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Here’s Why Libs Are Obsessed With Mask-Wearing And Ongoing Pandemic Restrictions

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Short answer — they’re neurotic and they want YOU to be neurotic, too.

An interesting article was published in The Atlantic earlier this week. It was titled, “The Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown” and staff writer Emma Green explains that those who identify as “very liberal” were more concerned about the virus that spread from Wuhan, China than any other group — it’s become their political identity. These lockdown lefties go further than the CDC and The Science™.

The spring of 2021 is different from the spring of 2020, though. Scientists know a lot more about how COVID-19 spreads—and how it doesn’t. Public-health advice is shifting. But some progressives have not updated their behavior based on the new information. And in their eagerness to protect themselves and others, they may be underestimating other costs. Being extra careful about COVID-19 is (mostly) harmless when it’s limited to wiping down your groceries with Lysol wipes and wearing a mask in places where you’re unlikely to spread the coronavirus, such as on a hiking trail. But vigilance can have unintended consequences when it imposes on other people’s lives. Even as scientific knowledge of COVID-19 has increased, some progressives have continued to embrace policies and behaviors that aren’t supported by evidence, such as banning access to playgrounds, closing beaches, and refusing to reopen schools for in-person learning…

…Even as the very effective covid-19 vaccines have become widely accessible, many progressives continue to listen to voices preaching caution over relaxation. Anthony Fauci recently said he wouldn’t travel or eat at restaurants even though he’s fully vaccinated, despite CDC guidance that these activities can be safe for vaccinated people who take precautions. California Governor Gavin Newsom refused in April to guarantee that the state’s schools would fully reopen in the fall, even though studies have demonstrated for months that modified in-person instruction is safe. Leaders in Brookline, Massachusetts, decided this week to keep a local outdoor mask mandate in place, even though the CDC recently relaxed its guidance for outdoor mask use. And scolding is still a popular pastime. “At least in San Francisco, a lot of people are glaring at each other if they don’t wear masks outside,” Gandhi said, even though the risk of outdoor transmission is very low.

(Emphasis Added)

Green writes that these progressives that are overly cautious see themselves as “good citizens” who are simply trying to save lives. They’ve been told by the current mask-obsessed (co)President that wearing a mask is a “patriotic duty” and so, as Green writes, their “civic duty has been expressed through lonely asceticism.”

But while some of these “good citizens” are cataloging the “Faces of COVID” or publishing “plague poetry” on Twitter, others can be complete a-holes to anyone who disagrees with them — even if they share the same “progressive” ideology.

Scientists, academics, and writers who have argued that some very low-risk activities are worth doing as vaccination rates rise—even if the risk of exposure is not zero—have faced intense backlash. After Emily Oster, an economist at Brown University, argued in The Atlantic in March that families should plan to take their kids on trips and see friends and relatives this summer, a reader sent an email to her supervisors at the university suggesting that Oster be promoted to a leadership role in the field of “genocide encouragement.” “Far too many people are not dying in our current global pandemic, and far too many children are not yet infected,” the reader wrote. “With the upcoming consequences of global warming about to be felt by a wholly unprepared worldwide community, I believe the time is right to get young scholars ready to follow in Dr. Oster’s footsteps and ensure the most comfortable place to be is white [and] upper-middle-class.” (“That email was something,” Oster told me.)
Source: The Atlantic

To sum up — to the left, supporting lockdowns shows that you “care” about others and the masks are basically their version of a MAGA hat.

Just two days after Green’s deep-dive into the psychopathy of the lockdown lovers, Jenna Ryu, a senior at Georgetown University, penned an explainer on why some on the left are don’t want to give up the masks. She admits that masks “often signaled to which political group you belonged” since more Democrats than Republicans were willing to mask-up.

Ryu wrote, “Wearing a mask meant you were adhering to the CDC and local mandates. The act of stripping off these masks will feel foreign and uneasy for some, and that reaction is not unexpected, experts say.” She says that the behavior of masking-up all of the time took time to adopt and will take time to “un-adopt” because it will feel foreign to some people to not have that mask on. Perhaps this explains (co)President Biden’s freak-out when he couldn’t find his mask at an outdoor event in Georgia earlier this month.

She also said that with all of the uncertainty and the feeling of helplessness from the novel coronavirus that spread from China, when “experts” started recommending masks, it gave people “agency.”

What?! How does the government forcing businesses to force you to wear a mask give you “agency”?!

“In the last year, we haven’t had much control, both in terms of the vaccine rollouts or testing done early in the pandemic or sending kids to school. But what everyone can actually control is putting that mask on,” says Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist in San Francisco.
“It’s something everyone and anyone can do, and frankly something most people felt comfortable wearing.”

Who are these “comfortable with masks” people? Masks are dehumanizing.

Ryu goes on, however, to explain that those hesitant to ditch the masks are not so great at calculating risk. (Gee, you don’t say!)

Mike Bordieri, an associate professor of psychology at Murray State University, says it’s “predictable” that some people are hesitant to follow the updated guidelines, and their cautionary behavior can be explained by the psychological finding that humans often “overanalyze risk.”..

…[Dr.  Abraar] Karan [Internal Medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital] said the updated guidance may also present a struggle for those who have endured a traumatic experience linked to the pandemic, such as the loss of a loved one. People who suffer from mental health disorders may also struggle to adjust. 
(Emphasis Added)

A recent study has shown that more than 50% of liberal, white women have a diagnosed mental health issue.

And don’t think that’s going to go down in the near future.

Nearly half of Americans say they feel uneasy thinking about in-person interaction once the pandemic ends, according to the American Psychological Association’s 2021 Stress in America report. And Sheriece Sadberry, a psychologist, says masks have served as a “natural barrier” for unwanted social encounters…

…Bordieri adds it might be stressful for those prone to anxiety or an intolerance to uncertainty to start thinking about how to acclimate to social settings as we start abandoning the masks….

Research shows after the pandemic ends there could be a rise in mental health conditions such as agoraphobia – an “irrational fear of being in open or unfamiliar places, resulting in the avoidance of public situations” – and obsessive-compulsive disorder – “characterized by recurrent intrusive thoughts (obsessions) that prompt the performance of neutralizing rituals (compulsions).”
Source: USA Today

Oh, goody! It looks like we’ve not just normalized psychopathy, we’re actively adding to it with asinine public policies.

We’re making people terrified of returning to normal life.

There’s even a new Orwellian term that has been coined to describe the resistance to a return to in-person education.

Experts have coined the term “school hesitancy” to describe the remarkably durable resistance to a return to traditional learning. Some wonder whether the pandemic has simply upended people’s choices about how to live, with the location of schooling — like the location of office work — now up for grabs. But others see the phenomenon as a social and educational crisis for children that must be combated — a challenge akin to vaccine hesitancy.
Source: New York Times (Emphasis Added)

The problem is that some of these nutters are making public policy.

As mentioned earlier, Brookline, Massachusetts is defying the state’s decision to lift mask mandates.

“Out of an abundance of caution and in our residents’ best interests, the town of Brookline will not follow suit with the state’s decision to lift the outdoor mask mandate today,” [health commissioner Dr. Swannie] Jett said. “Our face-covering requirement has served as a protective layer that limits the possibility of spreading COVID-19 and we are reluctant to relax it at this time without further public input and review by the Advisory Council on Public Health.”

Source: WCBV 5

It’s not just on the East coast. In Oregon, the pandemic measures for businesses have been made permanent until they are “no longer needed.”

Uh-huh.

Any clue on when that is going to be? No, they have no idea because the people who shriek, “Belive The Science™!” are mandating… permanent outdoor masking. Good grief!

The rules require employers to ensure both employees and customers wear masks indoors and outdoors if social distancing cannot be maintained. Additionally, businesses are required to “optimize” outside air circulating through ventilation systems

…The Oregon Occupational Health and Safety Division said the permanent rules were necessary because of a law limiting emergency occupational safety orders to 180 days, after which a permanent rulemaking process must be undertaken…

…Aaron Corvin, a public information officer for the Oregon OSHA, told the Washington Examiner that the state has “not predefined the complex algorithm that would be required to trigger the repeal,” but it will be looking at multiple factors.

“Trying to go the predefined route, given the fluid nature of what we’re dealing with, could set up a situation of repealing too soon or too far down the road,” Corvin said.
Source: Washington Examiner

Pandemic porn-addicted leftists, many of whom are mentally unstable people unable to calculate risk and hang on every word that drops from the mouth of Saint Fauci, bully the rest of us who don’t have a diagnosed mental illnesses and know that the likelihood of dying from COVID after the second jab is lower than the possibility of getting hit by a car after visiting the vaccine clinic.

If we had a responsible media that wasn’t filled with paranoiacs like Joy Reid, who continues to wear two masks outside despite being fully vaccinated — we might not have so many pandemic neurotics running around mandating masks outdoors as more and more people have immunity either from recovering from the virus or through vaccination.

But then, the pandemic has been good for ratings since the Bad Orange Man is out of the Oval Office and has been replaced by the shambling husk of a former Senate mediocrity who is even less impressive now.

If they didn’t push the pandemic porn, then the terrified libs might turn off CNN, go outside of their self-imposed prison and realize that there’s a world out there. It would signal the beginning of the end of their control over the minds of the American public. And well, they can’t have that.

K. Walker

ClashDaily's Associate Editor since August 2016. Self-described political junkie, anti-Third Wave Feminist, and a nightmare to the 'intersectional' crowd. Mrs. Walker has taken a stand against 'white privilege' education in public schools. She's also an amateur Playwright, former Drama teacher, and staunch defender of the Oxford comma. Follow her humble musings on Twitter: @TheMrsKnowItAll and on Gettr @KarenWalker

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