I have no medical expertise but I spent some of my formative years in Japan when my parents lived there. I sort of grew up with the concept of masking. But it was presented all wrong. Masking can help someone who might be ill or who might be potentially ill from spreading the virus quite as virently ,but as Americans who weren't used to …
I have no medical expertise but I spent some of my formative years in Japan when my parents lived there. I sort of grew up with the concept of masking. But it was presented all wrong. Masking can help someone who might be ill or who might be potentially ill from spreading the virus quite as virently ,but as Americans who weren't used to masking and seeing others who did mask catch illness anyway, it didn't connect well, and then some as you write about went overboard. This created a "cult of denial" that covid
was even real and not just a "deep state" conspiracy. History has had a lot of pandemics, but such measures of closing down work, school, etc never happened---at least to this extent. And the result, the pandemic created panic by governments that exasperated that really didn't help very much at all. So when a possible relief is presented with the vaccine half of Americans are antagonistic---and yes it's added fuel to the political divide.
I don't know what government's response should have been, but what did happen was not very effective either as prevention or as a perceived acceptable remedy. Some blamed the spread on non-compliance, others complained the govt. was attempting to stifle liberty. I think neither is true.
If we "learned" what to do in case of another panic, maybe we should have learned, work on the cure and until then you can't stop the disease from running its course. Then maybe people will feel more accepting of the vaccine and less resentful of government action.
But as I said, I don't know the answer, but the answer can't be dividing people into believing or not-believing in a disease that was real.
I have no medical expertise but I spent some of my formative years in Japan when my parents lived there. I sort of grew up with the concept of masking. But it was presented all wrong. Masking can help someone who might be ill or who might be potentially ill from spreading the virus quite as virently ,but as Americans who weren't used to masking and seeing others who did mask catch illness anyway, it didn't connect well, and then some as you write about went overboard. This created a "cult of denial" that covid
was even real and not just a "deep state" conspiracy. History has had a lot of pandemics, but such measures of closing down work, school, etc never happened---at least to this extent. And the result, the pandemic created panic by governments that exasperated that really didn't help very much at all. So when a possible relief is presented with the vaccine half of Americans are antagonistic---and yes it's added fuel to the political divide.
I don't know what government's response should have been, but what did happen was not very effective either as prevention or as a perceived acceptable remedy. Some blamed the spread on non-compliance, others complained the govt. was attempting to stifle liberty. I think neither is true.
If we "learned" what to do in case of another panic, maybe we should have learned, work on the cure and until then you can't stop the disease from running its course. Then maybe people will feel more accepting of the vaccine and less resentful of government action.
But as I said, I don't know the answer, but the answer can't be dividing people into believing or not-believing in a disease that was real.