The reactions to those feelings ARE harmful to children, disabled people, and (yes) the unvaccinated. Even if you don't care about the last group, the first two groups don't deserve to get long COVID, or die, because you had a hard feel about having to wear something over your mouth.
The pandemic is over for people that got vaccinated. For those that can't, they should evaluate their risks and act accordingly.
It's well known most people judge risk emotionally rather that rationally. We still need to get out of bed in the morning however.
Had we not ended up in a situation where we're nowhere close to herd immunity because of the anti-vax sentiment through so much of the US population, the Delta variant might never have taken hold like it has. So I stand by my original statement.
Also, from the very beginning it has been stated that, like almost all respiratory illnesses, covid will become more contagious and less severe over time. Now that it has happened, everyone is pointing fingers.
can you provide a reference for this?
The guidelines for the unvaccinated (that is, keep masking) haven’t changed, while the immunized are once again being called upon to act. “Asking people to mask up again is triggering a lot of emotional stuff,” Lindsey Leininger, a public-health-policy expert at Dartmouth, told me. “You can’t tell people that those feelings are invalid.”