The CDC has made it official, or at least as close to official as we are likely to get: If you’ve gotten all the vaccination shots for COVID, you don’t need to wear a mask — definitely not outside, and possibly not inside a shop or restaurant.
If you haven’t gotten the vaccine, you should be wearing masks inside and probably outside as well.
If the world were a truly rational place, the vaccinated would be a lot less likely than the unvaccinated to wear masks.
But our world is upside-down and backwards, so that’s not how it’s working out at all. According to a new Gallup Poll, some 90 percent of fully vaccinated people are still wearing masks — while less than half of those who aren’t fully vaccinated are wearing them on at least a somewhat regular basis.
The worst that you can say about the vaccinated who are still wearing masks is that they are erring on the side of caution, and as a way to gently nudge the unvaccinated to keep their masks on. Wearing a mask you don’t need to wear is a little bit of a hassle, but it hurts no one.
It’s the unvaccinated-and-maskless who are putting themselves and others at great risk of catching the bug. Yet ithey’re the ones lashing out at vaccinated people who are still wearing masks.
As Dave Weigel of the Washington Post notes
Republicans are far less likely than Democrats to say they’ll get vaccinated, and Democrats are far more likely to support masking, fretting that vaccine skeptics will go maskless and keep spreading the virus. Vaccinated liberals who still intend to wear masks outdoors — a minority, but a vocal one — have quickly become punching bags for Republicans.
According to an article by David Kamioner reposted on the right-wing LifeZette, the mask is a sign of “conformity” and “cowardice.”
“You can see them everywhere,”Kamioner declares.
People driving alone wearing masks. People wearing masks outside. People wearing masks in establishments that don’t require it. On their cars the Biden bumper stickers predominate. In other instances, in the elderly, the sad echoes of the most conformist generation in American history, the 60s, shows itself once again to possess an inherent love of the herd mentality.
We’ve seen this before. Black shirts in Italy in the 20s. Arm bands in Germany of the 30s. The “peace” symbol of Americans in the 60s. All the same vicious conformists who played upon the collective inclinations of people who think like sheep.
So waving a peace sign is the equivalent to wearing a swastika armband? That’s a … revealing take on things.
Wearing the mask provides them today with an opportunity to virtue signal and scold at the same time. That puts them in hog heaven. Holier than thou and pulling a Karen is their own personal apotheosis. But what it really denotes is shame and profound cowardice.
Meanwhile, on a site called MAGAinstitute, CJ Wheeler says that “The Time Has Come To Openly Mock Mask Wearers.”
The cost of having [a] free mind is walking into a store surrounded by masked people glaring at you all year, and knowing they are being brainwashed. Knowing that they have fallen under the spell of the Washington Post, The Guardian, and many other of Bill Gates’ Paid COVID Fear-Porn Media Outlets.
Having a free mind this last year meant you were a complete and utter outcast and at any moment you could have someone make a shame video of you in a store that would go viral. Maybe they would scream and yell at you as an extra bonus. Or worse, be arrested when you hadn’t committed a crime. We saw that almost every week of this past year. …
Still think it’s too much to openly mock and laugh at those continuing to perpetrate this mass-delusion of mandatory masks?
Ridicule Is LONG Overdue!
Cartoonist and opinion-haver Ted Rall, writing on Unz.com, was a little more gentle:
Go ahead, wear a mask indoors if you want to, despite being vaccinated. Wear one outside if you feel like it. However, you are — sorry, Dr. Fauci — acting irrationally. …
Masks have devolved from medical imperative to virtue signaling. …
What’s the harm in a fashion accessory that, as the vaxxed-yet-masked crowd informs you, merely tries to make other people feel more comfortable while also sending a subtle anti-MAGA message? It’s about thinking straight. Democrats can’t credibly claim the scientific high ground unless they adapt to the latest medical consensus.
On Townhall.com, Jason Garshfield warns that the fate of our society hangs in the balance, or something.
Masks are not just another assault on personal liberty. They are uniquely demeaning and dehumanizing, to a far greater degree than most other nanny state overreaches. Face covering, as a legal or social norm, stands in fundamental opposition to basic Western principles of individual self-determination and accountability. …
Face masks, all told, represent a serious threat to our collective well-being as a society, and now that any American who wants the Covid-19 vaccine can get it, there is no longer any rationale for their widespread use. …
For my part, I would prefer to live in the world of individual liberty that the mask-obsessed have denied us. Short of banning face masks, though, we should do all we can to ensure that they are not further ingrained as a social custom, that those who choose to neurotically wear them past the point of all common sense become the rare exception rather than the new normal.
Sure, if people get the vaccine, they can safely ditch the masks, in most circumstances. If they refuse to get vaccinated, going maskless isn’t “common sense”; it’s potentially deadly. Garshfienld and Rall’s arguments only make sense if the vast, overwhelming portion of the population has been vaccinated. Not getting the vaccine is bad enough; the vaccine-fearers shouldn’t compound their errors by going maskless. There’s no common sense in that.
If you want to go maskless, get the vaccine. If you won’t get the vaccine, at the very least keep your damn mask on.
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Ah, yes. Hippies in the 60s, well known for their conformity. (That would come later as they aged into the 80s.)
Also, WTF happened to Ted Rall?
So Ted Rall has followed the example of Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, devolving from a leftist into an apologist for right-wing extremists. And like Greenwald and Taibbi, Rall was kind of a dick even when he was one of “the good guys”, so this is hardly surprising. In fact, it’s almost a relief. Let them all be with their fellow assholes.
Your title is spot-on. I’m fully vaccinated, and I will continue to wear a mask, particularly indoors. I was a little dismayed to go to a Starbucks and find that the lobby was open and some (not all) of the partitions had been taken down. At least all the staff were still wearing masks.
No one on a site called “MAGAinstitute” has the standing to talk about anyone else being “brainwashed”.
If the MAGA bozos hadn’t gone and politicized a thing like being considerate of the health of your fellow citizens and made masklessness and vaccine refusal part of their tribal markers, then people like me, who did get vaccinated in part because we do care about others, could safely ditch the masks without worrying about the message we were sending.
They’re not upset about the impending collapse of Western civilization due to mouth invisibility or whatever. Even they know that’s an idiotic notion. They’re upset that we’re denying them their camouflage. They can’t use masklessness as a pretense of being vaccinated if the truly vaccinated keep wearing them.
On another note:
People who probably find it less inconvenient to just leave the mask on all the time than to constantly be putting it on and taking it off. Quelle horreur!
Conformity can be good or bad…or neutral, or for convenience’s sake…just like individualism. You could just as easily say, “What’s with all the people walking forward instead of backwards?”
…Maaaaybe that’s a silly comparison, but at least I’m not comparing peace signs to literal fascism like this person here:
Anyway, it should be obvious that just because a lot of people are doing the same thing doesn’t mean it’s bad. Just because a lot of people are doing the same thing doesn’t mean it’s good, either. You need to look at the context. (I’m not the epitome of rationality, but this is just common sense.)
And this is why, even though I’ve had my shots, I’m still going to wear a mask in crowded places.
I hope the no-mask assholes who live near places that are going to have massive fires later this year enjoy their “freedom” to breathe in smoke and toxic man-made chemicals.
So many of them call themselves “Christian” and yet they won’t wear a mask or get a free shot to protect the elderly and sick. (insert Jesus facepalm here)
Patriotism is dead.
The people who rant the loudest about how they will do anything for their country, talk of duty, honor, and sacrifice but won’t put their money where their mouth is… well, I think we all know how useful they would actually be in a serious SHTF event. They would be the roving motorcycle gangs, not the groups of people bringing back society.
I caught the ‘rona early on, survived, was recently fully vaccinated anyway because my area has too many doses and not enough willing people, and I’m still going to keep up quarantine procedures for a bit longer including wearing a mask. Mostly so I can give a big middle finger to colds and flu. Though if reckless idiots incidentally decide that I’m middle fingering them, that’s just a bonus.
Won’t last, though. I’m mostly waiting for the Independence Day covid spike to pass, then I’ll probably start gradually returning to my old life.
I was putting on my mask while stopped at a light on the way to meet my parents at a restaurant when I noticed a man staring at me, apparently dumbfounded. I waved at him, hoping to make him feel awkward, but he just gestured with both hands at either side of his face and mouthed “Take it off.” Then the light turned green and I drove off.
No I will not take off my mask. It’s allergy season and nobody wants to see me sniffling and wiping my nose.
He thinks the 60’s was the most conformist decade in history? Really? All those people rebelling were actually just conformists? Anti-masker lack self awareness. if they had any they realize we’re wearing them because they’re a bunch of plague rats who refuse to care about the health of others. They’re why we can’t have nice things.
If the folks on the right are avowedly so fond of individual liberties, why are they driven into a frenzy by me indulging in my individual liberty to wear a mask?
It’s remarkable how they manage to make mask wearing by complete strangers all about them. It’s not an anti-maga message, it just means we don’t trust these creeps.
As I see it, Democrats aren’t claiming high ground over the masking of vaccinated individuals (which incidentally happens to be mostly themselves). If there’s no harm, then there’s no moral high or low ground, just personal preference.
What Democrats are claiming a high ground over is the masking of unvaccinated individuals. Here, some judgement is technically warranted, though I doubt it’s practically helpful. It’s pretty clear that social shaming doesn’t work on diehard anti-maskers or diehard anti-vaxxers (but I repeat myself). At best, keeping public mask wearing commonplace (if not socially mandatory) might serve to remind fence sitters that the pandemic isn’t over, that they should still get vaccinated, that they won’t be seen as weirdos if they continue masking while being unvaccinated.
@Karalora
I wonder sometimes how much racism stuff like this covers up as well. My best friend never removes hers all day, just pulls it off her nose sometimes while outside, because she would have to redo her hijab every time she did if she took the ear loops off. But I bet you money if one of these assholes saw her they’d just say she was wearing it to spite them and not stress their tiny brains to think of any possible further reason.
I can see some limited reasons to avoid using masks, namely making less wastes (either by not using as many disposable one or by washing them less often). I don’t think theses guys are concerned with ecology tho.
Regardless of anything else, I see a big reason to continue mask : flu is a nasty disease, and this winter it raged much less hard than usual. Mayyyyyybe I am actually interested in not dying to flu, in addition to not dying to covid.
Tangential but vaguely related, I’ve noticed a right-wing backlash (if one that is largely failing to catch on even amongst the usual crowd, because everyone hates commuting) against working from home, despite the fact a lot of people have found their quality of life has improved.
Richard Littlejohn – a Daily Mail journo who tormented a trans woman called Lucy Meadows to her death in a horrible hit-piece – wrote an article yesterday about how the UK economy is/was going to flounder because of “selfish refuseniks” who want to continue fully or partially working from home (NOT BECAUSE OF BREXIT, OF COURSE).
There’s been a lot in this vein but I found this one particularly galling because Littlejohn writes his articles from home. In Florida. Where he has been phoning in the same tired shit for twenty years – while also being one of the most highly paid columnists in the country! God I hate him.
@ lollypop
You ever see this?
I’m currently wearing a mask (kind of – I’m drinking coffee at the moment but when I’m done I’ll put the mask back on) despite being vaccinated because I’ve been coughing all weekend. I’m sure it’s allergy related cause everything is allergy related with me…
It’s just polite. You’re coughing a lot? Put on a mask! Feeling under the weather but not bad enough to stay home? Probably should put on the mask just in case.
@Lollypop : a lot of upper management people want a backlash against working from home. I think you have seen an astroturf effort toward that, and that it just didn’t catch on, because there’s a ton of theses currently.
Far right being guillible mean a lot of astroturf are directed their way.
@Ohlmann
Yes that makes sense – I imagine lot of property owners worried about what they are going to do when it becomes clear there isn’t enough foot traffic for the likes of Starbucks to stay open and paying rent in pricey office districts.
I’m not sure how successful they’ll be. There’s so many people doing WFH that there isn’t the convenient “other” to pin the hate to, and the cats out of the bag – loads of companies are just rolling with it now.
Don’t be surprised if they’re very successful. Even the damned Guardian’s got in on the WFH is bad for you circus – gotta please the advertisers I guess, and the paper’s demographic tends more towards the sort of positions (middle management/support) that are likely to be reduced hard if people keep on working from home most of the time.
Okay, so my dad was a biochemistry professor and my stepmom was a professor of immunology, both now retired, so when I’m wearing a mask indoors even though I’m fully vaccinated, it has exactly fuck-all to do with the MAGAts (honestly, they’re
incapable of shame anyway); it’s based on expert advice.
The pandemic isn’t over, and vaccinated people can still carry and transmit the virus – albeit for a much shorter period of time – so until we get the global rate of infection down to controllable levels, continuing to wear a mask is a logical and rational choice. Not wearing one is a gamble, and while the odds are very good if you’re vaccinated, I’d rather get this shit over with faster rather than slower.
FWIW
This won’t be news to anyone here, but they aren’t really all that fond of individual liberties. All the howling about “conformists” on the left is pure projection. Conservatives are the most conformist animals on the planet, even if you count laboratory rats that have been inbred to the point of being genetically nearly identical. They freak out when people who are not them choose to wear masks because they can’t be confident in their own choices unless everyone around them makes the same choice. Diversity of any kind scares them, because they feel an inner compulsion to rank everything in a rigid hierarchy, and if they aren’t part of the clear majority in terms of race, religion, fashion sense, etc. then they constantly worry that they’re part of an inferior group. They gravitate toward authoritarianism because they want a tyrant at the helm who will force conformity upon everyone so they can be freed from the burden of choosing. That’s what “liberty” means to them–it means decisions are made for them so they don’t have to choose, which would mean running the risk of choosing wrong. They want freedom from that responsibility, and from responsibility in general.
Hmm, we’ve now got missile launchers on the beaches. Apparently it’s a G7 thing.
My money is still on the seagulls though.