Let’s face the facts — the pandemic is still with us

And so we come back to masks. Again.

In Connecticut, the COVID positivity rate is hovering around 8 percent, a figure that would have sent us into lockdown in the early part of this pandemic. In the face of increased COVID cases, the University of Connecticut has reinstituted its indoor mask mandate, but the state has lifted its mask rules for customers on public transportation. Meanwhile, MetroNorth is holding the line and still requires passengers to be masked.

In public schools, the decision was left to school boards or similar governing bodies. In most cases, masks are now optional.

Private businesses may still require masks, though many don’t.

Confusing? Yes, it is. Textbooks will be written about conflicting language around pandemic protocols — in addition to the people who willfully ignored those protocols. The waters were further muddied when a U.S. District court judge decided to switch lanes and play doctor long enough to rule that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t have the power to mandate masks, as that organization did in February 2021.

There’s a bit of a back story here: When former President Donald Trump nominated the judge in the case, Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, at age 33, the American Bar Association said she was not qualified for the job. Her husband, Chad Mizelle , was acting general counsel in the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration. Back when we were paying attention to job qualifications and potential conflicts of interest, this would have all meant something.

One of the plaintiffs in the mask case, Health Freedom Defense Fund, stands, according to its website “for freedom, we stand for choice, and we stand for the most basic of human rights, bodily autonomy,” so I imagine we will soon see representatives of that organization on the front lines fighting for abortion rights, an issue rife with opportunities to protect freedom, choice, and bodily autonomy.

I kid. Bodily autonomy for thee, but not for me. The same crowd that lost its collective mind over the government mandating that a piece of cloth be worn across their mouths and noses are perfectly OK with a government that crawls into a woman’s nether-regions and stays there.

But I digress. The no-mask decision was a surprise, and the reaction was immediate. Some people got word while they were on planes, mid-flight, and you can imagine how difficult that was for the medically vulnerable who were rocketing through the air in a tin can surrounded by a cheering, jeering and mask-less crowd. On social media, people posted videos of themselves triumphantly pulling off their face coverings as if they’d won the lottery — or as if the pandemic was officially well and truly past.

Sadly, there is no evidence to show that worldwide pandemics end simply because we want them to. Nor do wars or broken bones.

There is some dispute as to whether the judge correctly applied public health law in her decision, during which she spent a great deal of time parsing the meaning of the word “sanitation,” and worrying over the fact that the rest of us didn’t get to vote about the mandate. The Department of Justice is appealing the decision.

The rest of us face a situation that requires more nuance than most of us were able to muster even before the pandemic stunted our reasoning skills. The language around masks (and, to a certain extent, vaccinations) has always required a careful reading, and I am of the opinion that most of us aren’t reading all that carefully.

On the other hand, the language of the anti-science crowd has been direct and easy-to-understand: Government? Bad. Masks? Antifreedom. Are you wearing a mask? Then you’re “living in fear,” but only as much as wearing a seat belt is living in fear, or periodically replacing the batteries in your smoke detectors is living in fear. It’s nonsense, but that’s an easier message to remember than the latest mask protocols in the state.

That’s always been the problem with public discourse. A lie can be shared in just a few words, as we saw when the Russian government floated the lie about their desire for the “de-nazification” of Ukraine. What Ukraine needs is nothing less than for Russian troops to pack up and go home. Domestically, another lie, “Trump won,” won’t die, not because it is based in fact, but because some vocal people really, really want to believe it.

But just as we can’t celebrate the end of a pandemic that is still ongoing, we can’t hope that facts can be superseded by feelings. The pandemic is still with us, and all good science suggests you’d best continue to take steps to avoid the virus. For now and for always, facts are the best antidote for fear and lies. Facts will lead us home.

Susan Campbell is the author of “Frog Hollow: Stories From an American Neighborhood,” “Tempest Tossed: The Spirit of Isabella Beecher Hooker,” and “Dating Jesus: Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl.” Find more at susancampbell.substack.com.