This spring I went to a conference and it stressed me out. I was on edge the entire time. Maybe one in 10 people were wearing a mask. And we were in a major Canadian city. A city that was not low transmission. In fact, that month, Canada was deep in its sixth COVID wave, a bad one. Hospitals were nearly full and doctors were frantic.
I am so tired of hearing about everyone and their brother, being so tired. What's the big deal with wearing a mask inside any space populated by humans, pin balling from side to side. But here's the deal, where things get all messed up - IMO. We're talking about Science (good faith science) meets Public Relations, and then pray tell, add Politics to the mix. And now what do we have? What does that equation look like? I will tell you what it looks like. It looks like just what we got, right here in River City. (Replace, COVID, masking, science as the focus with the word Government / Governance. Well that's another story, for another Substack, for another Author, for another time... Or is it?)
ERRRRGH ... I FEEL THIS. I'm not an expert like you, either. But I do follow a *lot* of disability activists on Twitter, and they're with you - they want a lot more caution. (I also look at as much data as I can, which, I mean, I don't have access to much - but it's so clear when a wave is on its way to my area.) Also, I read a lot of Zeynip Tufekci early on, and that probably helped me protect myself better, get better masks earlier, etc. (And, as mentioned before, and as you know, the innate cautiousness that comes from having had a childhood virus that wasn't bad but that caused a cytokine cascade & an autoimmune disease that lasted probably five minutes and utterly changed my life forever.)
I am so tired of hearing about everyone and their brother, being so tired. What's the big deal with wearing a mask inside any space populated by humans, pin balling from side to side. But here's the deal, where things get all messed up - IMO. We're talking about Science (good faith science) meets Public Relations, and then pray tell, add Politics to the mix. And now what do we have? What does that equation look like? I will tell you what it looks like. It looks like just what we got, right here in River City. (Replace, COVID, masking, science as the focus with the word Government / Governance. Well that's another story, for another Substack, for another Author, for another time... Or is it?)
ERRRRGH ... I FEEL THIS. I'm not an expert like you, either. But I do follow a *lot* of disability activists on Twitter, and they're with you - they want a lot more caution. (I also look at as much data as I can, which, I mean, I don't have access to much - but it's so clear when a wave is on its way to my area.) Also, I read a lot of Zeynip Tufekci early on, and that probably helped me protect myself better, get better masks earlier, etc. (And, as mentioned before, and as you know, the innate cautiousness that comes from having had a childhood virus that wasn't bad but that caused a cytokine cascade & an autoimmune disease that lasted probably five minutes and utterly changed my life forever.)