The thing to do with Covid-19 is to get vaccinated. Unfortunately many people refuse to do so. Given the realities of American political culture, it would have been smart if we had all fought to make vaccination as free of culture war trappings as possible; unfortunately, we did the opposite, and now we’re caught in one of those recurring skirmishes within America’s partisan divide where both sides are pretty much completely correct in their mockery of the other - liberals really are haughty, self-righteous, and hypocritical, and conservatives really are self-destructive, irrational, and motivated by resentment. We’re stuck with each other, forever, locked in this cage with people we hate, and there will be no escape in our lifetimes.
Devil’s advocate - I agree that “get food delivered instead of going to the store” merely shifts the risk from yourself to another, but what about “stay at home or hang out in small groups as opposed to attend large gatherings/parties/events”? I think that’s the stronger version of the argument. Not one that I find personally compelling, but for more individualistic reasons - I too feel that I have done my part by getting vaccinated and obeying mask mandates, etc, and I am ready to get back to my normal life. I’m especially unwilling to make large sacrifices when the vast majority of the country is on board with returning to (relative) normalcy.
Noah Blum had a great tweet: "The hard truth is that nobody out there is doing the absolute most cautious things to avoid covid, but everyone looks at the person who is being one degree less cautious than them as the place where the problem starts."
That's the thing about this whole situation, you can worry all you want but what the fuck is that going to do about it? Indifference to the predicament and a positive attitude about what you can do in the moment to make life more bearable is all that you can do. COVID took away my entire senior year of college - but at the end of the day I did whatever I could to make sure I could have a great time *within reason*. It's almost like people want you to be miserable and stoop down to their level of fucking neuroticism so you can wither away and be miserable with them. Fuck all that, I'm here to have fun.
"it would have been smart if we had all fought to make vaccination as free of culture war trappings as possible; unfortunately, we did the opposite"
I guess my response to this is: who was doing this? And why?
Nothing is free of culture war trappings any longer. Absolutely nothing. So this is less an indictment of our collective Covid response and more an indictment of the absolute shitshow of a culture Americans currently inhabit. The best thing to do is to act like a reasonable person that lives in a society and ignore the freakouts; of course, that is largely impossible without a great deal of personal willpower. Not being on social media helps.
As with most of this crap nowadays, I blame social media and cable news. It should be relatively easy to get the shot and go on living without making a big show of it. But nope; too many people are absolutely addicted to owning the libs or owning the cons because there's nothing apolitical in life that gives them any pleasure.
Yeah. And despite some holdouts, the vaccine uptake story is, honestly, a great triumph, and something we should be proud of. Figures from the WSJ this week ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-case-count-11594333471 -- it is unfortunately paywalled ) put the fully-vaccinated rate at 72.5% for those 18 and up, and an astounding 87.5% for those 65 and up. Given the problems with health care access in this country overall, given that Covid has unfortunately been a point of political polarization, and given the general American proclivity for orneriness, I think that's a wonderful success.
One is to abstain from *discretionary* outings and gatherings with other people. Yes, you have to get food somehow -- maybe mitigate the risk by going at odd hours. Maybe you don't need to see the new Spider Man in the theater? Maybe, like Ed Yong, cancel a birthday party or make it virtual. Maybe cook more meals in. In general, at the margins, opt against choices that include going out among crowds, particularly indoors.
To which I would answer that my social responsibility includes more than just minimizing the risk I could be infected with or spread COVID. I have a responsibility to the organizations I am a part of to be as effective as possible at them. I have a responsibility to my friends and family members to be as present as I can be to them. And I have a responsibility to keep myself as happy and mentally healthy as possible so I can be my best self, and that may involve pursuing activities that increase my risk profile.
I think the other answer might be that the article betrays an attitude of something less than full commitment to the COVID protocols is demoralizing to those who are trying and sends the wrong message to those tempted to not comply. Maybe it's silly from a scientific standpoint to mask outdoors, but it strengthens the social norm for masking and sends the message that you're willing to do your part.
Maybe there is some value in playing our part in COVID theatre, but as the timelines grow, I think it's more important that the measures we take are sustainable and make sense, so I think some skepticism is healthy.
A friend of mine recently told us that while unlikely, their 4 year old COULD die if they get covid, and they therefore are going to continue to isolate as much as humanly possible. Until... when? Nobody would say for sure. Some seem to think we still might do away with covid, rather than this disease continuing to circulate and mutate for the rest of our lives. Consider me a skeptic.
However, they also felt that people like me (fully vaccinated, still masking indoors), would impose heightened risk upon them by my willingness to go out in public in the potential presence of the unvaccinated. That could certainly be true. But when the AAP says "In states reporting, 0.00%-0.03% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death", it doesn't make me feel that bad. But how do I tell someone else what risk is acceptable for their kid?
To me that means they can continue sealing themselves off from the world if they so choose. I do not believe it is my social responsibility to take every step I can to minimize risks for six degrees of separation for everyone I meet at this point in the covid saga. I suspect some of my friends would simply disagree with that. Not sure where to go from there.
But kind of a bummer that some of them likely won't attend my bachelor party as a result :(
After over a year of lockdown quarantine and so on, I endured an emotional breakdown. I did everything asked of me. But at some point, the mental health tradeoffs starts to tip the scale.
What is it with this self-destructive liberal-left proclivity towards a kind of neo-Victorian performing-morality-for-the-unwashed-masses? Rife with ecclesiastical decrees, banishments, anointments? It’s almost designed for failure.
I will continue to boost and mask where asked, but there’s something increasingly suspicious about this perpetual state of fear, shame, anxiety, distrust, and so on, that anyone turning on CNN will come to experience, until the Prozac commercial starts.
We’re no use to our family and friends, maybe even communities, if we have them, when we turn towards despair. At some point we just have to accept the things we cannot change and have the wisdom to move on.
Most people crowing about "social responsibility" believe they are more socially responsible than the "bad people." It's a vehicle to make yourself feel superior (like so much of the rest of our public discourse). While you're at it, if you never get behind the wheel you can contribute to lowering highway deaths. Do your part!
My reaction to your last essay wasn't that I thought you or anyone should worry more or feel worse -- it was to challenge your assumption that everyone expressing huge amounts of angst and depair is doing so as a form of performative oneupmanship. Some are, some aren't. Personally, I'm struggling to avoid drowning in despair but I'm not suggesting that others try to match me.
Having most people stay at home while having a small fraction of people doing delivery to everyone who is staying at home does probably reduce spread relative to having everyone going out to do their own errands. Such an arrangement thus creates both a shift of risk (from stay-at-homers to the delivery underclass) and a reduction in total risk (due to fewer total interactions between people).
Sorry, but there aren't any externalities related to your behavior at this stage of COVID.
The vaccines primarily provide personal protection.
The virus is extremely infectious and quarantining, etc. doesn't make a big difference. We're all going to get it.
We are also at near max population benefit from vaccination.
People who are arguing otherwise are neurotics or otherwise poorly incentivized and should be ignored.
Don't go out if you're symptomatic. But otherwise, if you're vaccinated, live your life. If you have someone high risk in your life encourage them to get vaccinated (although they probably already are).
>If you’re locking down but surviving doing so with meal delivery apps, online shopping, and delivery groceries, you’re not reducing risk, you’re just imposing it on other people.
Is this really true? I mean…when the world shut down last year, my local library was closed to people entering, but still allowed curbside pickup: patrons would put books on hold online, and then pick them up at a table outside the library set up for the occasion. This procedure protected patrons, of course, but it also protected librarians! No more library full of loiterers filling the air with germs; no more chats with patrons breathing all over you. I have to assume that having curbside pickup at the grocery store also keeps grocery workers segregated from the public in a way that grocery stores perforce do not. Am I missing something?
Devil’s advocate - I agree that “get food delivered instead of going to the store” merely shifts the risk from yourself to another, but what about “stay at home or hang out in small groups as opposed to attend large gatherings/parties/events”? I think that’s the stronger version of the argument. Not one that I find personally compelling, but for more individualistic reasons - I too feel that I have done my part by getting vaccinated and obeying mask mandates, etc, and I am ready to get back to my normal life. I’m especially unwilling to make large sacrifices when the vast majority of the country is on board with returning to (relative) normalcy.
Noah Blum had a great tweet: "The hard truth is that nobody out there is doing the absolute most cautious things to avoid covid, but everyone looks at the person who is being one degree less cautious than them as the place where the problem starts."
That's the thing about this whole situation, you can worry all you want but what the fuck is that going to do about it? Indifference to the predicament and a positive attitude about what you can do in the moment to make life more bearable is all that you can do. COVID took away my entire senior year of college - but at the end of the day I did whatever I could to make sure I could have a great time *within reason*. It's almost like people want you to be miserable and stoop down to their level of fucking neuroticism so you can wither away and be miserable with them. Fuck all that, I'm here to have fun.
"it would have been smart if we had all fought to make vaccination as free of culture war trappings as possible; unfortunately, we did the opposite"
I guess my response to this is: who was doing this? And why?
Nothing is free of culture war trappings any longer. Absolutely nothing. So this is less an indictment of our collective Covid response and more an indictment of the absolute shitshow of a culture Americans currently inhabit. The best thing to do is to act like a reasonable person that lives in a society and ignore the freakouts; of course, that is largely impossible without a great deal of personal willpower. Not being on social media helps.
As with most of this crap nowadays, I blame social media and cable news. It should be relatively easy to get the shot and go on living without making a big show of it. But nope; too many people are absolutely addicted to owning the libs or owning the cons because there's nothing apolitical in life that gives them any pleasure.
Yeah. And despite some holdouts, the vaccine uptake story is, honestly, a great triumph, and something we should be proud of. Figures from the WSJ this week ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-case-count-11594333471 -- it is unfortunately paywalled ) put the fully-vaccinated rate at 72.5% for those 18 and up, and an astounding 87.5% for those 65 and up. Given the problems with health care access in this country overall, given that Covid has unfortunately been a point of political polarization, and given the general American proclivity for orneriness, I think that's a wonderful success.
I think there's two answers to the question.
One is to abstain from *discretionary* outings and gatherings with other people. Yes, you have to get food somehow -- maybe mitigate the risk by going at odd hours. Maybe you don't need to see the new Spider Man in the theater? Maybe, like Ed Yong, cancel a birthday party or make it virtual. Maybe cook more meals in. In general, at the margins, opt against choices that include going out among crowds, particularly indoors.
To which I would answer that my social responsibility includes more than just minimizing the risk I could be infected with or spread COVID. I have a responsibility to the organizations I am a part of to be as effective as possible at them. I have a responsibility to my friends and family members to be as present as I can be to them. And I have a responsibility to keep myself as happy and mentally healthy as possible so I can be my best self, and that may involve pursuing activities that increase my risk profile.
I think the other answer might be that the article betrays an attitude of something less than full commitment to the COVID protocols is demoralizing to those who are trying and sends the wrong message to those tempted to not comply. Maybe it's silly from a scientific standpoint to mask outdoors, but it strengthens the social norm for masking and sends the message that you're willing to do your part.
Maybe there is some value in playing our part in COVID theatre, but as the timelines grow, I think it's more important that the measures we take are sustainable and make sense, so I think some skepticism is healthy.
A friend of mine recently told us that while unlikely, their 4 year old COULD die if they get covid, and they therefore are going to continue to isolate as much as humanly possible. Until... when? Nobody would say for sure. Some seem to think we still might do away with covid, rather than this disease continuing to circulate and mutate for the rest of our lives. Consider me a skeptic.
However, they also felt that people like me (fully vaccinated, still masking indoors), would impose heightened risk upon them by my willingness to go out in public in the potential presence of the unvaccinated. That could certainly be true. But when the AAP says "In states reporting, 0.00%-0.03% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death", it doesn't make me feel that bad. But how do I tell someone else what risk is acceptable for their kid?
To me that means they can continue sealing themselves off from the world if they so choose. I do not believe it is my social responsibility to take every step I can to minimize risks for six degrees of separation for everyone I meet at this point in the covid saga. I suspect some of my friends would simply disagree with that. Not sure where to go from there.
But kind of a bummer that some of them likely won't attend my bachelor party as a result :(
F*ck yeah.
After over a year of lockdown quarantine and so on, I endured an emotional breakdown. I did everything asked of me. But at some point, the mental health tradeoffs starts to tip the scale.
What is it with this self-destructive liberal-left proclivity towards a kind of neo-Victorian performing-morality-for-the-unwashed-masses? Rife with ecclesiastical decrees, banishments, anointments? It’s almost designed for failure.
I will continue to boost and mask where asked, but there’s something increasingly suspicious about this perpetual state of fear, shame, anxiety, distrust, and so on, that anyone turning on CNN will come to experience, until the Prozac commercial starts.
We’re no use to our family and friends, maybe even communities, if we have them, when we turn towards despair. At some point we just have to accept the things we cannot change and have the wisdom to move on.
Most people crowing about "social responsibility" believe they are more socially responsible than the "bad people." It's a vehicle to make yourself feel superior (like so much of the rest of our public discourse). While you're at it, if you never get behind the wheel you can contribute to lowering highway deaths. Do your part!
My reaction to your last essay wasn't that I thought you or anyone should worry more or feel worse -- it was to challenge your assumption that everyone expressing huge amounts of angst and depair is doing so as a form of performative oneupmanship. Some are, some aren't. Personally, I'm struggling to avoid drowning in despair but I'm not suggesting that others try to match me.
Having most people stay at home while having a small fraction of people doing delivery to everyone who is staying at home does probably reduce spread relative to having everyone going out to do their own errands. Such an arrangement thus creates both a shift of risk (from stay-at-homers to the delivery underclass) and a reduction in total risk (due to fewer total interactions between people).
Sorry, but there aren't any externalities related to your behavior at this stage of COVID.
The vaccines primarily provide personal protection.
The virus is extremely infectious and quarantining, etc. doesn't make a big difference. We're all going to get it.
We are also at near max population benefit from vaccination.
People who are arguing otherwise are neurotics or otherwise poorly incentivized and should be ignored.
Don't go out if you're symptomatic. But otherwise, if you're vaccinated, live your life. If you have someone high risk in your life encourage them to get vaccinated (although they probably already are).
Fin.
>If you’re locking down but surviving doing so with meal delivery apps, online shopping, and delivery groceries, you’re not reducing risk, you’re just imposing it on other people.
Is this really true? I mean…when the world shut down last year, my local library was closed to people entering, but still allowed curbside pickup: patrons would put books on hold online, and then pick them up at a table outside the library set up for the occasion. This procedure protected patrons, of course, but it also protected librarians! No more library full of loiterers filling the air with germs; no more chats with patrons breathing all over you. I have to assume that having curbside pickup at the grocery store also keeps grocery workers segregated from the public in a way that grocery stores perforce do not. Am I missing something?