As we move further away from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s becoming increasingly rare to see people still wearing masks in public spaces. They are out there, however, still choosing to wear them, pretending that they’re protecting themselves or others.
More often than not, I assume these people are leftists — the same people who probably yelled at you for two years when they caught you shopping without a mask or insisted you were a monster when you said you weren’t going to get your child vaccinated from COVID. The real hardcore ones are those who graduated from the useless cloth masks to the only slightly less effective KN95 masks. Sometimes, you get one of the real nuts who still wears a face shield and has the next ten years of boosters pre-scheduled on their calendars.
Sadly, it’s clear that for some individuals, the pandemic has left a lasting impact — as if the pandemic broke them and they are now living a life in constant fear. Based on my visits to public places, these perpetually terrified people seem like a slim minority, but they’re actually not as rare as you think. According to a recent survey from Gallup, these people who are still living in a state of constant fear of COVID represent a majority of Democrats.
According to the survey, only about one-third of Americans reported that their lives have returned to “completely normal” post-pandemic. Another 20% indicate that things are not yet normal but will be. The truly shocking number is that nearly half of Americans, 47%, said that their lives will never return to normal.
Never? Really?
Gallup explains that even though virtually all pandemic mandates and restrictions have been lifted, those “who don’t foresee a return to normalcy may be getting used to a ‘new normal’ that, for some, means occasional mask use, regular COVID-19 vaccines and avoidance of some situations that may put them at greater risk of infection, particularly at times when COVID-19 infections are spiking.”
And it should come as no surprise that, as I’ve long suspected, the “Republicans are more likely to report a return to normal, while Democrats are more likely to say their lives will never be the same again.”
While 33% of Republicans say life will never return to normal again (which is still ridiculously high), a majority of Democrats, 53%, say the same. It is also noteworthy that Republicans are significantly more likely to claim a full return to normalcy, with a striking 50% reporting that their lives are back to normal, in contrast to a mere 24% of Democrats.
What exactly have these people who “don’t foresee a return to normalcy” signed up for? Well, it means occasional mask-wearing, endless COVID-19 vaccine boosters, and avoiding situations that may put them at high risk of infection.
The findings of this survey are quite ironic considering that Joe Biden campaigned on the promise that he would “defeat the virus” and life would be able to return to normal. It looks like a majority of his own party never truly believed that COVID would ever release its grip on their daily lives.