I noted another common perception at the Breathe Easy launch on Thursday evening (mentioned in previous posts): that anarchists in the States mask up - and require masking at events - way more than those here in the UK. There are lots of ideas thrown around about why that might be (one I enjoy sharing is the lack of revolutionary history in the UK, where we still have a monarchy, with essentially three houses - two of those unelected and the third first-past-the-post). But I just caught another poster for an anarchist bookfair in the States right here on Mastodon, with "wear a mask" on it, in contrast to the example I wrote about last week...
@MediaActivist my unscientific findings are that people in the UK have bought into the “it’s just a cold” fallacy more so than other countries - I work with people in the UK (I’m in Canada) and not a single one of them ever so much as thinks about COVID. They just don’t care - getting sick constantly is now normal and expected and even a source of amusement for them.
@andymoose That's really interesting. That "outside" perspective kind of validates my suspicions I live with here on "Plague Island."
@MediaActivist it’s not much better here but if someone is symptomatic they will (usually) make some attempt at not infecting their office colleagues by not going in to the office. Maybe it’s 15% more taboo to NOT make others sick here. Maybe. Again, all very unscientific.
@andymoose Yeah, I know one colleague who had Covid so refused to go into work "to avoid killing someone's grandma." I'm frequently astonished by the characterisations of "vulnerable" and "invulnerable" people, especially here in the UK where there's talk about the "virtue signalling" of masking, when I find it more like performative virtue-signalling to behave in a way that literally spreads Covid but then suddenly act like shits are given after testing positive. Incredible.