When the March 2020 pandemic hit, I watched as the social life I had taken for granted collapsed in a great heap.
Opening night theater receptions at the Wilma and Suzanne Roberts, the Arden, the little theaters at the Drake, exhibition openings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as galleries throughout the city — let’s not forget lectures and author readings at Barnes and Noble — all of these folded up like summer beach chairs after Labor Day.
Easter 2020, I listened as people around me canceled dinners, church, Easter egg hunts and Passover celebrations in the name of a fear so intense that many were willing to go the “Brave New World” route and report any city neighbor suspected of hosting large private gatherings in their homes.
That outlaw Easter dinner I attended that year in Port Richmond had twelve guests who mingled, chatted, and toasted the holiday without masks or thinking they were going to die because they were breathing the same air as their friends.
And yet an astute guest at that party did suggest closing the living room blinds because a few people on the sidewalk were looking inside, attracted to the sound of gaiety and celebration, or more than two people having fun.
Post-Easter, I could only sigh when I read on social media how many people had in effect canceled the holiday and stayed home alone.
“We watched old movies and had leftovers.”
“My ailing 90-year-old grandmother wanted to come visit, a tradition for 30 years, but we had to tell her no.”
“I told my son not to come home from college. ‘Stay in your dorm,’ I said. ‘Stay safe.’”
“Stay safe.” As if this was London during the WWII bombing blitz, or the siege of Sarajevo in the mid-1990s. This little mantra of a saying had an insidious way of creeping into everyone’s vocabulary, even my own.
When I first heard myself say it, I doubled over inside and vowed those words would never pass my lips again.
During this same time period, walking around Northern Liberties one afternoon, a young woman in a mask passed me and screamed, “Put your mask on!”
I did not want to but I lost my cool and told her that 24/7 outdoor mask-wearing was mostly about making some kind of political statement. While this fact may not have been true for everyone, it was true for many, as I was quickly finding out.
The most avid mask wearers, it seemed, were the people who could not stop saying how much they hated Donald Trump.
They were the liberals I was finding myself increasingly at odds with, the same people that supported the dismantling of statues like the Christopher Columbus statue in FDR Park; the same people who saw systemic racism in Aunt Jemima pancake mix; the same people who thought that illegal immigrants ought to be granted the right to vote or get driver’s licenses.
The same people who objected to voter ID laws.
The same theater managers who, on opening night, made it a point to thank the original owners of the land where the theater was built, “before it was stolen” — never mind that Native Americans stole land from other Native Americans all the time.
These were the people who cheered when Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Petersen, or Milo were banned from speaking at certain universities.
At my parish church, where I served as a tonsured Reader, I witnessed empty pews as most congregants stayed away Sunday after Sunday, the few souls who did show up tending to be foreign-born. I asked myself: What was it about old Slavic people that allowed them to see the lockdown for what it was: fear-driven and fear-based, something that stood no chance really when measured against the powerful life-giving realities of the Eucharist.
The use of fear to drive expanded government roles in society is really at the root of totalitarianism.
And most people in 2020 seemed to be quite happy living in a totalitarian society.
The girl who screamed at me in the street about not wearing a mask was very good at spreading misery, something many woke liberals love to do.
That misery, of course, came in the form of pandemic lockdowns that resulted in the closure of 30 percent of Pennsylvania businesses, the second highest percentage in the nation.
One 2021 study reported by WHYY found that there was a link between Covid- lockdowns and shootings in Philadelphia.
The lockdown also significantly contributed to vehicular deaths in the city, especially in Germantown, Kensington and in the Port Richmond neighborhoods.
Addressing this problem, the Philadelphia Inquirer quoted Aaron Chalfin, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, an expert on traffic deaths:
“During the pandemic, drivers drove faster through streets less congested with both cars and pedestrians. After restrictions were lifted and vaccines became available, pedestrians returned but the riskier driving may have persisted, leading to more fatal crashes.”
Chalfin found that the numbers of fatal hit-and-runs in the city were going up, while nonfatal accidents were going on.
“The pandemic changed so many things at once, it can be hard to come up with a consensus. But there was groundwork laid during the pandemic … You saw less social control. People who are increasingly less connected to community organizations. Neighbors aren’t out being as watchful of other neighbors all the time. I think there’s something to all of that.”
The lockdown also brought in the travesty of mail-in voting, a system that France had for a while but abolished because there was too much fraud.
A March 2021 Pew survey found that 93% of Democrats approved of people not getting together in large groups (Republicans registered at 56%).
The Atlantic in May 2021 ran a piece that tried to explain the phenomenon of “Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdowns.”
“….On the liberal-left, since the beginning of the pandemic,” stated the American Institute for Economic Research in 2020, “there has been an almost complete absence of discussion and debate on the subject. Anyone who dares to suggest that we have overreacted to the threat of coronavirus, and in doing so, have caused more harm than the disease itself, is accused of being a grandma-killer, a fascist, and worse…”
Fast forward to August 2023: Ride the Market-Frankford El, take any bus, or walk the streets and you will still see a considerable number of people who wear masks outdoors. Most appear to be in their twenties or thirties, ostensibly healthy looking people who should not be thinking of masks. This odd trend, perhaps, is being fueled by fears of the so called XBB.15 Variant that seems to be making a statistical dent in the Northeast US (to date, 75 percent of confirmed cases have been categorized as XBB.1.5)
Perhaps these mask-lovers are gearing up for what some say is another impending lockdown that, according to Gateway Pundit and InfoWars, has TSA and US Border Patrol moving back to 2020-era Covid-19 mandates sometime in mid-September. This will include mask mandates on all flights.
Mask mandates have already returned to Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia, and Lionsgate Studios in Santa Monica, California.
There are also long term plans in the works as well, as the US Department of Health and Human Services recently announced funding of $1.4 billion to “support development of a new generation of tools and technologies to protect against Covid-19 for years to come.”
“Living in fear is just another way of dying before your time,” as Mike Cooley once said.
During the height of the pandemic in 2020, I observed a number of homeless in my neighborhood eating from dumpsters, scouting for cigarette butts on the ground and then smoking them. They panhandled with open sores on their hands; slept curled up against wire fences or spaces populated by mice and rats.
Month in and month out, most rarely washed their hands despite the thousands of hand sanitizer bottles that fell like manna from the sky.
Mid-pandemic 2021, the same homeless were doing the same routine; ditto for 2022. Aside from occasional infections and rescues from Narcan, not a single one, as far as I know, came down with Covid.
In fact, it became a joke of sorts among the homeless that maybe their being outside night and day and living close to germs and grime had actually made them healthier in a way.
While the people who lived in plastic bubbles who lived in fear were attracting to them what they wanted to push away.
Thom Nickels is a Philadelphia-based journalist/columnist and the 2005 recipient of the AIA Lewis Mumford Award for Architectural Journalism. He writes for City Journal, New York, and Frontpage Magazine. He is the author of fifteen books, including “Literary Philadelphia” and ”From Mother Divine to the Corner Swami: Religious Cults in Philadelphia.” His latest, “Death in Philadelphia: The Murder of Kimberly Ernest” was released in May 2023.
Thom,
Good piece.
Masks were worn during the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1919 and I saw many Japanese wearing masks when I visited Sasebo and Nagasaki while I was in the U.S. Navy in 1971.
The Japanese voluntarily wore masks as the people were overcrowded on the islands and the masks were meant to ward off the flu.
Masks offer some protection, and I wore a mask while outdoors during the epidemic and I did not catch COVID-19 until a few months ago.
But I don’t think the government or businesses have the right to demand that people wear masks.
Paul
Paul,
I’m tired of being nice to bullies. If there is a glimmer of honest curiosity on your part, then feel free to continue to read. If not, I look forward to the fight ahead about masks. There was a meta-analysis published in the Cochrane Review (a British nonprofit that is widely considered the gold standard for its reviews of health care data) on Jan. 30 which concluded that masks do not make a difference in preventing the transmission of COVID-19 and other viruses. On Feb. 22, The New York Times ran Bret Stephens’ column on the Cochrane findings, “The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?”
You should read it. Then you, and all the other people who follow their feelings about masks instead of pursuing any scientific process with the following steps can all jump in a lake if you continue to try and compel others to wear your political uniforms. Here goes: 1. Ask a question: Are masks useful, or just political uniforms? 2. Perform research with your question formulated, conduct preliminary background research to prepare yourself for the experiment. 3. Establish your hypothesis. 4. Test your hypothesis by conducting an experiment. 5. Make an observation. 6. Analyze the results and draw a conclusion. 7. Present the findings.
Here is part of the report on the Cochrane findings: “The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 — was published late last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is its lead author, were unambiguous.
“There is just no evidence that they” — masks — “make any difference,” he told the journalist Maryanne Demasi. “Full stop.”
But wait, hold on. What about N-95 masks, as opposed to lower-quality surgical or cloth masks?
“Makes no difference — none of it,” said Jefferson.
What about the studies that initially persuaded policymakers to impose mask mandates?
“They were convinced by nonrandomized studies, flawed observational studies.”
What about the utility of masks in conjunction with other preventive measures, such as hand hygiene, physical distancing or air filtration?
“There’s no evidence that many of these things make any difference.”
These observations don’t come from just anywhere. Jefferson and 11 colleagues conducted the study for Cochrane, a British nonprofit that is widely considered the gold standard for its reviews of health care data. The conclusions were based on 78 randomized controlled trials, six of them during the Covid pandemic, with a total of 610,872 participants in multiple countries. And they track what has been widely observed in the United States: States with mask mandates fared no better against Covid than those without.”
J Health Econ
. 2023 Mar;88:102721. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2022.102721. Epub 2023 Feb 26.
Abstract
We quantify the effect of statewide mask mandates in the United States in 2020. Our regression discontinuity design exploits county-level variation in COVID-19 outcomes across the border between states with and without mandates. State mask mandates reduced new weekly COVID-19 cases, hospital admissions, and deaths by 55, 11, and 0.7 per 100,000 inhabitants on average. The effect depends on political leaning with larger effects in Democratic-leaning counties. Our results imply that statewide mandates saved 87,000 lives through December 19, 2020, while a nationwide mandate could have saved 57,000 additional lives. This suggests that mask mandates can help counter pandemics, particularly if widely accepted.
Keywords: COVID-19; Face masks; Public health measures; Regression discontinuity.
Copyright © 2023 International Monetary fund. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Please supply your sources; here is an article that you and Doug might be interested in reading. I did not find Paul’s comment at all bullying but find that you and Doug are interested in insulting and denigrating those who hold different views than you. Mask mandates are a reasonable public policy response to a contagious and deadly epidemic.
Excellent fear mongering as there’s zero indication of impending lockdow other than “some say.” And when you look at someone and assume they’re healthy, you must have magic powers that can detect asthma, heart disease or any number of invisible conditions that might make someone more vulnerable to RSV or COVID. Or you’re a fool
Nope,
If you want to wear a mask, go ahead. If you want to demand others wear a mask – that is a different discussion.
Researchers from Jeonbuk National University in South Korea looked at two types of disposable medical-grade masks, as well as several reusable cotton masks. The study found that the chemicals released by these masks had eight times the recommended safety limit of toxic volatile organic compounds (TVOCs). Inhaling TVOCs has been linked to health issues like headaches and nausea, while prolonged and repeated has been linked to organ damage and even cancer. The study was published in the journal Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety and on the NIH’s website. Strong conclusions cannot be drawn from the study. The team acknowledged that the sample size was small and that they did not test several other popular disposable masks.
The study builds off previous research suggesting that mask wearing could cause more harm than good. Research carried out by the Cochrane Institute, for example, suggested that face masks made ‘little to no difference’ in Covid infections and deaths. The researchers said harms caused by masks – including hampering children’s schooling – were poorly measured in the studies, meaning any small benefit on infection rates may be outweighed. And a controversial study suggested that wearing face masks raises the risk of stillbirths, testicular dysfunction, and cognitive decline in children. However, experts have criticized the study for drawing conclusions without proper evidence.
‘It is indeed possible that certain masks have side effects, just as certain helpful medications (antihistamines, psychotropic drugs, antibiotics) have side effects. Almost everything in healthcare has a benefit/side effect profile.”
You’re following infowars, which is a rightwing lunatic fringe website and has very low factuality??? You must have missed the lies its founder spread about the Sandy Hook school shooting. Delusional.
Great piece, Thom.
Nope and Keith- I get the feeling you two are the people I see wearing masks, Ukraine flags, eagerly and gleefully scouring the internet several times a day for opportunities to make us vs. Stupid crazy right winger comments.
Take a deep breath. Maybe you could address this particular article and comment on what you disagreed with.
Nope – he specifically states where mask mandates are picking up again. Look at NY pushing them. Any moron can figure out mask mandates are red flag of increased anxiety about Covid from the left. The be all end all being local downs.
Maybe you should apologize for your poor reading comprehension.
PS
Paul was not advocating for mask mandates. I disagree with Paul and think they should be used if community transmission is high. But I do appreciate Paul’s thoughtful and civil discourse.
Abby,
You are correct that Paul was not advocating for mask mandates. He explicitly wrote: “But I don’t think the government or businesses have the right to demand that people wear masks.” We can all read.
Paul also wrote: “Masks offer some protection, and I wore a mask while outdoors during the epidemic and I did not catch COVID-19 until a few months ago.” His anecdotal experience is an attempt to bridge the divide. He is trying to appease both sides. I wasn’t calling Paul a bully. The people who want to appease these fringe bullies need to step aside as the time to be nice has expired. Give an inch, and they take a mile. Now we have a man who demands everyone participate in his fetish, Dr. Levine, the former Pennsylvania health secretary who was wildly wrong about Covid death projections and subsequent Covid policy and is now President Biden’s assistant secretary for health – because everyone just wants to be polite and nice. How many people did Dr. Levine’s nursing home policies kill? How many of those people died alone without loved ones by their side? How many brave nurses initially stood on the front lines, survived Covid, and then they lost their jobs because they were suddenly Villains who had natural immunity and didn’t want to take experimental mRNA jabs? It is time to tell these tyrants to jump in a lake – it is not time to appease them.
Please supply your sources; here is an article that you and Doug might be interested in reading. I did not find Paul’s comment at all bullying but find that you and Doug are interested in insulting and denigrating those who hold different views than you. Mask mandates are a reasonable public policy response to a contagious and deadly epidemic.
J Health Econ. 2023 Mar; 88: 102721.
Published online 2023 Feb 26. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2022.102721
PMCID: PMC9968482
PMID: 36854572
Mask mandates save lives☆
Niels-Jakob H. Hansen⁎,1 and Rui C. Mano1
Author information Article notes Copyright and License information PMC Disclaimer
Abby,
Source: Feb. 22, 2023, The New York Times, Bret Stephens’ column on the Cochrane findings, “The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?”
Tom Jefferson, an Oxford epidemiologist, and his team based their conclusions on 78 randomized controlled trials, six of them during the Covid pandemic, with a total of 610,872 participants in multiple countries. They found that US States with mask mandates fared no better against Covid than those without.
No study — or study of studies — is ever perfect. Science is never absolutely settled. What’s more, the analysis does not prove that proper masks, properly worn, had no benefit at an individual level. People may have good personal reasons to wear masks, and they may have the discipline to wear them consistently. Their choices are their own.
When bullies decide that they are going to try and jam their political uniform (masks of any sort) on others, this time they should expect literal and figurative push back.
Strawman after strawman after strawman. Typical hysterical right-wing agitprop intended to rile people up against something that isn’t actually on the table right now. It’s just something that, according to two discredited fake news sources, “some people” are “gearing up for”. (Just like Obama’s “death panels” or Biden “taking away your gas stoves”). I heard “some people” are “gearing up” for the Earth to be proved flat.
“The same people who saw systemic racism in Aunt Jemima pancake mix” – If you actually believe that something someone tweeted represents the views of an 80+ million Americans, yikes.
“The most avid mask wearers, it seemed, were the people who could not stop saying how much they hated Donald Trump.”
– Yes and the most avid mask avoiders are the people whose rallying cry is to curse the current commander in chief of the US and support the violent disruption of transferring the power of government.
“These were the people who cheered when Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Petersen, or Milo were banned from speaking at certain universities.”
– Not only a strawman but a ridiculously hypocritical one given the heavy handed censorship over colleges instituted in states like FL where TEACHERS are being FIRED BY LAW for the crime of criticizing the state government or stating their views on abortion outside of class.
“One 2021 study reported by WHYY found that there was a link between Covid- lockdowns and shootings in Philadelphia.”
– Wait so… the right believes WHYY (NPR affiliate) and the Philadelphia Inquirer all of a sudden? I thought they were fake news. I guess you can selectively choose to believe the parts that align with your political agenda.
“The use of fear to drive expanded government roles in society is really at the root of totalitarianism.”
– Agreed. Like the fear of George Soros, the “deep state”, the government “taking your gas stove”, illegal immigrants (only the ones crossing the southern border, not the vast majority who simply overstay visas), “Wokeism” (which apparently means literally anything that isn’t far right now), and massive voter fraud that somehow can never be proven in court.
“Anyone who dares to suggest that we have overreacted to the threat of coronavirus, and in doing so, have caused more harm than the disease itself, is accused of being a grandma-killer, a fascist, and worse…”
– Care to provide an example of this one or is it just the imaginary liberal in your head saying this?
“Perhaps these mask-lovers are gearing up for what some say is another impending lockdown that, according to **GATEWAY PUNDIT AND INFOWARS** …”
– ahhhhhhh ok. It all makes sense now. This is all based on the very reliable bastions of journalistic integrity who encouraged its readers to harass the parents murdered children because Sandy Hook was a hoax (and so was 9/11!). And the government is run by reptilians. And the author isn’t even referring to something they’re asserting as a fact! Just something they are “gearing up for” because “some say” (who? doesn’t matter) will happen.
Cicero,
In New York City, we the people will not “be allowed” to feature gas stoves in kitchens, or any other appliances powered by fossil fuel. The City Council in 2021 passed a bill that effectively bans gas in new buildings, starting in 2024 for those under seven stories and in 2027 for anything taller. Who said that was a Biden thing? It is an actual thing, though. Is that not accurate? Please let me know if I am wrong or incorrect. I’ll wait.
Sincerely,
Mark Antony