Cutting Edge Computing

Our COVID Messaging Continues to Be Awful May 1, 2021

This morning, I received a call from a distraught friend.  She was on her morning constitutional in a Boston suburb when she was accosted and harassed by two separate women.  For wearing a mask.

Yes, that’s right.  Both yelled at her that masks were not longer required outdoors, and that she shouldn’t be wearing one.

Well, first, that’s not true.  What is true is that the Centers for Disease Control has issued a recommendation to the effect that fully vaccinated individuals can choose not to wear a mask outdoors (my friend is vaccinated, but still chooses to wear a mask, as do I).  However dubious that recommendation, neither Massachusetts nor my home state of New Hampshire have lifted their outdoor mask mandates.  Those are the mandates that have the force of law, not a recommendation by the CDC.

This brings me to my fundamental point.  Our national and state governments continue to do a criminally poor job of communicating facts about COVID, testing, and vaccination.  For the last year, mixed messages have emerged from different sources on just about every aspect of the pandemic, leaving honest people lost and confused about just what to believe.  It certainly happened under the Trump administration, and it continues under Biden.  Folks, if you want society to survive this, get your messages clear, simple, and consistent now.

I have a secondary point too.  When messages are mixed and contradictory, people will choose the ones most convenient for their purposes.  That means that someone can say that you don’t have to wear masks outdoors, and be misleading rather than lying.  And, once again, our government is letting this happen.

Yelling at people on the street is something that I have never seen happen in New England, where civility is bred of coolness toward our neighbors.  This kind of emotion is rare in this part of the country.

I told my friend that the next time she is accosted and harassed, she should tell them to chill out and direct them to the legal pot shop down the street.