I'm (hopefully) entering a new org soon. Only a few comrades there mask. At my workplace, or anywhere else really, nobody masks. The only people I see mask are like goldfish, and I only see them occasionally in public transit. It's disheartening by the day to see Covid trivialized, and AES like even China not care anymore, in spite of their good policies beforehand.
Just makes me feel like I cannot relate to people anymore, they all look at me like I'm supremely weird for masking, so it's even harder to convince people of anything politically, especially when I'm discriminated all the time and receive verbal abuse for masking. I really dont get how to talk to people when they wont understand the concept of masking to protect themselves/others and it makes me feel stuck politically, to the point I feel I have a one sided view of many social issues, through the POV of Covid consciousness and masking, and I dont see how a movement can be built if no one acknowledges this. I feel like I've become more disconnected from everyone, including comrades, especially them, because they wont listen or want to mask in the first place, and I dont know what to do. I use an N95 every day when going outside, and so does my partner. We dont eat out, etc. I get the fact many wont do this choice to sacrifice their lifestyle or whatever.. but :(
I remember before masking I was taken seriously, now it's impeding me in all my life's aspects just cause we live in an extremely ableist society. It's hard and alienating from others, and no one irl seemingly understands. It's very hard to see how to build a mass movement in these conditions, or to even socialize with others (and I'm very sociable!) when you're instantly labeled as weird. I'm so dissapointed in people sometimes I give up on interacting because of this.
Even among comrades, the moment I mention masking, everyone is suddenly awkward and tries to move on. I'm tired to act like it's a secret or such
I wish things were different. I wish I could connect with people again. And that comrades would take this seriously, because I feel alienated even from those I share the most with, and its painful. I dont want to create a struggle session or whatever, just wanted to feel heard, I hope most people here mask anyways. It's bad enough for my mental healtg to give up on all social stuff cause of masking, and other activities like swimming, it's just tough. Thanks for reading
Vaccines tend to reduce viral load if/when you do get infected, thus reducing further transmission. That's why everyone should be vaxxed even if they catch it anyway. The holistic approach would of course be best, mask + vax + reducing physical proximity.
I disagree that the most that we can do is mask. That's why I mentioned veganism and environmentalism; those are other examples of individual efforts being at most a mitigating factor, not really a solution per se, not on its own as a "grassroots" trend. It requires management from the top down, at all layers of society, to actually mean anything. Radical action against covid would mean things like legal protection for remote work, mandatory and unlimited paid sick time for covid, stricter indoor ventilation regulations, free vaccines, free masks, etc. Tbqh, sitting in a poorly ventilated cube farm with 30 other coworkers for 40 hours a week — mask or not, if a coworker has covid, I'm catching it too. That's what I mean about employment. Fulltime in-office is the norm again, and yes they will fire you if you don't comply. That is way more impactful than any individual choice to mask.
My purpose is not to justify not wearing a mask but to explain my understanding why the large majority of people stopped.
Ive had almost ten coworkers in my less than 50 person department in and out with covid last week and havent gotten sick because I mask and get my booster. This is just covid liberalism
Edit: and more have symptoms and are still coming into work or could be asymptomatic
You know what else reduces viral load? That's right, wearing a mask
Yes
I never said the most we can do is individually mask, i explicitly said at the end we must struggle for to make masking society wide instead. And societywide, masking had the biggest impact on reducing deaths. You seem to he doing the opposite of struggling for a society wide hollistic solution by spreading antimasking rhetoric, justifying antimaskers' decisions, and framing those advocating struggling for masking as individualists who dont have real jobs
I'm in schools all day, havent got covid in years despite the hacking coughs of my classmates and profs. One of my neighbours teaches hundreds of students a day in a poorly ventilated educational institution where he's the only masker. He hasnt gotten covid since 21/22. Another has the same job, but doesnt mask, he's constantly sick. Neither of them have ever been threatened with being fired for masking, neither was my min wage mother or any of her coworkers, but only my mother kept masking.
You are claiming to not be justifying not wearing a mask, but that's exactly what you're doing with your misinformation: you are quite literally justifying peoples choice not to wear a mask. You mention reduced viral loads wrt vaccines, but ignore the (much larger!) reduction from wearing a mask. And in your radical action against covid, you mention providing free masks, but dont mention restoring mask mandates
You claim to just be explaining why, their perspective, etc, but you ignore the most reasonable explanations: ableism, complacency, bourgeois propaganda, selfishness to explain (falsely) if they masked theyd be sick anyway and maybe fired so there's no point.
In the preceding paragraph you seem to be saying those are actually your own views, but then you say youre just explaining your understanding of why most people stopped? Unless the whole thing is "in character" from an antimaskers perspective
I'm not ignoring masks. I only mentioned that about vaccines to correct what you said, that vaccines only make you feel less bad when you get sick.
I guess that was implied in "etc" but technically you are correct that I did not list that.
What you call "anti-mask rhetoric" is just me describing what is happening around me. I caught covid twice through mask + vaccination. During the initial lockdown, I lived in an area where even with a mandate people wore their masks incorrectly and didn't get vaccinated. That's the situation we are in now, and I'm kinda over being mad at individuals about it when our leaders are piling on the reasons not to do these things
The effects of reduced viral loads are the slightly less severe covid and slightly lowered chances of long covid that i mentioned. Why are you framing an explanation of the science behind what i've already said as a correction?
You focus on these voluntary measures and put the actual important ones in the etc bc your analysis frames state-capitals coercion as having stopped people from masking. In reality the reverse is true: the majority of liberal subjects (many leftists included) trust liberal propaganda implicitly and value their ability to eat brunch in comfort over disabled lives. State coercion was in fact the only thing that forced them to do otherwise.
I live in an area where, at the height of the lockdown, truckers launched a massive sustained protest campaign and forced the government to end the mask mandate; those jackasses werent wearing their masks at all never mind covering their noses.
I'm glad you're able to be so zen about it, but i cant forgive these antimaskers (and all whove jumped on their bandwagon). Systemic factors explain, not justify. Coming into a venting thread to chastise people for not turning the other cheek to people who have harmed them and make excuses for their behaviour is shitty behaviour.
I cant forget my mother coming home with a massive head injury, coming home crying every day for weeks after being screamed at by truckers twice her size, or my brother sobbing for weeks bc his only friend stopped being his friend bc he wouldnt stop masking. I understand the pressures antimaskers face: i just think theyre lazy cowards for caving to those pressure and actively ableist when they promote the same behaviours in others. Glad youre able to forgive and forget, but unfortunately best i can do is act civil for organising work