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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32488 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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Covid global health emergency is over, WHO says

Yes, I know, Covid "has been over" for well over a year, pretty much no-one cares about this topic anyway, but I wonder if we'll now start more getting full appraisals of the entire Covid period. It is bewildering to consider how little people (apart from the two formed and ongoing "Covid tribes" - lockdown/vaccine skeptics on one hand, zero-covidists still wearing masks on the other hand) care about Covid now, considering how large it loomed for two years. For instance, I watched some Finnish election debates a few months ago, and the dire financial/general status of the health care system was frequently discussed with almost no mentions and indications that the Covid crisis and the decisions done during this period might have had anything to do with it.

What are all the ways people here would say the pandemic era changed the world? I don't think that all the effects will be visible or evident for years to come - there will yet be a lot of stuff where people in ten years might say "of course the Covid era changed that" but isn't properly yet considered to be a Covid effect.

What are all the ways people here would say the pandemic era changed the world?

It made the mask a cult symbol in the United States (and possibly other Puritan countries as well). I recently traveled to Italy and was surprised that just about no one was wearing mask. If I saw someone in a mask, it was almost always a US tourist.

As a high-cost signal of tribal allegiance, it's not quite at the level as a Confederate flag or a neck tattoo, but it's quite impressive how so many people in the U.S. still wear the mask despite everything.

As a high-cost signal of tribal allegiance, it's not quite at the level as a Confederate flag or a neck tattoo, but it's quite impressive how so many people in the U.S. still wear the mask despite everything.

Interesting, I think the last time I saw someone out and about with a mask in the US (not counting on airplanes/in airports) was... October? Definitely last year. What % are you seeing around you?

Is this concentrated to big blue cities? I've done a fair amount of travel around the country since then, but admittedly not to LA/NYC/SF

It looks to me like the masking rate in coastal cities and college towns is about what it was in East Asia pre-covid i.e. <5% masked at any given time and most of them just on public transportation or because they are sick.

I work in an office with about 50 people and two of them wear masks daily. This is in a medium sized midwestern city.

Plenty of people in NYC and on New Jersey Transit still wearing masks. A small minority, but enough so you see them all the time.

Probably seeing 10% at the grocery store in Seattle.

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