Unfortunately, a world war and spontaneous victory celebrations at its end negated some of those gains. Even during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1917-18, they knew wearing masks did slow the spread of the virus.
Carlson, with that view, was setting science back more than a century. This is, of course, a reversal of the “Do you mind wearing a mask?” request that so irks anti-maskers. Your mask is making me feel uncomfortable.’” “Ask politely but firmly, ‘Would you please take off your mask? Science shows there is no reason for you to be wearing it. “So the next time you see someone in a mask on the sidewalk or bike path, do not hesitate,” Carlson advised. That attitude flip-flopped in a year.Ī year later, in June of this year, Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson was urging his viewers to confront people wearing masks, labeling mask wearers “the aggressors.” That was not the case in that June 25 th Pew poll in which a solid majority of both Democrats and Republicans did not feel people should face (pun intended) criticism for wearing a mask. At the same time, we’re seeing a growing movement not just to disavow masks but taking an aggressive stance against them. Most of that drop came from Republicans who had been converted into unbelievers in vaccinations and their effectiveness. In September of 2020, the percentage of Americans who said they would receive COVID-19 vaccinations when they became available took a sharp drop -72% to 51% - when compared to those who felt the same three months before. Of course, the death count at that time had a long way to go before the 725,000 we’ve reached to date, but it intimates the onset of a political division that will lead us to where we are. A Pew Research Center poll released on June 25, 2020, told us that the majority of Republicans (61%) believed that “the worst (of the pandemic) is behind us.” Seventy-six percent of Democrats polled, in contrast, believed that the worst was yet to come. The dividing line is obvious, and it started taking shape more than a year ago. I didn’t want to believe in algebra, but that didn’t help me pass the tests. But to discredit legitimate and proven science because it is something you don’t want to believe in is, well, ignorant. It is true that science has been used for propaganda, as in the Nazi claim that Aryan superiority was scientifically proven, but that’s junk science much like some of the weird conspiracy stuff we’re seeing on the Worldwide Web. ProPublica is a fact-finding nonprofit supported by donations whose efforts to report abuses of the public trust are not beholding to any special interest, either liberal or conservative.įor those who see science as propaganda for liberal causes, it is probably too late to convert you into a believer in the miracles of science.
ProPublica, by the way, is the place to go for nonpartisan investigative reporting on politics, government, business and social institutions which include churches, schools and even families. You don’t walk around with a hypodermic needle protruding from your arm. Cross it and it seems you are making a political statement instead of a health decision.Īs for vaccinations, once desperately sought to save us from the killing pandemic as emergency rooms and funeral parlors began doing too much business, it is not immediately evident whether you are pro-vax or anti-vax. Wearing a mask puts you on one side and refusing to wear one on the other. In a well-researched October 7 article for ProPublica, Sarah Smith takes a fascinating look at how COVID-19 has turned Americans against each other, notably on the importance, even constitutionality, of wearing or not wearing masks and getting vaccinated. ProPublica, October 7, 2021, “We’re Losing Our Humanity and the Pandemic Is to Blame” It’s about communicating what side you’re on. Because the mask has become so polarizing, the extreme reactions aren’t really about being asked to wear one for an hour. Sometimes the simplest demands can turn a man into a monster.
0 kommentar(er)
