CDC Head Rachel Walensky: Hey, I've Got a Great Idea. Now That the Covid Pandemic Is Diminishing, Why Don't We Wear Masks Forever to Reduce Infection By the Flu and Even the Common Cold?

Those of you who said "they're addicted to the pandemic" or "they will never let the pandemic end," collect your winnings.

Spoiler alert: Your winnings consist of a box of drug store masks.

Where is she getting that fantastical, farcical, medical misinformation claim that masks reduce the spread of covid by 80%? Even the N95 masks that actually work only reduce transmission by 60%. The drug store masks that almost everyone actually uses reduce transmission by 10-12%, tops.

Even leftwing Covid Karen AllahPundit has finally found a covid-panic hill he isn't willing to die on. Those numbers on mask effectiveness are from him (though of course they're widely available).

Compare her "80% reduction" claim to the claim I noted in the sidebar, highlighted by leftwing comic Jimmy Dore, by a doctor on NBC's Today show that covid has killed 146,000 children.

Actual figure? Less than 700.

You are allowed to lie about covid so long as the lie supports the officially sanctioned state propaganda.

Philip Klein of the corporate neoliberal blog National Review has had enough of the Forever Masking push.

And we do seem to be in the early stages of a Pivot to Forever Masking, as he calls it. In addition to Walensky's suggestion that we should mask to protect even against the common cold, he notes an ABC "News" article by a doctor urging the same Forever Masking line.

[The ABC News tweet] linked to a story from contributor Jay Bhatt, a doctor and public-health professor, arguing that people should resist returning to normal after receiving their vaccine booster. But of the five reasons he lists for continued masking and social distancing, two of them are "it's flu season" and "other viruses are out there."

One of the reasons why I have tried to avoid making the argument that we don't mask during flu season, so we should not be masking for COVID-19 given that vaccines are widely available, is precisely that I was always worried that at some point, somebody would respond, "Well, we should be masking during flu season!" It seems that moment has arrived.

An analogy that just occurred to me:

Viruses have what I'll call an unstable core. This term is not accurate but it works for the analogy. Their genetic code is not well-guarded against misreplication and error. They reproduce sloppily. They lose chunks of their genetic code in replication. They also just grab up any stray genetic code in their vicinity and incorporate it into their genetic core. That's what makes them so incredibly changeable -- so mutable. It's also the mechanism that allows them to suddenly become virulent and lethal.

It occurs to me that many, many people today lack a stable core. They do not have much by way of a core of fundamental being inside of them. The old pillars that provided strength and solidity to people -- church and family being two of them, friends you actually know in the real world being another, engagement with thought longer and deeper than scrolling through twitter Hot Takes -- are largely absent from many people.

The genetics of their psychology and personality are thus not well-guarded against mutation, and like a virus, they readily pick up pieces of Identity and stray strings of Meaning they find floating in the medium. They incorporate these new pieces of Identity and begin infecting others with it. Suddenly lost and lonely people are all Non-Binary Femme-Trending Anti-Racist Equity-Working Science-Believing Fat-Positivity Graysexuals who believe Black Lives Matter and that Hate Has No Home Here.

And many people have incorporated an exciting, potent new string of personal meaning, the "People of Pandemic" string, into their identity code.

Being a Person Who Is Very Very Concerned About the Pandemic is just as serious (or, just as trivial) a personal commitment and identity choice as being Non-Binary. It defines them. It determines who their kinship group are. It makes a tribe, it makes a culture. It cleaves them from one mass of humanity and connects them strongly with another mass.

It determines what they believe about a great many other things. You automatically know what all Pandemic People think about CRT, for example -- it simultaneously doesn't exist and is critical to teach children.

We live in viral times. People themselves have now become viral in most essential sense of the word. Having no fundamental spiritual DNA, they now mutate dozens of times a year, becoming more virulent with each mutation, and spread their diseased Codes to the other Viruses who look like people.

This pandemic won't end. It can't end. If it were to end, the Viral People whose primary code is being a Person of Covid would themselves end.

Or, you know, they could just find a new line of mutant mental illness to obsess over.

posted by Ace at 12:09 PM

| Access Comments