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The two big Covid arcs we saw were an immediate rejection of Covid precautions by the right, followed by a re-alignment of Democrats in 2022 after the Biden administration pushed hard to downplay the impact of Covid and the need for precautions.
Both of these strains of thought should be anathema to the left. Yet we see largely the same attitudes from leftist politicians and organizations:
- “You shouldn’t be guilting your comrades over their refusal to mask”
- “People with disabilities do not automatically die when a coronavirus particle enters their airway”
- “If everyone in a room is asymptomatic and IMMUNIZED, then risk of spread is low. Immunization >> masking”
- “If you guys want to get really sad, check out r/ZeroCovidCommunity. It’s filled with people who are shut ins who lost their family, friends, and jobs because of their fear of catching COVID.”
- “It’s 2025, not 2021. If you’re worried about your health you can wear an N95.”
- “There’s solidarity and then there’s indulging. If you are immunocompromised to the point you require to be in a room where everyone is masked then maybe you need to sit this one out until you are feeling better. You cannot force a majority to the will of a very small minority.”
- “Choosing to wear a mask to protest a genocide to protect your identity is one thing. Forcing everyone to wear a mask to protect one or two individuals that if they are so sick they should be at home [is different.]”
These are all comments from DSA members today, but I’m not cherry-picking. They’re representative of the US left (and the left in other countries) on the whole.
I don’t understand how this became leftist dogma. Covid minimization was clearly driven by the needs of capital, and the left should reflexively reject it. Accepting it means workplace and public space health and safety is gone, a whole host of people are essentially banned from participating in society, vulnerable minorities are no longer protected, and you no longer have the personal right to not be infected with a biohazard. This is all anti-labor and discriminatory.
I’ve seen people try to spin masking as a mark of white privilege and a restriction of the freedoms of non-white people. As if throughout the pandemic, non-white people haven’t been at the highest risk of getting Covid and having long-term health problems as a result.
Outrage over the genocide in Gaza is righteous; but somehow the Covid genocide is irrelevant.
I recently went to Taiwan this summer and the gift bag with accessories they gave me contained covid masks. So this is purely anecdotal on my part, but masking and non-masking might be more based in national differences than political ones. East Asian countries as I saw took covid more seriously than the west, and in general had a masking culture anyway (due to fashion + desire for annoynymity + air pollution) before covid.
In the west however masking was seen as a “emergency measure we need to do during this ABNORMAL time for a temporary while”. Once the panic over covid subsided people relaxed and decided they weren’t going to mask anymore. Plus, businesses did push covid minimisation ideology, and the western left (the left of few places really) is not immune to picking up harmful ideas/vibes by osmosis.
In general, we in the west should be masking more seriously even if you discount covid. It prevents the spread of diseases in general (ex -flu season sucks major ass for me), reduces the air pollutants you breath in and probably also degrades the data being collected by cameras. If not the CCTVs, at least it can reduce how much you show up in other people’s photos lol. Not to mention, a masking culture can be useful for making people with allergies feel more open to protecting themselves as well.
I read somewhat how a lot of it had to do with messaging. Supposedly other countries’ public health agencies treated it differently. I’m guessing Japan and Taiwan have less MAGA pushback making up conspiracy theory shit about their CDC director.
I’ll never get over how many/most Westerns consider masking to be bad, dangerous, or offensive.