This is the reason I am still wearing a mask.

[Ms. Toad]

54. Nope, we're not the party of freedom.

Democrats favor creating equity and opportunities for all, ensuring that there is a world left for our children and grandchildren and so on.

Doing so requires giving up absolute freedom in favor of making sure that those most vulnerable aren't harmed by our selfish actions.

This is a right-wing attitude/talking point:

People with co-morbidity or who are immunocompromized will always have to take extra protections. Sucks, but that is life.

The progressive/Democratic response would be to make sacrifices (e.g. wearing masks) to ensure that the burden of chronic illness is shared by all of us - to the extent possible. Obviously we can't grant a perfectly healthy body - BUT we can, and should, take steps to ensure that our actions create a world that is more, not less, equitable. One of those steps is wearing masks.

Aside from the ridiculous notion that Democrats believe in the freedom to ignore the needs of those around us, it isn't just the vulnerable who need to worry about preventing transmission of COVID.

We have 2 years of knowledge about what happens after the acute infection. COVID may well turn out like polio or shingles, and create devastating secondary illnessess decades down the road. We already know that COVID (even mild COVID) leaves increased risk for cardiac events and loss of mental acuity and of brain matter. Given that we're just starting to study longer term impact, it will be decades until we know whether it will be innocuous long-term, or come back to bite us in an enormous public health disaster in the future. What we have already learned suggests it will be more like polio and less like a cold or the flu. For that reason, the public policy should still focus on minimizing transmission (rather than just mitigating the worst immediate impact).