Saturday, May 22, 2021

Them

People are worried about being mistaken for one of... them.

"Alas, those who had hoped that the long saga might finally be over were swiftly disappointed, for, as we have should have learned by now, COVID abhors a vacuum. Almost immediately, a new talking point popped up — this one in the form of a question. “Sooo,” Katie S. Phang inquired, “how does one tell the difference between a fully vaccinated person and a not vaccinated person?” On Morning Joe, Dr. Michael Osterholm echoed Phang, suggesting that “The next question is going to be, ‘How will we know if someone has been vaccinated?’ If you’re sitting close to someone at a restaurant or . . . in a theater, how are you going to know that they’re not just kind of fibbing?”

The answer to this, of course, is that you can’t know, but, that if you’re vaccinated, it doesn’t matter whether you know, because unvaccinated people can’t hurt you. Or, at least, that’s the answer if one assumes that the fear is medical in nature. But, of course, it’s not. It’s social. What Phang, Osterholm, and their many fellow travelers are really asking is, “Without masks, how will I know who to disrespect?” Evidently, the final transmutation of the virus has been from epidemiological marker to political totem.
"

Apparently "Science is Real" is just a slogan for lawn signs.

Lest you think I'm kidding about this fear of being mistaken for one of... them, check this tweet out: