Iâm sorry if this comes off as combative, but: if your government gave you next to no financial relief, did not mandate masks, allowed bars and retail businesses to stay open, re-opened university campuses, and then told you âyou MUST go to work and school and interact with hundreds of strangers, but youâre a terrible person if you go visit grandma or get together for drinks with friends after your shift or have Christmas dinnerâ, what exactly would YOU do?
You can say âif people really cared about each other, they would stay home no matter what the government doesâ all you like, but that doesnât change the fact that this simply isnât how behaviour modification at a population-wide scale works. Guilt and punishment does not change behaviour, providing resources and boundaries that encourage and reward the correct behaviour does.
Why should people take the pandemic seriously when every single signal being sent from the places of power that guide their lives says that this just isnât worth giving a shit about? When you arenât given the chance to make better choices, because you canât financially afford to?
Blaming individual people for being âstupidâ and âcarelessâ lets the American federal and state governments (as well as other powerful institutions) off the hook for their egregious, cruel, careless policy approaches to this situation, which have left people to fend for themselves and try to make decisions under the most duress theyâve ever experienced in their lives.
The first girl caught COVID while living in a multi-roommate apartment at university (her roommates later also tested positive, which is unsurprising if youâre ever seen student housing) â then she self-quarantined, tried to recover, and ONLY travelled home to visit her family after she had started testing negative again (her family did not get sick). What could she have done better? Magically been able to afford a single apartment?
The young man who died, Jaquan Anderson, his mother was a healthcare worker, but he was living with other relatives to make sure he wouldnât be in contact with her while attending school, and then he still he got sick. What could he have done better, exactly? Does it sound like he didnât care?
Most of the articles on the other student athletes mention that members of their teams also tested positive â does that sound like itâs on them individually, or like it could be a sign of a serious problem in the prevention protocols being used for university sports? What would have been the âresponsibleâ choice for them? To refuse to play the sport that they probably rely on to cover their tuition via scholarships? What better choices could they have made, within the situations these institutions set up for them?
These people ARE trying. Most Americans ARE trying. They ARE doing the best they can in their situations, with limited power and a lot of stress.
We need to stop asking why people wonât just âsmarten upâ and be responsible, and start asking why the government is abdicating its responsibility for public health in this crisis onto the shoulders of random young people.
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