Gonsalves' The Death Eaters

Gregg Gonsalves' article in The Nation explains how Camilo José Vergara's The Pandemic Diary clarified for him, and now us, that there are two pandemics: one lived by the professional class who order groceries online, and another lived by people who can't afford to miss work and aren't able to work from home. He quotes Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: 

If you don't know anyone who has died from the virus, then you may conclude that Covid is not a big deal and that our kids should really be in school. If you know people that have died and been hospitalized, and if the size of your apartment does not allow you to be socially distant from your mother, who lives with you and has Type 2 diabetes, then you may have a different attitude toward sending your child back into a school building. 

Gonsalves points out the problem that our policies "have largely been based on taking the social realities of the well-off as the neutral, default setting." We're throwing the disabled, poor, racialized, and/or otherwise marginalized peoples under a bus. People crafting policy are thinking of their own and finding solutions that would work for their own nearest and dearest instead of using a more inclusive lens to protect the most vulnerable. Gonsalves writes,

Public health is not about trickle-down, with benefits given to those with means and privilege flowing down, eventually, to all--because we know that doesn't happen. To sit back and watch, even to offer data sets and statistical analyses is not enough; this technical aspect of our work may be necessary, but it is not sufficient to lift all of us up.

Absolutely. We need to make sure that the most vulnerable in our society is safe - mask mandates can help do that.