Lurking among the jubilant americans venturing back out to bars and planning their summer-wedding travel is a different group: liberals who aren't quite ready to let go of pandemic restrictions. For this subset, diligence against COVID-19 remains an expression of political identity--even when that means overestimating the disease's risks or setting limits far more strict than what public-health guidelines permit. In surveys, Democrats express more worry about the pandemic than Republicans do. People who describe themselves as "very liberal" are distinctly anxious. This spring, after the vaccine rollout had started, a third of very liberal people were "very concerned" about becoming seriously ill from COVID-19, compared with a quarter of both liberals and moderates, according to a study conducted by the University of North Carolina political scientist Marc Hetherington. And 43 percent of very liberal respondents believed that getting the coronavirus would have a "very bad" effect on their life, compared with a third of liberals and moderates.Last year, when the pandemic was raging and scientists and public-health officials were still trying to understand how the virus spread, extreme care was warranted. People all over the country made enormous sacrifices--rescheduling weddings, missing funerals, canceling graduations, avoiding the family members they love--to protect others. Some conservatives refused to wear masks or stay home, because of skepticism about the severity of the disease or a refusal to give up their freedoms. But this is a different story, about progressives who stressed the scientific evidence, and then veered away from it.
For many progressives, extreme vigilance was in part about opposing Donald Trump. Some of this reaction was born of deeply felt frustration with how he handled the pandemic. It could also be knee-jerk. "If he said, 'Keep schools open,' then, well, we're going to do everything in our power to keep schools closed," Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco, told me. Gandhi describes herself as "left of left," but has alienated some of her ideological peers because she has advocated for policies such as reopening schools and establishing a clear timeline for the end of mask mandates.
...The spring of 2021 is different from the spring of 2020, though. Scientists know a lot more about how COVID-19 spreads--and how it doesn't. Public-health advice is shifting. But some progressives have not updated their behavior based on the new information. And in their eagerness to protect themselves and others, they may be underestimating other costs. Being extra careful about COVID-19 is (mostly) harmless when it's limited to wiping down your groceries with Lysol wipes and wearing a mask in places where you�re unlikely to spread the coronavirus, such as on a hiking trail. But vigilance can have unintended consequences when it imposes on other people's lives. Even as scientific knowledge of COVID-19 has increased, some progressives have continued to embrace policies and behaviors that aren't supported by evidence, such as banning access to playgrounds, closing beaches, and refusing to reopen schools for in-person learning.
Even as the very effective covid-19 vaccines have become widely accessible, many progressives continue to listen to voices preaching caution over relaxation. Anthony Fauci recently said he wouldn�t travel or eat at restaurants even though he's fully vaccinated, despite CDC guidance that these activities can be safe for vaccinated people who take precautions. California Governor Gavin Newsom refused in April to guarantee that the state's schools would fully reopen in the fall, even though studies have demonstrated for months that modified in-person instruction is safe. Leaders in Brookline, Massachusetts, decided this week to keep a local outdoor mask mandate in place, even though the CDC recently relaxed its guidance for outdoor mask use. And scolding is still a popular pastime. "At least in San Francisco, a lot of people are glaring at each other if they don�t wear masks outside," Gandhi said, even though the risk of outdoor transmission is very low.
Scientists, academics, and writers who have argued that some very low-risk activities are worth doing as vaccination rates rise--even if the risk of exposure is not zero--have faced intense backlash. After Emily Oster, an economist at Brown University, argued in The Atlantic in March that families should plan to take their kids on trips and see friends and relatives this summer, a reader sent an email to her supervisors at the university suggesting that Oster be promoted to a leadership role in the field of "genocide encouragement." "Far too many people are not dying in our current global pandemic, and far too many children are not yet infected," the reader wrote. "With the upcoming consequences of global warming about to be felt by a wholly unprepared worldwide community, I believe the time is right to get young scholars ready to follow in Dr. Oster�s footsteps and ensure the most comfortable place to be is white [and] upper-middle-class."
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