Jeanne Marrazzo, new leader of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, everyone:
Can I make a quick digression? We recently had a long Covid [research] meeting where we had about 200 people, in person. And we can’t mandate mask-wearing, because it’s federal property. But there was a fair amount of disturbance that we couldn’t, and people weren’t wearing masks, and one person accused us of committing a microaggression by not wearing masks.
And I take that very seriously. But I thought to myself, it’s more that people just want to live a normal life. We really don’t want to go back. It was so painful. We’re still all traumatized. Let’s be honest about that. None of us are over it.
So there’s not a lot of appetite for raising an alarm, especially if it could be perceived subsequently as a false alarm.
Edit - thanks for the help in bypassing the paywall.
Huh I never personally felt that wearing a mask was traumatizing, my mom dying directly as a result of people just deciding covid was over and not masking anymore certainly was though. My brother helplessly watching dozens of people die in front of him as a healthcare worker probably was more traumatic than wearing a mask but idk maybe we’re just too inconsiderate of the poor folks that had to suffer the inconvenience of wearing them