Even as communist China is being compelled to step away from its fanatical “zero COVID” fantasy, Time magazine is pushing it here in America, just in time to ruin the third holiday season in a row, this time pushing the threat of “Long COVID,” the disease with a thousand general symptoms.
“For Some Families, COVID-19 Is Still Upending Holiday Plans,” by health correspondent Jamie Ducharme patronized some sad, hypochondriac families who stopped living normally when COVID kicked in and may never start again:
Julie, who is 38 and lives in North Carolina, considers herself, her husband, and their two children “zero COVID people.” Motivated by studies about COVID-19’s potential long-term effects on the body, they orient their lives around not getting the virus. That means avoiding indoor spaces where people won’t be masked, often wearing masks outside, and seeking out service providers who are still taking precautions, such as masking and using air purifiers. For the most part, Julie says, this is fine. “There’s not a whole lot we don’t do,” she says -- they just do it all in high-quality masks….
The Zero Covid folks' demands are so high, it’s no wonder they’re left alone on holidays. Ducharme lamented that "[t]he holidays, however, present some challenges as "Julie’s relatives are no longer willing to take the safety measures that would make her family feel comfortable gathering with them in person."
In turn, she explained:
[H]er family pod will celebrate by “making better food” than usual and eating it at home. The hardest part, she says, is watching family members who were once open to isolating for 14 days before visits now forgo precautions, knowing that means Julie and her family won’t feel comfortable joining the festivities.
Ducharme nodded along to the neuroticism of a woman using her overzealous COVID precaution as an excuse to divorce her husband for wanting to join the world again.
The below paragraph is the story’s sole mention of vaccines, almost as if they don't exist.
By contrast, masks, which are of dubious effectiveness against airborne COVID, are mentioned seven times (click "expand"):
Not everyone is so understanding. Kara Darling, who is 46 and lives in Delaware, is in the process of divorcing her husband because he was ready to “reintegrate” into society around the time vaccines rolled out, and she has chosen to remain highly COVID-cautious by working remotely, homeschooling her kids, and socializing only with those who are willing to take strict precautions. Darling’s stance is informed both by her work as a practices and research manager at a clinic that treats people with complex conditions, which has exposed her to the realities of life with Long COVID, and by the fact that three of her children have overactive immune systems.
This paragraph was simply sad, with the writer seemingly immune to how normal people would react to such bizarre restrictions:
Darling’s Thanksgiving will be small this year -- just her household, her oldest son, and her son’s girlfriend, cooking and eating together at home. (Darling’s son and his girlfriend don’t live with her, so they’ll avoid any unnecessary public activities, wear respirators, and test multiple times in the 10 days before coming over.)….
