Spare a thought, shed a tear, for the Anti-s among us. Starting Feb. 15, they may find themselves in the midst of an identity crisis.
As Magic Tuesday II approaches (Magic Tuesday I was June 15, 2021 the date the first set of mask and COVID mitigation mandates was lifted statewide) anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, anti-closers and anti-government ers must be experiencing tremendous joy and pride with the knowledge that starting Tuesday face coverings in public settings will no longer be required. All their planning in the already open bars and open restaurants and open cafes and open parks and open libraries to protest for the reopening of California have paid off. California will be open-er! Without masks! Again!
The state is removing the mandate because record-breaking COVID-19 infection and hospitalization rates are declining (never mind that we’re not sure how much damage the Omicron variant’s spin off B.A.2 will do).
The move is similar to what we did last summer just before the Delta variant took hold and smacked us around as a prelude to Omicron’s having its way with us. Despite the similarity, clearly, this time is different.
But there still remains a problem. Now that the state is open-deluxe and those pesky face coverings are no longer required, what will the Anti-s protest now?
They could protest against lax gun laws that allow lunatics to go into public settings like grade schools and kindergarten classrooms and kill sons and daughters but they may be burned out on the “for the children” movement. After all the Anti-s protested to get their kids back in the classroom during the ongoing pandemic then they had to protest again to have the kids go maskless in the classroom during a more contagious strain of the COVID-19 virus. Asking them to protest so that children can learn in an environment in which active shooter drills are no longer needed is too much of an ask.
Anti-s could protest the increasing instances of far-right extremism and racism in the United States but they are probably of the mind that those problems, like the pandemic and nearly one million lives it has claimed in the U.S. (4,854 in the county), are a hoax.
Come Tuesday, the Anti-s will have some soul searching to do. Spare them a thought as they struggle to with discovering what they stand for now.
