Tag: face masks

It’s no secret powerful interests have handsomely benefitted from coronavirus lockdowns of the last 14 months, as experimental restrictions implemented under the pledge of “two weeks to slow the spread” morphed into a seemingly endless draconian suspension of life. Now, politicization of the return to normal combined with influential interests invested in lockdown extensions have jeopardized its true return.

Last week, MSNBC’s Joy Reid celebrated wearing two masks while jogging in spite of even the restriction-crazed CDC guidance updated to recommend otherwise.

“I am among the fully vaccinated,” Reid said gleaming in prime time. “I did go jogging today, in the park. This is the mask I wore, with a doctor’s mask under it… There are people who are getting really upset about that.”

Reid can do anything she wants, of course, since engaging in this form of performative theater doesn’t directly hurt anybody but herself. Her on-air grandstanding in contradiction to scientific findings, however, illustrates how masks have become political markers as opposed to effective tools of viral mitigation.

Reid’s self-imposed mask-wearing might be harmless. After all, it’s a personal choice with no consequences to others besides the example of a woman with a large media platform.

Mask-wearing however, a majority of which is compulsive either due to government edict or corporate enforcement, is only the tip of the iceberg in politicized pandemic policies, many of which do infringe on the freedoms of others. Schools remain closed for full in-class instruction at a devastating cost under the orders of the teachers unions, businesses across the nation remain handicapped with capacity limits, beaches in parts of the country will remain closed through the summer, and even playgrounds are off limits despite the low risk to children, let alone outside transmission.

Have plans to send your kids to summer camp? Don’t count on the real experience.

No small part of the population has become comfortable living in a world in lockdown. In fact, many demand it regardless of the cost to their neighbors, motivated by either an act of political expression featuring aggressive virtue signaling or an obsession with living life with zero risk, overestimating danger of the Chinese virus. A survey out last month revealed majorities of Americans across the political spectrum believed the probability of ending up in the hospital if infected by COVID-19 is dramatically higher than the factual reality.

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