co·ro·noia
/kəˈrō-ˈnȯi-ə/
noun
a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of relaxed covid measures
“When I am king you will be first against the wall / with your opinion that is of no consequence at all” sings Thom Yorke in Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android.” But, much like his predecessor, for this king opinions on covid aren’t the only thing that is of no consequence at all.
In an interview on The Today Show last week, President Biden was asked by Craig Melvin about the new CDC guidelines regarding masking for fully vaccinated people:
The CDC guidelines this week about outdoor mask-wearing, right? A lot of folks excited that they can now shed these masks if they’ve been double vaccinated. Are you going to be one of these folks now? Are we no longer going to see the president of the united states outside with a mask on?
Biden explains that while outside, he masks because he cannot avoid people approaching him, but the rest of his baffling answer exposes an extremely frustrating attitude by this administration and its supporters that seems entirely dictated by the ghost of Trump—the guiding principle here being “Trump was blasé and careless about safety measures, and so we will take them overly seriously and be unnecessarily overcautious in contrast.”
Biden says to Craig: “Look, you and I took our masks off when I came in because look at the distance we are,” as the camera cuts back to reveal the president and interviewer sitting six feet apart. He continues:
But if we were in fact sitting there talking to one another close, I’d have my mask on, and I’d like you to have a mask on even though we’ve both been vaccinated. It’s a small precaution to take that has a profound impact. It’s a patriotic responsibility, for God’s sake!
This bizarre insistence that despite the CDC itself stating that they can safely sit together unmasked there is still some need for “precaution” is harmful and confusing to a public that is already beset on all sides by contradictory info, and doing it as a reactive measure to Trump’s conduct enables him to continue setting the national agenda on covid months after leaving office.
I understand Biden’s desire to set an example as the president (I even advocated this behavior from Trump during the height of the pandemic), but there is a point at which continuing to cling to outdated safety measures not only provides diminishing returns, but creeps towards causing active harm. The president should set an example not for being cautious but for doing what is safe to do. He isn’t setting an example by masking when unnecessary (like on international skype calls with unmasked world leaders—something many fact checkers tried to debunk by “introducing context,” rather than showing that he never actually did this). Rather, Biden is sending mixed messages about the efficacy of vaccines and the ability of vaccinated people to safely return to normal activity.
Is it any wonder, therefore, that we see reports of places like Brookline overriding CDC guidance to keep mask mandates in place after a year spent railing on those who did the same but in reverse? Is it any wonder many schools remain closed despite broad expert consensus that they should be reopened? If both medical experts and public health organizations tell you that you can do something safely, continuing to avoid it is not precaution. It’s coronoia.
Caution is not science. Only leaving your home in a plastic bubble with an isolated air supply will ensure you don’t get covid, but is this the scientific and rational thing to do? Will never getting an X-Ray or traveling on a plane reduce your chance of getting cancer in a way that justifies that? Avoiding risks that fall below the baseline level of risks that all of us take every day is neither smart nor helpful. Stop being so coronoid.
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