The Bizarro-World Of The Forever Maskers

The Bizarro-World Of The Forever Maskers Authored by 'sallust' via DailySceptic.org, The Telegraph has a story about the ‘Zero Covid’ zealots refusing to re-enter society . Not only that, but these forever maskers want everyone else masked up in perpetuity too. It’s a remarkable instance of the emergence of a new form of cult based on a surreal new ritual. And just for good measure, it seems that those leaning Left are most likely to be on board: The claims of links to Covid circulating online amid the deadly chaos were not always proved beyond doubt, but in this climate of fear and confusion, a determined ‘Zero Covid’ community emerged. Co-opting a phrase that was originally an official public health policy, the ‘Zero Coviders’ believed they were watching a massacre in real time, and the maskless - especially those who were unvaccinated - were to blame. As governments relaxed the restrictions, they felt they needed to step up. “I was like, ‘Okay, this is not right. This is f--,'” says [Alyson] Hardwick, a second-year university student who does not have any underlying health conditions. The last time she ate indoors at a restaurant was in October 2022 for her 31st birthday. “I felt sketched out [uneasy],” she recalls. “I was leaving every place I was going inside without a mask, wondering, ‘Did I get it?’” Hardwick began wearing a respirator mask - specialised, disposable facepieces called N95s or N99s which offer more comprehensive protection than a surgical mask - and spending most of her time alone. She’s ostracised herself from other people and posts thousands of clips online and argues that it’s everyone else, not her, who is living in fear. “Denial is a fear response,” she insists. Hardwick’s stance exemplifies the increasingly fraught Zero Covid movement - a citizen-led campaign across the Western world to keep the air clean. She is just one of thousands of geographically disparate people, many of whom are not immunocompromised, who are still living in their own self-imposed lockdowns, fearful of becoming one of the millions to suffer with serious long Covid symptoms, or anxious about transmitting the virus to someone less fortunate. Zero Covid has adherents across North America and Europe, including some in the UK, but followers from the US and Canada are the most visible online. The charged movement to end ‘pandemic denialism’ has some high-profile advocates, including Left-wing US journalist Taylor Lorenz. “If ur [sic] not masking ur absolutely facilitating eugenics,” Lorenz posted to her 350,000 followers on X on December 6th. “Refusing to mask during an ongoing pandemic is absolutely violent and it’s undeniably participating in social murder,” she said in another recent post, as well as calling out Leftist “super spreader” events. “You are actively *killing* and maiming people around you by intentionally spreading airborne disease during an active pandemic.” (Separately, she pilloried non-maskers for “raw-dogging the air and spewing ur disease laden breath all over ur elderly neighbours”.) By 2022, the pandemic and the panicked measures were...

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