Happy Saturday from temperate East Lansing, Michigan, where I’m visiting friends, drinking some of the best beer in America, and looking for old books and magazines about polling in dusty basements of used book stores. I have a few respectable thrifts so far:
. . .
Though face masks are still prevalent back home in northern Virginia, most people have unmasked here in Michigan. Only public buildings (universities, post offices, etc) still have mandates posted on entrances. Masking in a restaurant or bar? Office building? Forget about it.
Of course, for vaccinated Americans, unmasking is safe in almost every circumstance. But the delta variant has more adults worried that they won't be able to evade the virus indefinitely—even the vaccinated ones. Gallup's polling shows a sharp decline (from 50 to 38 percent over the last month) in the share of people saying they're "very confident" they can avoid infection in public.
And it’s the vaccinated people who are most worried about new strains — go figure, both since worry is a predictor of vaccination and since other variables predict both of those outcomes.
The distressing thing is that a steady one-fifth of Americans still say they will not get the vaccine. Hard holdouts have numbered between 18 and 20% (within the margin of error of each datum) in each of Gallup's May, June, and July surveys. Unvaccinated opponents simply think the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus, according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
But I want to hear from you. Has the threat of increased transmission from variant coronaviruses caused you to reevaluate your exposure to covid-19? Or were you, like me, just going to keep wearing your mask indoors and on public transport to decrease the chance of contracting other flus anyway?
That's it this week’s subscribers-only thread. Tomorrow's post will be on the continued debate about "survey liberalism" and "popularism". I think a lot of people, on both sides of the topic, are getting some important things wrong.
I was going unmasked indoors for about 1-2 months after becoming fully vaccinated. I'm in the Bay Area, where cases had dropped to quite low levels. I also was under the impression that my likelihood of getting Covid at this point was very, very low. With the new delta info, I'm masking indoors—and even sometimes outdoors when in close proximity to others, given that we don't really know yet how contagious this new variant is. Anecdotally, I know a half-dozen vaccinated people who've contracted Covid in the past month or so—so the risk definitely feels meaningfully higher than before. I'm also pregnant, and pregnant women who contract Covid now are definitely seeing much worse outcomes than they did with earlier variants.
After learning that I am in a high-risk group due to taking immunosuppressants for arthritis, a group that is one of those first in line along with people over 80 for getting a booster once approved, I have decided to mask again in public.
Ezra Klein's recent podcast with a COVID expert is worth listening to for up to date information and perdpective about what we are facing in the future.
Listening to the most recent episode of The Daily from The New York times is also worthwhile. They interviewed three different people who have not been vaccinated. I forced myself to listen to it in order to be certain I am fully considering all points of view.
My sympathy level has not increased even a tiny amount band I challenge anyone to listen to the third person they interview to not scream a little bit. Paraphrasing:
"The second time I got COVID was worse than the first and I couldn't even lift my arms and I had to give up smoking for a whole month. Then my mother with COPD who I care for got covid and died. And I hosted a little super spreader graduation party for my daughter where a lot of people got sick, some seriously. But I simply cannot trust the government even a little bit about what they want to put into my body."
I live in "Missourah" where our legislature does all it can do to protect individual liberty of all those MAGA folks who think it is just fine to ignore what is the "simple flu". That has been their approach ever since COVID-19 started; and D has not changed it one bit. We never stopped wearing our masks. Why? Because as soon as those signs went up that the unvaccinated could ditch the mask, we knew that was a get out of free jail card for all of those unvaccinated who fought mask mandates from the beginning. And so what began as individual vigilance continues today because of the morons who are in charge of my state. Thank you Trump and FOX news.
I've been wearing my mask indoors to decrease my chances of getting Covid. I am worried that we will never reach herd immunity and the virus will mutate into a more dangerous variant putting vaccinated people at risk and forcing another shutdown.
I was going unmasked indoors for about 1-2 months after becoming fully vaccinated. I'm in the Bay Area, where cases had dropped to quite low levels. I also was under the impression that my likelihood of getting Covid at this point was very, very low. With the new delta info, I'm masking indoors—and even sometimes outdoors when in close proximity to others, given that we don't really know yet how contagious this new variant is. Anecdotally, I know a half-dozen vaccinated people who've contracted Covid in the past month or so—so the risk definitely feels meaningfully higher than before. I'm also pregnant, and pregnant women who contract Covid now are definitely seeing much worse outcomes than they did with earlier variants.
After learning that I am in a high-risk group due to taking immunosuppressants for arthritis, a group that is one of those first in line along with people over 80 for getting a booster once approved, I have decided to mask again in public.
Ezra Klein's recent podcast with a COVID expert is worth listening to for up to date information and perdpective about what we are facing in the future.
Listening to the most recent episode of The Daily from The New York times is also worthwhile. They interviewed three different people who have not been vaccinated. I forced myself to listen to it in order to be certain I am fully considering all points of view.
My sympathy level has not increased even a tiny amount band I challenge anyone to listen to the third person they interview to not scream a little bit. Paraphrasing:
"The second time I got COVID was worse than the first and I couldn't even lift my arms and I had to give up smoking for a whole month. Then my mother with COPD who I care for got covid and died. And I hosted a little super spreader graduation party for my daughter where a lot of people got sick, some seriously. But I simply cannot trust the government even a little bit about what they want to put into my body."
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I live in "Missourah" where our legislature does all it can do to protect individual liberty of all those MAGA folks who think it is just fine to ignore what is the "simple flu". That has been their approach ever since COVID-19 started; and D has not changed it one bit. We never stopped wearing our masks. Why? Because as soon as those signs went up that the unvaccinated could ditch the mask, we knew that was a get out of free jail card for all of those unvaccinated who fought mask mandates from the beginning. And so what began as individual vigilance continues today because of the morons who are in charge of my state. Thank you Trump and FOX news.
I got my second Pfizer shot Feb 6. Therefore I have been fully vaccinated for over 6 months.
If CDC suggests it is wise, I will try to get a booster.
I think none of my friends is unvaccinated, but then again I live in a famously elite area, Georgetown. Not Georgia, South Carolina, or Texas but DC.
Hi Elliott,
I've been wearing my mask indoors to decrease my chances of getting Covid. I am worried that we will never reach herd immunity and the virus will mutate into a more dangerous variant putting vaccinated people at risk and forcing another shutdown.
-Elliot
My policy toward the unvaccinated is ostracism. No grey area. This is not a teaching moment and I am not the teacher.