Ask Lemmygrad

I'm sorry you've got that extra difficulty in dealing with covid. I live in the US and it bothers me greatly too the way people around me gave up on something as basic as wearing a mask so easily. I still do it, but I almost never see anyone else who does. Meanwhile, I write this while recovering from some kind of sickness, I suspect a variant of covid the way the symptoms and duration are different from a normal cold for me. Even with wearing a mask when I go out, I can't make other people in my household do it and a mask only works effectively if enough people are wearing them to reduce the transmission, since the mask itself won't keep it out.

It feels sometimes like I'm living in an upside down world. The people I'm closest to care about me and others, there's no doubt in my mind about that, yet they gave up on masking like so many others when the system of authority stopped telling them to and the peer pressure flipped. It is an act of basic harm reduction, a test of a sense of collective responsibility and cooperation, and so many completely fail it.

This thing of people valuing their own convenience over the mortal risk of others and sometimes even themselves is so confusing to me and so destructive. It doesn't even make consistent sense within the same person at times. One of the people I know, who was at least a longer holdout but eventually gave up on masking as well, is very much into prepping for disasters and just being prepared in general and anticipating the future. Yet they gave up on this, a current and ongoing threat that is only mitigated by vaccines and possible weakening of its strength through mutations, not even close to kept under control.