How Partisanship Explains Our Pandemic Behavior l FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast

[@buckyharris9465]

"What Tucker Carlson does on his nightly show is worse than anything else we're talking about" -- Nate at 31:28. I totally agree. Covid scolds are annoying -- anti-vaxxers are lethal.

[@waldo8040]

Didn't expect The winter soldier to be 538 fan lol

[@theoldfinalchapters8319]

As someone who was recently vaccinated, I'm not worried about catching what I was vaccinated for. I'm worried about catching some variant down the line similar to the yearly flu.

[@actuariallurker9650]

I will wear a mask outside even though I am vaccinated already until more than 70% of people are vaccinated AND we don't see variants emerge

[@TheRiskyBrothers]

16:40 This is a good point. Last fall I wasn't dealing with my mental health well, so I was convinced to go to in-person counseling. I couldn't fucking do it. I sat in the tiny un-ventilated front room with a communal-ass coffee machine-which I'd be all over in normal times-but being there was making me feel terrible. Therapy has never worked that well for me in general, and the tiny chance that I would give covid to a family member and killed them completely outweighed any positive effect talking to some guy for 40 minutes could have. To paraphrase CGP Grey, risk equations are hard when there's a negative infinity on one side.

[@lukebentley9993]

That unified nervous chuckle at the end was certainly reassuring (but definitely not surprising)!

[@mattbrown4269]

Emma has it right at 44:00. Liberal resistance to relaxation of anti-Covid measures boils down to resistance to people who are unwilling to be team players for the sake of the most vulnerable in society. You don’t give them enough credit for appreciating that the risks of Covid are not primarily to themselves, even though they lose sight of that when answering polls. (Poll answers are often just opportunities to signal, anyway, not well-reasoned responses to straight questions.)

[@TheCinder24]

Yes. My mother had open heart surgery in March 2020. She never got to go through her heart rehab program bc of the pandemic. When does she get to have this freedom the Republicans keep talking about?? Until there is herd immunity, she gets very little freedom.

[@SnabbKassa]

The left want the individual to sacrifice freedom and money for the group, The right don't.

[@tylerhackner9731]

Just got my second shot yesterday

[@paddleduck5328]

Woo hoo!

[@pasco71]

The precautionary principle is a valuable one, and acting like "Lefties" who are following it are in some way irrational or "not following the science" is way off base.

[@Sir.Craze-]

Short. Sweet. My thoughts exactly. Nailed it. Besides the fact that it seems to be coming from a place of feeling as though the group has finished dealing with the problem. And that's... That's just not the case.

[@ccbowers]

The precautionary principle is supposed to be an initial position to take due to uncertainty for something new, not an unchanging permanent philosophy. It can be harmful if misapplied, as new data informs a given situation. For example, you could be (mis)applying that principle as an argument about the virus itself and what to do about it, or for the vaccines, whether to get them. And many antivax people try to misuse the precationary principle to refuse vaccination. So the "value" of the principle depends on how it is being used

[@SAHanson]

What they were talking about isn't saying you shouldn't take precautions (for the most part), it's that there are trade-offs, and that reöpening schools, for instance, has a trade-off of safety for education and the evidence suggests that trade-off might not be worth it, for instance. Saying it's just about taking precautions is disingenuous.

[@merrymachiavelli2041]

Interpreting the precautionary principle to mean "I'm going to be avoid hazards no matter how low the risk is" is wrong. All our decisions require weighing up risk, and avoiding risk usually has opportunity costs. - As @Chris Bowers mentions, the precautionary principle mainly comes into play where there is uncertainty, and even then it isn't limitless. If a glowing green rock falls out of space, the precautionary principle would be not touching it until it has been checked for conceivable hazards (radiation, pathogens...etc.). Even after all that has been done, touching the rock would always entail uncertainty - you'd just have tried to minimise it. - There isn't a huge deal of uncertainty about covid - we know how deadly it is, and we know roughly how common it is at any given time. If people are afraid to leave their houses, that's not the precautionary principle, it's bad risk assessment. (I'm not saying we should all be having house parties, going maskless or that working from home if it's not inconvenient isn't still a good idea, but living-in-terror-of-other-humans is excessive)

[@patnoble466]

If you look at the infection trend graphs generated this past year or so, there have been several points in time where people lowered their guard and the numbers shot up. Those numbers of new infections represented people affected by reduced precautions, theirs or those of others. Watching what's happening in India now, and how many people aren't getting vaccinated in the US and don't plan to, I think caution just might keep me out of the next uptick in this disease or its growing number of variants.

[@mattbrown4269]

I think a more meta approach to this topic is necessary. The CDC knows and knew all along that telling younger and healthier Americans that the risks to them are low would have disastrous consequences. They counsel over-caution and blur the differences in risk for the good of public health overall. The Right, who are averse to collective action anyway (that’s what defines them), have taken offense at the CDC’s shifting and sometimes overly cautious guidance. The Left, who love collective action (that’s what defines them), have taken the opportunity to hold on to one of the best reasons to engage in collective action and, at the same time, draw a righteous distinction from the selfish Right.

[@patnoble466]

Collective action isn't a political opportunity for the Left but was a lost opportunity for the Right. An effective national response isn't the road to socialism.

[@susanne5803]

But are the risks to the younger low? The problem is that the risk to 80-90% of young people is low. But to those with obesity, diabetes 1 and 2, trisomy 21, cardiac problems, lung problems, autoimmune conditions (rheumatism, Morbus Crohn etc.), ongoing cancers especially of the immune system and other conditions the risk can be higher than to an octogenarian. (My child is one of those with a risk of 1:8 to die. A healthy octogenarian has a risk of 1:9.) Most of these conditions are not that visible or not visible at all. It's just not on young people's radar to think of others, of future risks and such. Young people who grow up with disabled and/ or chronically ill close family members - they are only too aware of the innate recklessness of (other) young people. It's so easy to neglect risks that don't apply to me or you but to "these others" - if "these others" are not our close beloved family members or friends. But "these others" are someone's close beloved family members or friends ...

[@colinfrederick2603]

Quick note - PLEASE include the actual scientific consensus when you note what people believe and how they’re wrong (like at the 21:45 section). It would be great if you were a source of good information in addition to good analysis. ❤️ Keep up the good work. Miss Claire and Perry

[@neilwickman]

Agreed! I want to know what this consensus is. I'm not rejecting 'the science' when I still wear my mask, I honestly don't know what the best science is saying! The vaccine makes you immune, but also variants might make the vaccine ineffective? You can go maskless outside with other vaccinated people, but also we have such a large number of aggressively unvaccinated people that we'll never be able to eliminate this like other countries? Herd immunity from everyone getting sick and millions dying is good, but herd immunity from getting a poke is bad? GREAT. ALL CLEARED UP. I'm being hyperbolic of course, but honestly, it would not surprise me if we're back doing this stupid dance all over again in six months after a new American variant out of Florida and Texas starts bypassing the vaccine and all the risk assessment gurus were like "HOW COULD WE HAVE PREDICTED THIS?" You can't properly assess the risks you don't know exist, Karen!

[@colinfrederick2603]

@@neilwickman For everyone’s convenience, here’s what I ‘know’ (please correct me if I’m wrong and I’ll edit this comment: - Covid is not really a risk from touching stuff. It also dies in about 30 minutes in sunlight. The risk of spreading is from unventilated indoor airflow. Indoor is higher risk because it has less airflow and because the sun can’t kill it. Six feet distancing is actually not sufficient for extended periods of time. -Masking helps so wear a damn mask. -Vaccines have different effectivenesses. If you have an mRNA vaccine (ie, Pfizer/Moderna), you have a 95% reduced chance of being symptomatic if you get covid. You also are less contagious to others. I’m not sure about the other kinds. These have also been shown to be effective against all known variants (South Africa’s and Brazil’s being the big ones). - I have been fully vaccinated with Pfizer so I act at the same risk-threshold as pre-COVID, personally, while still wearing a mask whenever in public to help those who are not vaccinated. - Generally, vaccinated or not, outdoor sunlit activities are very very low risk, especially distanced. Edit: more facts! - Only about 2% of cases are hospitalized, with about half being asymptomatic. These statistics are averages, so it’s more severe the older you are (they note this in the video) - Children are very low risk for adverse symptoms and also spread it less. Once all teachers/staff are vaccinated, it’s my personal opinion that schools are safe to open as there’s a worse effect from mom’s being unable to work and children being unable to socialize and psychologically develop than from covid. Hope that helps!

[@neilwickman]

@@colinfrederick2603 It does! Thank you internet person.

[@susanne5803]

@@colinfrederick2603 That can't be right. Hospitalisation must be much higher since the death rate alone is around 2% in our older countries. Still around half of those on ventilaton die. And that's only those in ICUs. Not in care homes for example. Europe had pre vaccination a hospitalisation rate of around 20%. Of those around 15% needed ICU. The longest stays with ventilation were in working age people. Simply because people over 80 usually are not strong enough to survive induced coma and ventilation for weeks. Most people who die are actually working age. There just don't exist so many over 80 that 14% mortality in that group surpasses the dead of working age. There are quite a few risks much higher than age. The highest risk is an ongoing cancer of the immune system. At any age. Trisomy 21 has a risk as high as 80 year olds. Obesity has. Diabetes 1 has. Heart problems have. Lung diseases have. Autoimmune disorders have. All these at any age. To find out you have to read the reports of CDC or WHO. Our world in data is very good, too.

[@Stirdix]

@@colinfrederick2603 If you're trying to have a sort of "compendium comment" it might be adding a few points on what is explicitly (as of right now) unknown, or "suspected but not known for sure." Things like (from what I understand) the long-term effects of COVID, the extent to which future variants might avoid vaccines (which involves some understanding of which vaccines use which mechanisms), etc.

[@mrwhinna]

As a teacher I just want to mention that the apprehension of teachers returning to in person instruction isn’t just based on perception of risk of getting the virus. Teachers who have/are returning to in person instruction are told by districts that the risk is low enough for us to go back but not low enough to require students go back. This means that teachers are required to do two jobs despite not being compensated for the additional work. Teachers unions know that when you give an inch they take a mile. We have seen this in NYC that just announced that snow days will no longer be a thing. COVID risk is a part of teacher hesitancy but it is FAR from the whole story.

[@samc30786]

Nate at 24:45 speaking directly to my soul

[@luca.desu.2590]

I live in a blue-ish city in a conservative, red state, and after watching people have parties, attend restaurants and bars, and unmask in businesses regardless of store policies for over a year, and now to hear that it's unlikely we'll reach herd immunity, it seems disingenuous, or maybe just premature to already focus on the people staying home as being irrational. My state has only about 30% of adults vaccinated, not to mention the rest of the world's vaccination status.

[@buncha3arrows195]

@Saif MadniThere's a lot of overlap between Republicans and Antivaxers

[@qazzaqstan]

@@buncha3arrows195 but 2 years ago that wasn't necessarily the case, anti-vaxers tended to be on both sides of the aisle and if anything were more associated with the left than the right (possibly incorrectly I don't know the actual breakdown there). Plus there are a non-insignificant group of people who are for vaccines in general but scared of the covid vaccine specifically and that group tends to be strongly conservative.

[@neilwickman]

That's my take too. Their comment about "waiting for the other shoe to drop" really hit home. We all thought it could be contained within China or at the borders, and it couldn't. Then we thought we'd lockdown and contain it that way, and it wasn't. Then we thought the Republicans would manage it with public health outreach, and they didn't. So on and so on. Now we're being told that variants might render the vaccine ineffective and that a cluster vaccine 'hesistancy' types might make this a never-ending issue. Like, sure, refusing to leave your house at all is pretty absurd, but it's way, way too early to have concerns about people still wearing masks.

[@luca.desu.2590]

@@neilwickman yeah I also thought Emma's comment equivocating the people staying home and the people continuing to wear masks was a bit of a convenient argument when one is a big lifestyle shift and the other is a minor inconvenience.

[@xhepa.x]

this was a very powerful discussion for me, thank you! I am going to read Emma's article ASAP

[@neilwickman]

Interesting survey but let's be cautious about shame or scorn adjacent conversations about good faith behavior like "restaurant hesitancy" and mask wearing. I've had Tucker Carlson fans at the playground scare my three year old daughter and give me a hard time about masks. I know it's safe to go maskless outside with other vaccinated people, but it's really hard for me to do the on-the-fly risk assessment when I can't control my variables. This whole time I've had to be a lot more risk-averse as a parent and resident in a condo building full of seniors than I would have been been if I was a home owner or living alone. Preschoolers like my daughter don't have access to a vaccine yet so I'm still stuck being extra safe for her. And as a result nobody in my cluster got sick, while other people in my building did, and friends of mine DIED as a result. It's also so strange, like the "all your friends jumping off a bridge" thing about peer pressure, but flipped so the jumpers shame the person who stays home because it makes the reluctant jumpers feel looked down upon. Most of the time being "responsible" is considered admirable. A lifetime of pro-social habits are telling me to be conscientious while the only argument against it is "yeah but it makes me feel bad." Imagine if these people had just done the masking and social distance thing before, right? It's hard to disambiguate all these desires and concerns. Also, like, I don't want to assume a 1 in 5000 risk of becoming a deadly disease vector and causing death or harm just so I can get a haircut or eat in a restaurant, which are things I didn't like anyway. I'm saving all my "risky" rolls of the dice for things like going to the dentist or taking my daughter to the playground. I'm also unsure how to evaluate the risk vs reward of public activities now that the conversation has shifted to new variants and vaccine refusal. So there's a huge cluster of related social factor

[@johnhuddleston1388]

I agree. Like, if I play the lottery because, “there is a chance I could win,” shouldn’t I also stay home for COVID?

[@actuariallurker9650]

If you live in a country like the US full of selfish a$$holes why WOULD you trust them to have empathy for you and act with civic mindedness? Its not an inability to assess risk to "over-protect", it an unwillingness to trust others who are willing to throw each other under the bus in a Hobbesian world. The countries that HAVE been successful respect the group, their elders, others

[@kayinoue2497]

It's almost like 500,000+ people have died and a lot of people are fucking traumatized by it and don't want more people to die. I don't need my political science education (which, yes, I also have) to think we really need to be more cognizant of that and show some damn empathy.

[@jonathanjollimore7156]

Everyone picks a side and just dogmatically repeats their sides talking points.

[@buckyharris9465]

Thanks for this conversation! I live in Seattle, a famously liberal city, located in King County, which is only slightly less liberal. Vaccinations have been widely available for the past 3 weeks to people 16 and older (and widely available to those 65 and older since January). As of today (5/7/21), 68% of King County residents 16 and older have received at least one shot, and 46% are fully vaccinated -- including 82% of those 65 and older. Yet in Seattle neighborhoods with significant pedestrian traffic, mask-wearing is still universal *outdoors.* Plus we still have substantial restrictions on restaurants, health clubs, and other indoor spaces, and our world-renowned cafe culture is moribund . (Most cafes that survived long enough to reopen end service at 1pm or 2pm, instead of their pre-Covid closing times of 6pm to 10pm, and of course indoor seating is very limited.) Anecdotally, even fully vaccinated people -- young and old -- tell me they're not comfortable eating in a restaurant, sitting in a cafe, or going to the gym. All this seems way too paranoid. I'm fully vaccinated, and as a result I have minimal anxiety about getting infected. Yet almost nothing around me has gotten anywhere near back to normal, more than a year into the pandemic. I still wear a mask outdoors, but only because people treat you like a leper if you don't. Maybe they'll relax by August???

[@ccbowers]

I get needing to "both sides" this topic somewhat, given the more general topic of partisanship and COVID, but it comes across as strained false balance too much on this video. Really going out of the way to find examples on the left doesn't really seem (at all) proportionate to the denialism that has occurred on the political right. Playgrounds in December 2020 in a specific area, or toilet flush examples are really strained examples. Sure, we should call out non evidence based policies regardless of political spectrum, especially when they cause harm, but the anecdotes chosen shouldn't mislead about impact or importance.

[@neilwickman]

I think they should have set the premise better and explained what they're talking about. Is it just about people who still refuse to go outside at all, or are we seriously starting to concern-troll the people who wear masks outside when there's still enough of a vaccine lag that we may never reach herd immunity? Lots of people have kids who don't have access to a vaccine, or parents whose health may be compromised. Not everyone has been able to get vaccinated yet. I feel like the "yes but can we please get back to bars with friends?" undercurrent/vibe of this line of discourse is overwhelming what could have been a better discussion about what really IS safe and reasonable currently. Because I honestly don't know! I just know that masks and hand sanitizer don't bother me anymore and it makes me pretty sure I'm not going to kill anyone so that's pretty cool.

[@patnoble466]

I've been struck by the libertarians saying it's their right to be unmasked, unvaccinated, socially undistanced, as if their freedom of movement is all that's important. My NJ county is still high risk, and I'm a senior with one shot, so am I wrong to shelter in place? Your 1-5% risk of hospitalization isn't my risk. This discussion had temporal ambiguity. I trust the CDC more now than I did in December. I was washing my cereal boxes a year ago. Each of your lines of argument, especially those citing statistics, could have reflected current trends or longer trends or even older trends. I'm a liberal who worried that my teacher friends were being asked to risk their lives because parents were at wits end with kids at home. And the loudest voices were the libertarians who wanted their lives restored come what may.

[@TheRiskyBrothers]

The interesting thing about China containing covid is that there's a datapoint that isn't flattering to the Chinese government that indicates that covid is largely contained there: They couldn't have an effective phase 3 vaccine trial because of low transmission rates, and now Sinovac isn't as effective as vaccines developed in places with high transmission like the US, Europe, or Russia.

[@susanne5803]

I don't know how - and actually if - they managed COVID as well as they claim. If I remember Wuhan in the beginning and Lombardy in Italy and think of Brazil and India now ...

[@TheRiskyBrothers]

@@susanne5803 Authoritarianism is how. China basically mobilized their police state to isolate infected individuals and monitor their homes 24/7, with some being taken to "quarantine hotels". Granted, they also provide free groceries for quarantined households, something we should have done more of in the west, but the intrusion on civil liberties and huge resource requirement meant that their lockdown measures couldn't really be replicated anywhere else.

[@susanne5803]

@@TheRiskyBrothers I agree. Yet I was really referring to their numbers aside from measures only possible in autocracies. So many people left Wuhan when the situation was already out of control. The speed and ease with which even the original COVID spread makes it hard to believe there were not many outbreaks outside of Wuhan in the beginning ...

[@actuariallurker9650]

Nobody knows what China's statistics are- they are a totalitarian state run by someone who was just granted rule for life. Anything unflattering would be suppressed to maintain control over the populace there

[@Sir.Craze-]

Consensus over time can't rule out reality. We can't all decide to fly. I don't fully dissagree or anything, I just wanted to play devil's advocate to the point.

[@relevance8]

Ooh. I need to respond to 2:14 “…there was some segment of highly progressive communities where people were staying in a mode of lockdown that felt more like March of 2020 than March of 2021, even though we’ve had vaccine rollout (very successful vaccine rollout), noticing behaviors that really hadn’t caught up with the science.” Maybe I'm misinterpreting this statement, but it strikes me as juuuuuust a bit unfair. At the end of March 2020, the U.S. was seeing about 20,000 new covid cases a day. At the end of March 2021, it was seeing about 60,000 (coming off a winter spike where it went up to a quarter million). Although the vaccine rollout was well underway in March, most Americans weren’t even eligible to schedule their first vaccination until mid-April. Plus there was ongoing uncertainty about viral variants. So... isn’t it KINDA EARLY to be characterizing people's heightened caution as unscientific? At least without explaining precisely which precautions you’re talking about? I mean, obviously the rest of this discussion gets into some more nuance. But "wow, the infection rate is MERELY TRIPLE what it was last year, let's figure out why progressives find this so darn concerning" is a thesis statement that needed some clarification upfront.

[@relevance8]

@@anon21maps Totally fair. We do have a much better sense of how to combat the pandemic than we did a year go. That’s something I glossed over in my comment. Really all I’m trying to say is that in order to have a fair, constructive discussion about why some people “can’t quit lockdown”, it’s important to clarify WHICH lockdown measures we’re talking about. Because yeah - some of the things people tried early on in the pandemic turned out to be effective and some didn’t. I just think it’s worthwhile to distinguish people who are practicing the former out of caution from people who might be practicing the latter for more psychological reasons. A bit more scientific detail at the start of this video would have helped clarify that.

[@Sir.Craze-]

I do believe you ment to say "human caused climate change" not that equivacating nonsense. And I mean that in the nicest way I can while understanding you had to say it the way you did for other reasons.

[@Sir.Craze-]

"we _had_ vaccine rollout" Whaaat? You are *in* the process of the rollout xD My brain is melting...

[@petyrbaelish1216]

Obvious troll is obvious.

[@Sir.Craze-]

@@petyrbaelish1216 Please, explain. I'm all ears? Do you mean she is trolling? I wouldn't go that far but it makes the most sense to me. I guess?

[@MayorMcC666]

Sir.Craze- the rollout was the phase of vaccine delivery where only limited parts of the population could get the vaccine. We are not still in the measles vaccine rollout or the flu shot rollout

[@Sir.Craze-]

@@MayorMcC666 xD Ok. I don't agree at all. (You don't "roll out" 30% of an army. I would even agree when you say we're not rolling out old shots. But this is the first wave of vaccinations.) But it does not matter. let's 100% say that's the case. Then she used the wrong word and my point stands?

[@darynvoss7883]

Although things have improved since the mid-Winter, please don't lose focus of the fact that the covid-19 situation in the US remains dire. You incurred 5000 deaths just in the last week, had another 400000 new cases. Even though the vaccination rollout is underway, extreme caution is still warranted.

[@johnhuddleston1388]

The evidence of what is safe is important in my decisions. I know that I am poor and don’t have insurance. I probably shouldn’t expect insurance anytime soon. I know that poor people have worse outcomes for everything in this country. Everything. I overestimated the hospitalization rate but not fatalities, which was always a more important number in my opinion. I have many of these false conceptions of what the pandemic actually looks like. I also know that the last year I haven’t spent in wage slavery has been one of the most beneficial years I have had in decades for my overall mental health. So I am personally experiencing less stress and more autonomy over something that the science is still not that clear about. I stopped using masks outside unless I do yard work. I will never do yard work (or garage work) without a mask again. I prefer it. In public I wear a mask because I worry that the community spread amongst the unvaccinated (which in Texas is higher than in say NY) could in fact jeopardize my own health long term. I believe that stopping community spread is one of the most important objectives we should be trying to achieve. It is simple math: fewer cases means fewer mutations. (Okay, it isn’t simple math.) Finally, reactions to uncertainty is what is really happening here. The more uncertainty the more random people’s actions. Science is great, but I am still trying to do what is best for me, and what I feel is best for everyone. So I continue to limit my public interactions. And I don’t feel that science can tell me I am wrong for it. Maybe I am though.

[@ayezel6344]

Please fix Maggie's audio, every time she says an S it does a mini audio screech and it seriously hurts my ears.

[@RickStaropoli1]

I have to question the part of the pod when you placed some blame on the media for hospitalization rate reporting. You were missing one factor: The hospitalization did in fact start much higher than it became, due in very large part to the number of tests available/completed. In the beginning, when testing wasn't prevalent, and a larger percentage of tests were being given to the already-sick, hospitalizations as a percentage of COVID-diagnosed people was correctly reported as being high. (Though I don't recall ANY reporting that it was 20% -- that was you inflating a number for the purpose of making your comparison more impressive.) Once testing was widespread, and we were counting the hundreds of thousands of previously-undetected symptom-free cases, the hospitalization dropped dramatically. Interesting, I know this because I read it in the media. You said there was no "mea culpa," and you're right -- because they got nothing wrong.

[@jj1126usmc]

Thanks for what y’all do, even if we disagree I enjoy watching y’all’s conversations. Just give us on the right more love, we’re not all evil covid monsters. 😎🙏🇺🇸

[@ccbowers]

"It's a fallacy of America culture to expect people to be rational, and to judge each other when we aren't, and look at that as the ideal way to be, 'cause I'm not even sure it actually is." I couldn't disagree more. So you think being rational isn't the goal and that as a culture we have too high level of rationality and expectation of rationality? If we we increased the level rational decision making in the US on COVID would we not just see an improvement on almost every metric, by definition? At what point would we see harm by being too rational? At almost any definition of rational, we should see only benefit. We are so far from any ideal, it is a ridiculous argument to make.

[@matthias2756]

538 always have this tendency to assume it’s political persuasions that are the causal factors, not epistemological or world views with cause both said behaviour/opinions and political persuasion

[@TheCinder24]

I miss Claire. She used to bring outside causation to these debates. 😢

[@actuariallurker9650]

@@TheCinder24 Thats why ABC got rid of her since 538 is controlled by the same people who own Disney and want it to re-open

[@ElementalNimbus]

I love y'all and the work you do. And on some topics you are spot on. I lost my father to this and I have enough health issues that covid-19 is scary to me. The science agrees that outdoors, especially if vaccinated, is pretty safe. Ignoring that is silly. Even if I really want to. That said the bottom line take away is insanely both sides-y to the point of frustration. To just throw out that if Trump had supported a lock down, liberals would have been throwing covid-19 parties is.. again.. frustrating. Both sides can be irrational. Insisting it is equal I feel is wrong. It implies that democrats would have ignored the mask science or that science would have reached different conclusions. (I am obviously referring to the greater wholes, pointing out some liberals were idiots and some conservatives were safe is not the point.)

[@joannawarrens5117]

I think gender is an issue. We are vaccinated and live in San Francisco and people are still wearing masks outdoors. My husband is happy to not wear a mask outside. I’m just not quite ready. He definitely has a higher tolerance for risk than I do.

[@jj1126usmc]

“Trump is a big part of it, whatever he would do democrats would do the opposite, and that’s just kinda stuck around.” Yep, it’s still that trump guy

[@KeyvonGreen]

Lol did she just say people shouldn’t even logical

[@jj1126usmc]

Also, there may be bias in the New York Times??? Sorry, I get grouchy with this.

[@udsting]

Reppin' the Socialist Republic of Somerville!!!

[@Wompwompwomp.ny1]

My friend took Newton's Law and changed it too "for every Republican action, there is a certain and immediate Democratic overreaction" and vice versa. This madness doesn't stop until we as a people decide to stop engaging with it

[@gregmoore66]

Why you think I will spend an hour out of my day to watch one of your KZbin videos: Ego Ego Ego Ego Ego Ego ....

[@TheSilverPhoenix100]

Ive gotten vacinated, and wore a mask for over a year. If people refuse to grow some courage and instead feel like its now my duty to protect them, then sorry to say thats on them and not me. If you want to wear a mask everywhere and socially distance then go for it 100% power to you...but dont inflict your paranoia on the rest of society which at this point just wants to get back to normal