They’re everywhere

Somehow it’s easy, looking at the BS south of the border, to feel smug about living in a sane place. One should not forget there are conspiracies everywhere.

Last year a small group of scientists produced something called the Great Barrington Declaration, which, in a nutshell, echoes the Wankmaggot’s own declaration that the cure should not be worse than the disease, that if we somehow cocooned and isolated the elderly and susceptible and then let the pandemic run its course, we would soon achieve herd immunity and everything would go back to normal.

No surprise that the declaration was the brainchild of the American Institute of Economic Research, a right wing, free market think tank.

Not much of a surprise that an open letter issued purporting wide support within the medical community for pursuing herd immunity became a laughingstock after journalists noticed the signatories included Dr Johnny Bananas, Dr I.P. Freely and Dr Person Fakename, along with many individuals with dubious “medical” qualifications.

No surprise that the vast majority of medical practitioners have trashed the declaration. As Dr Fauci summed it up: ““We just gotta look that square in the eye and say it’s nonsense.”

Want to hear more from him on the subject? Here you go.

And yet this thing has gained traction. Even here. Yes, even on this seemingly sane little island.

A small group of islanders sent a very long letter endorsing and promoting the declaration which was printed in the local paper. Others wrote letters to debunk it. And on and on. You see them in the store sometimes without a mask and you think, really?

As I’m sure I mentioned before, the Bad Girls Book Club was asked to provide book reviews once a month for the arts council’s newsletter. Having agreed to do so, I was then volunteered to write them.

In the most recent one, I reaffirmed our love of Amor Towles. I couldn’t resist writing the following: “If there is a recurring theme in the two novels it is simply this: courtesy costs nothing. This is something we could all do with remembering in these fractious and troubling times. (Yes, we’re looking at you, anti-maskers.)”

When I submitted it to the arts council, I said they were free to remove the “anti-masker” line if they thought it was too controversial. I was assured that it wasn’t.

The newsletter went out on Wednesday. Yesterday when I did one of my periodic checks of an old, seldom used (for anything other than signing petitions) email account where I discovered that the day after the newsletter appeared I’d been sent a diatribe by one of the Great Barringtonistas.

In it I was informed (not my emphasis): “Gratuitously labelling and shaming ‘anti-maskers’ as done by our local newspaper, the media and government is not a breach of courtesy to you apparently.” The email went on. And on. Citations galore and an image illustrating why wearing masks is a waste of time which I won’t bother to share.

Obviously I had failed to make my point clearly.

We are blessed here. There still hasn’t been a reported case of Covid-19. That said, there are elderly people on the island and others who are uniquely susceptible, people who feel safer if everyone in the shop is also wearing a mask. Is it too much to ask community members – whether or not they believe masks are useful – to respect the concerns of others and wear a damn mask when they’re in a store? No, I do not think it is.  As I said, courtesy costs nothing.

I have yet to respond to the diatribe. Should one engage? Not sure.

What I did do was write a letter to the editor of the local paper which I expect will appear next week. The words “cat amongst the pigeons” spring to mind.