The Post-Pandemic That Was Not Post
I just spent the past several weeks traveling by car around the US, mostly camping, sometimes staying in hotels. It was quite the spectacle just about everywhere. For example, at Hattie B’s in Nashville, where I stopped in to grab a take out order of hot chicken, the place was crammed to the rafters with entirely maskless diners. This was a scene repeated everywhere, just about.
Camping provided plenty of distancing, and I’m fully vaccinated, so I rarely felt like I was at any risk of exposure. It seems like staying at hotels is low risk, also, especially if each room has its own wall HVAC unit, which was the case everywhere I stayed. I dined in at a couple of places where there were hardly any other people inside, such as the Hi Lo Diner in Minneapolis, a completely empty Thai restaurant in Eugene, OR, etc. But everywhere I went, I saw direct evidence of all the ways the delta variant is spreading, and all of the reasons for the current surge.
It’s disheartening but not surprising that the propaganda machine has started promulgating the lie that the surge is being caused by “hordes of illegals crossing through Biden’s wide open borders.” The desperation of the MAGA, anti-vaxx crowd to try to justify their tragically absurd beliefs and behaviors is higher now than ever.
To be fair, though, here in Los Angeles, it turns out the real surge is among the rich folks. The MAGA dumbfucks definitely do not have a lock on Generalized American stupidity and selfishness.
I was reminded earlier today that there has been a concerted, relentless disinformation campaign driving anti-vaccine sentiment on social media for many years. There’s plenty of evidence for this. It gets instantly dismissed as a conspiracy theory, ironically enough, by people who have bought into the Great Lie like zombies.
So here we are, as another school year rolls around. Seeing case rates go back to close to what they were when everyone was talking about lockdowns. Of course we never had proper lockdowns. We had weird versions of “quarantine” where everyone just did whatever they wanted anyway, pretty much.
It will be fascinating to see what happens next.
