Do COVIDiots have better angels, or are we doomed?

The term COVIDiots may vie for 2020’s Word of the Year, and if we don’t flatten the curve soon, it might be 2021’s word, too. COVIDiots are those souls who defy reliable advice on how to avoid getting the coronavirus and prevent others from getting it. They are “so over it,” as I heard one unmasked woman say the other day in a store.

All those sacrifices people made by shutting down and staying home in the early months is now just time lost because so many people are doing what they want, which they think means freedom. Some are spreading the virus because they long for the days when they did what they wanted and acted like the selfish brats they were and still are.

Meanwhile, this little-understood virus is out there in search of noses and mouths to enter in order to stay alive. Many millions of us are doing our part to starve it. But there’s not much chance of that with so many other millions who are under the influence of lizard brain.

And it’s not just passive defiance we’re dealing with. We have attacks on people who try to enforce mask-wearing indoors.

Recently, a man at a Philadelphia restaurant aimed a gun at a person who complained about unmasked people. On May 1, a Family Dollar security guard in Michigan was shot and killed by an unmasked person he tried to

keep from entering the store. Restaurants in Miami have reported that their staffs have had to defend against patrons who resist enforcement of masks. This is happening in retail businesses all around the country.

I try to be empathetic as I maneuver through these bizarre times, but some people are hazards to our health. I draw the line at reckless, self-centered people. A subset of them has been hateful and abusive to Asians because the virus was first reported in China. One of them, the No. 1 Unmasked One, has a nickname for the virus: At a rally in Tulsa, Okla., last month, he unveiled it: “the Kung Flu.”

Ain’t he clever?

It was a gut punch to a Chinese American friend of mine who was born and raised in Pittsburgh. But it got a huuuge cheer from No. 1 Unmasked One’s base, on whose behalf mask-wearing has become a partisan issue.

Enter “The Twilight Zone” as reality show.

I am trying to have empathy for at least some of the unmasked, and I do feel for those who have trouble breathing in them. For those who complain about masks, I hear you: They are hot, they cover our lovely smiles and they are constant reminders of this scourge. But unselfish people strap them on.

The bottom has dropped out of the societal norm of “all for one and one for all,” an attitude that has prevailed in times of crises past, including during World War II — the alllights-out obedience of nighttime London during the German bombing raids from September 1940 to May 1941; the sacrifices of camaraderie that Americans made with rationing.

If you’re just defiant about wearing a simple piece of cloth, maybe your better angels can be nudged out with a little prodding.

Late last month, the Retail Association of Maine, the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce and Maine Grocers and Food Producers Association put into effect a “Let’s Be Kind” campaign to elicit better-angel behavior.

It’s a 30-second ad, on YouTube now. It’s not as strong as it could be, and it’s missing some audio, but it at least recognizes a problem.

Long before the pandemic, we were hearing from social scientists that humans have become less violent over time because we have learned the full range of advantages in having empathy.

“The old view that we are essentially self-interested creatures is being nudged firmly to one side by evidence that we are also … wired for empathy, social cooperation, and mutual aid,” reports the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California at Berkeley, which provides a trove of information about empathy, among other character assets.

But we have a lot on our plates here.

Greater Good also reports on research “that ecological threats like the spread of disease tend to increase prejudice, as societies circle their wagons.”

This wagon-circling may be part of who we are, but so is having a prefrontal cortex. We can decide how not to behave.

Disease doesn’t care who you are, where you live, what you do or what you believe. It just wants you to help it stay alive.

If you won’t wear a mask when you’re around other people during this pandemic, I have to ask: What do you want?