Shame on them (and those who bid them to do this) for making me have these thoughts. On the other hand, let's for a moment entertain the notion that there is something to their beef with the state for forcing them to isolate for their own good. It might require activating the troglodyte part of your brain. The smart, sciency part of my brain tells me that the unusual asymptomatic transmission of the virus which contributes to the rate of its spread, the unavailability of testing, the lack of treatment and prevention and the brutal severity of what's known about its effects call for the precaution of extreme isolation. What we're learning about the disease is frightening and it's best to think of fellow humans as potential carriers. (How else are you going to get it?) Furthermore, especially with the healthcare system we have in this country, we are as usual taking a peashooter to a gunfight. Hospitals are actually closing in the middle of this because as Briahna Joy Gray noted in a recent conversation with Current Affairs editor Nathan J Robinson, "there is no profit in treating the sick." The Trump administration and our leaders in Washington are under-equipped to handle this, so naturally the Professional Managerial Class who run our municipalities and provincial governments have been forced to take matters into their own hands. This is the smart, sciency view. But the troglodyte in me can easily club the rational side senseless long enough to see how a person could become indignant at some elite telling me when I can get my hair cut and go to the mall and the Sonic without putting a sissy mask over my face.
What makes elites think they know better? Humans have been idiots for most of our existence and look how far it's gotten us.
There might be a little something to the thought that with enough numbness to the consequences, humans could power through this coronavirus thing with only half of our wits engaged. Not all of us would get the virus probably. Of those of us who do, some would inevitably succumb (to achieve herd immunity we're told it would have to be a phenomenally huge number, a disproportionate percentage of them people of color and no doubt many of them the essential workers who have to deal with the virus face-to-face whether their fellow humans take it seriously or not) but some number would recover with antibodies, and some of those who by the genetic luck of the draw were not susceptible to the disease to begin with would conceivably live to perpetuate their super power into future generations. As for the ones who succumbed, they would be remembered in photographs and stories, some in song and maudlin poetry by what survivors of theirs remain. Our progeny who survive will get the annual corona vaccine along with their annual flu shots. Same as always. And if in the future some obscure bird disease in the amazon rain forest mutates into a microbial face-eating parasite that spreads asymptomatically to humans across the globe in a span of weeks, we'll deal with it then.
If reckless disregard for public health works out for them without taking its toll on them, I'll be pissed. Things always seem to. But it will mean those of us who have survived can put away our literal masks sooner than we anticipated for the next pandemic and, though we might not fully recognize the world we'll emerge back into, we can put back on our figurative masks and get back out there to some of the communal activities we've missed for a little while.
If it doesn't work out for them, shame on them for making me feel like gloating.
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