Originally published at: Covid cases reported after White House Correspondents' Dinner | Boing Boing
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Pretty sure Fauci made the right call on this event. 
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I guess, but several outlets have posted photos of him masklessly attending the crowded pre-party for this dinner. So his choice to skip the dinner itself was probably about optics as much as anything else.
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We had our field’s state conference in person this year, with full peer pressure from the bosses that masking was showing weak commitment (and my field is early childhood ed…) Masks are off at the office and everyone has been out sick for weeks at a time in a non-stop rolling pattern. I’ve continued working fully remote (despite the fact that our org has been mandated to be 70% in the office since February, and tilting hard at %100) and it is leading to my slow-motion “resignation” after 14 years. My org didn’t bat an eye when cases skyrocketed over the 2021 holiday season, and so the “we’re all family here” non-profit/startup feeling is kinda…wearing thin.
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The important part:
News orgs should also keep this story in perspective. It’s not 2020. With vaccines and booster shots being widely available, this type of event is no longer unique. Every day, people evaluate various risks and decide whether or not to take them. I can’t imagine a single person who attended the weekend of events who did not believe that they had a non-zero chance of contracting Covid.
Nate Silver made this point well. He tweeted, “There are undoubtedly 100s of crowded indoor gatherings across the United States every day. Not to mention millions of people dining at restaurants, going to work or school, etc. It is kinda weird to focus on the WHCD as though it’s some sort of outlier; it is very much the norm!”
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And now the conservative response: They’re newspeople. They’re dumb, evil, and corrupt and they deserve it.
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Yes, I think that is how this will be spun. “SEE! they are hypocrites and they put you through the lockdown wringer. They say one thing but do another”… ignoring the fact that it has been MONTHS since restrictions were lifted. But it won’t matter to low information MAGAs who have been brought up by the Republican education system.
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In most cases, yes. But many thought that the decision for folks like NY mayor Eric Adams to attend the Gridiron dinner in DC last month (where he contracted Covid, along with 10% of other attendees) at the same time that he was requiring NY toddlers (and, bizarrely, only toddlers) to remain masked in schools was hypocritical and weird. And I agree.
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COVID is not over. I trust Fauci more than most, but I question his public announcement that the pandemic phase was over.
Viruses exist to mutate and spread. That’s what they do.
We are here because dumbasses across the world refused to get vaccinated, choosing to believe conspiracies and myths, and turn a public health issue that affects everyone into an “us versus them” political issue.
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If I had to sit next to any of the Kardashians, I would probably be ill, too, and not from COVID-19…
#TaxTheRich
#NeverVoteRepublican
#ProChoice
#EndTheFilibusterNow
#ReformSCOTUSNow
#LGBTQ
#antifa
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