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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35167 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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Biden: Pandemic is over

Of course, for all important purposes, pandemic has been over in most of the Western world for most of this year - ie. sure, there's a disease going around, but the "pandemic mentality" is gone, and so have at least the most visible and onerous restrictions - but this sort of a declaration, offhand and qualified as it is, seems like a point in the general development.

It's already evident in social media that COVID doomers - the ones who would still want to mask up, keep up restrictions etc. - are angry and frustrated, as they've been for months, but I also wonder how the sort of "reverse doomers" who declared a year ago that Western world is never going to declare the pandemic over and give up restrictions, either out of stupidity or out of a malignant conspiracy, are interpreting it.

Honestly it's shocking how sticky some of this stuff is, even if the vast majority of people have just moved on with their lives.

Got asked to take a RAT test to attend a 29th birthday celebration in which nobody is immunocompromised or over 30. Some people just seem to want to live in COVID zero mode forever.

Last year, I brought up a similar situation for a New Year's Eve party and there was some excellent discussion and advice at the old place. Based in part on that advice, I settled on the primacy of friendship over silliness and went along with the rapid test, then proceeded to enjoy the evening. I felt deeply conflicted about this at the time, even though it's a small thing. I think I'm completely done on that front now though. If someone wishes to continue pursuing Covid consciousness, I'll part ways with them until that's no longer important to them.

Oh I'm gonna take the RAT test as a respect to their cultural beliefs but the fact that it's even a conversation is amazing to me.

Do you have any Covid-culture requests that you would decline to honor? For example, insistence on masking in between sips and bites. I ask not be belligerent, I'm genuinely curious where others are going to draw lines going forward.

Anything resembling lockdowns, mask-wearing during any sort of physical activity or absurd location like a restaurant.

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