are a true miracle and I do think things will loosen up, but we'll probably be masked indoors for a while yet.
Elana, I think there's another level to it. In formulating guidelines, public health agencies have to consider not just their scientific basis, but also the perceived public reaction to it and subsequent behaviors. It's the synthesis of the two. That's why there's even a debate about whether guidelines are "too strict" or "too loose"- how will the public react if we say that, once vaccinated, they can not have to wear masks outside, etc?
Moreover, they're just that- guidelines. Principles to be considered when considering how to act, not absolute rules. I too am an MD (emergency psychiatry), and frequently had a patient remove their mask temporarily because I could not hear them in a loud ER setting (and, conversely, sometimes removed mine so they could hear me). Is it against the guidelines? Technically, yes. Could it be justified given the emergent nature of...being in an emergency room with an acute psychiatric crisis? I sure as hell thought so. I'm sure a COVID moralist might condemn me for jeopardizing people's lives, but aren't their lives also jeopardized if whatever acute crisis drove them to the ER isn't appropriately addressed?
This is precisely the sort of thinking that the COVID moralist avoids like the plague- a value judgment. To them, there should be no consideration as to the relative risks and benefits of behaviors with respect to COVID.
Absolutely agree with you. I think we're saying the same thing. And I probably should've added that I don't blame CDC or public health. That's why I said they had a very difficult messaging job. Of course they had to err on the side of caution b/c they were making recommendations for the public at large, whereas you and I had the luxury of making medical decisions for an individual, which is a very different situation. I may have been frustrated with the messaging at times, but never blamed them. Likewise, I didn't blame leaders for their decisions about the economy/schools (whether Republican or Democratic leaders). This was a situation where the choices were between bad and awful and everyone did the best they could. I'm glad it wasn't up to me and that I didn't have to make decisions for the population at large. Most of the "Covid moralists" you reference were holier-than-thou, privileged people who had the luxury of their comfortable stay-at-home jobs and could judge everyone else.
100% agree. As I wrote in another reply, in my experience, there was a inverse association between the COVID moralism and actual experience to COVID-related trauma, which was itself maddening. Here's the perfect example: https://studyhall.xyz/the-reporters-are-not-okay-extremely-not-okay/
couldn't agree more, it's just sort of sad how divided/angry people have gotten about this thing
This is the kind of writing I come for that so beautifully encapsulates my bewilderment at current trends: "I am not a joiner, and there are many like me, and we would like a society that is both moral and free, one that brings all of social judgment’s meager powers to bear on plague denial and racism both, but without forgoing the indispensable human quality of discrimination. We would like to feel free to think before we judge." Yes -- a society that is both moral and free...
FdB: how about doing a consideration as to why people feel the need to throw around perjoratives to insult people, usually at the end of their tirade. ‘Respect’ as you say. I believe anyone who turns their body into a virus manufacturing factory by getting the vaccine is uninformed and maybe gullible, but not someone to despise or belittle. [let’s see if I can draw away some of the nastiness from you with *that* statement]
My sense is that you aren't just trolling, but it's weird that you consider others uninformed about the issue, given that your reference to one's body becoming a "virus manufacturing factory" evinces a deep misunderstanding of how these (or any) vaccines work. I'm genuinely not trying to be snarky or sarcastic, but I do sincerely suggest that you read any legitimate scientific source material on how vaccines function in the body, because it's very different than you seem to think, and it might assuage some worries.
By CDC numbers, the results are pretty clear - it's a matter of percentages, not Calculus. People just have to look. There is evidence the spikes on proteins created by the vaccine themselves produce a Covid infection.
[you'll have to pardon his acerbic/exasperated writing style below. If you're not willing to read something you don't already believe, skip this link. I truly hope the next 6-12 months don't deliver a lot of surprises.]
"...So if you're not specifically morbid the shot is one hundred times more dangerous than the disease."
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=242268
I think a number of folks, while not happy about COVID, were at least looking forward to a silver lining that the epidemic would almost biblically smite their culture war foes. Finally, those unscientific rubes would pay a price for their unenlightened values and behaviors. The worst example of this was that jerk who dressed up as the Grim Reaper on a beach - trying to shame people away from behavior which even at the time we had good reason to think was pretty safe (and we now know was EXCEPTIONALLY safe). I think a number of those folks were immensely frustrated when places like Florida, Georgia, and Texas flouted “the science” and ended up with average COVID performance, rather than having the highest infection and death tolls that they “deserved”. I think some of these masking fights are just displaced anger from this overall COVID story.
The reality is that the virus doesn’t care about your moral value set - places like South Korea were successful because they did 1) lockdowns, 2) comprehensive test and trace and 3) centralized quarantine. We did a pretty decent job at first with 1, but even the best blue states did a middling job at best with 2, and no one even attempted 3. It probably wasn’t intentional, but it seems like places like Florida and Texas figured out that if you aren’t going to do all three of the components that the suppression strategy requires, you might as well open up as much as you can and mitigate the economic pain.
I’m not thrilled with this result, and it depended on immense sacrifices made by health care workers and other front line employees - but it’s not like those groups had an easier time in New York or Massachusetts either. The lesson- if there is one- is that it takes more than intentions and signaling to defeat a pandemic, and difficult adversaries like this virus will rarely award you partial credit.
agree with this. The liberal yearning for the "right" people to pay the price for our collective dysfunction is typically targeted in the wrong direction: not upward at dysfunctional wealthy elites but downward at the rubes in the red states. The pandemic felt like it followed that pattern pretty well, even though if actual case counts did not really support the narrative.
I had a horrifying thought. Would we be in a better COVID place now if Trump had won re-election? I assume he would be out every day touting how “his” vaccines have saved us from “the China virus”. Would vaccine take up be better?
I don't think so. I personally think the vaccine roll-out has been pretty impressive and I credit the Biden administration for that. I think it would've been a mess under Trump. Now, regarding vaccine hesitancy, I think it would help enormously if Trump would brag loudly and obnoxiously about how he gets credit for the vaccines. But he and the Fox crowd could do that now and they don't. I could be wrong, but I don't think their message would be different had he won. My guess it that the Trump/Fox brand seems to to be anti-government so I guess you have this conflict between claiming credit for the vaccines and sticking to the brand. It's really a shame. His support of vaccine use would really help convince people.
I agree that the rollout would have been a lot messier, but ultimately the capacity was there so I’m not sure how badly that would have affected us. As it was, many of our most vulnerable did get vaccinated under his admin. I do think he would be bragging loudly if he were still president and the reason he isn’t is just petulance (“I gave you this great gift and you voted me out? Fine! Have it your way!”) I also think Fox/ the rest of the right wing ecosystem would have turned on a dime to support him. They’ve certainly done 180s on other issues where Trump has challenged traditional GOP orthodoxy. Totally agree he should be pushing the vaccines but I think he would resist doing anything that helps his successor even if it would benefit the country.
You should always immediately block anyone who makes a remark like "Stay on those meds, bro". Fuck those people.
Too fucking right! I mean, I'm very happily unwoke, but a person who tries to use mental illness shaming as a random insult has a turd for a heart.
I am left to wonder: how much of the general American population that absorbs news and/or social media understand that straight up propaganda was created around Cov19 was in service of political ends? Was it unclear that when the elections ended the rhetoric suddenly and significantly changed? The news organizations have all but admitted it was agenda driven (in some cases they seem to have directly admitted it). I think they did to good of a job in scaring the bajeezes out of everyone - too good of a job at creating an us-v-them paradigm around everything Cov19 related.
Now we are stuck with the rebound.
Who, exactly, "created" this "straight up propaganda"? What was their goal?
I would say it's mixed and I'm not sure 'propganda' would be the right word to use here. The neoliberal media absolutely used it for their own ends, and this is very blatant that by Jan 21 hit, they completely flipped messaging with Pelosi and others going OPEN BIDEN! 1 ft is good as 6 ft, kids don't get covid, and so forth. The heralded "blue leaders" like Cuomo and Newsom and others have done just about as terrible as a job as Rick fucking DeSantis; the only difference is they just handled medial-sphere appearances better. I think it was important to reinforce that it was, and is, still a very serious pandemic -- after all, we're at around +700,000 excess deaths above baseline. I'm reminded of even when Tucker Carlson was scared and called up Trump telling him that he needed to take this more serious, which he did do a bit after that. I don't want to use the word "scare" here, but the fact that the neoliberal media just instantly did a 180 degree heelturn just shows how completely hollow and insincere it was in the end. Trump is partly to blame for how bad it got and that was just a really stupid play on his part to flippantly brush it off and pretend it was nothing, but again given "blue leadership" states it wasn't any better and the difference in death/cases vs had it being Hillary would be fairly negligible. The larger problem is everyone is so atomized, media had thoroughly and completely killed their credibility by just being naked shills for the global neoliberalism hegemony and insincere ghouls at every corner (see also everything written by Glenn Greenwald on the topic), and nobody likes an individual-based scold even if somewhere buried in there is well-intentioned. Everyone has been perfectly detached and decimated over the previous decades having been trained to just point at each other while the elite strip the copper wiring out of the building like the Grinch sneaking the Christmas tree up the chimney.
It seems like there are a few separate things going on here. One is people get particularly frightened when faced with both ambiguity and mortal risk, as we have been all this past year. The other is that some people respond to being afraid by getting mad and behaving badly. Maybe a third thing is that civility is hard to sustain online because people with already lower inhibitions are even less inhibited in this medium.
I'm a pretty inhibited, patient person generally and I have been more irritable with my loved ones this year than any year. I've watched many of my clients get into all kinds of scraps with their loved ones that they don't tend to otherwise. This has been such a hard, hard year for so many people, and even for those of us who it hasn't been unbearably hard for have run out of a certain amount of civility and patience as a result of the long-term stress. If we're having trouble being kind to our loved ones, it makes sense to me we'd have more trouble being kind to strangers.
I don't know who this person is who wrote that foul stuff to you, but it seems to me the moral scolding part is quite secondary to the need they had to just express anger at someone for whatever difficult thing they were feeling in that moment. There's a very thin veneer of content laid over that well of rage.
I'm trying to reserve judgment this year on humanity's lack of civility overall. I know these are trends that pre-date Covid, and I suspect will continue beyond, but perhaps the percentage of a**hole behavior will go down just a little when everyone gets some more rest and recuperation, has a chance to grieve losses, and feels safe walking around again (though I get that some people are sure this will never ever happen).
For what it's worth...
Your comment was so thoughtful, sane, and spot-on that I found myself wishing you, too, had a Substack I could read.
To me, it's always so refreshing and mentally energizing to read a truly measured take, and that feeling is all the sharper for its rarity of late. It's not entirely an exaggeration to say that it really has a quality of succor to it, as water for thirst. And when that succor is found, I always find myself both disquieted (in that it surfaces and underscores a deep unmet need in myself) and grateful for the need having been met for the time being.
Wow, what a very kind thing to say, thank you for taking the time to do that. I'm a psychotherapist who specializes in trauma and anxiety, so a lot of this past year has been a kind of neck-deep marinating in a well I had already dug, if that makes sense. I've had a few chances to share that background with larger groups of people this past year and that's been a really fun addition to what is otherwise very quiet one-on-one conversation with my clients. The idea of a substack is appealing just because I like words. The thought of having it be a place where people come for a certain kind of reprieve or comfort sounds even better, so thank you for just putting that out there.
Of course. And that does make sense to me.
I'm likewise generally a pretty reserved/inhibited person. I think that, partly as a way to cope with all the chaos and rancor, I've made it a bit of a goal for myself to be vulnerably earnest in engaging with others when it seems like a reasonable opportunity. In relation to my earlier comment, I think a major part of what I really miss is a sense of sincere humanity in interactions. And as you touched on, it's an issue that pre-existed the pandemic, but it certainly hasn't been improved by it, unfortunately.
Anyway, I'll be sure to keep an eye out for your comments! While by no means perfect, the sense of community on most Substacks is so much better than the average internet space. It's one of my favorite things about it.
And my best wishes to you and anyone else who reads this, as we navigate these rough times.