How much has the psychology of our nation been upended by this pandemic?

We’ve seen people blindly turn over their lives to the dictates of the government. The government shut down businesses, jobs and destroyed lives. Children went without in-person school. Every other illness or condition seemed to be suborned to the interest of fighting the pandemic.

When the CDC said that fully vaccinated people could now go without masks, one would think that those on the left who said “Follow the science” would have been happy. This meant they could drop the masks.

But instead, people who previously accepted the government dictates then refused to accept that one. Some refuse to accept that “science,” because it has been so ingrained in them that they need to wear them to be protected.

Perhaps nothing shows this more than a letter that was written into Slate by a woman asking for advice about her husband who refused to take off his mask. Even when they were in their home alone, even though both were fully vaccinated. He refused to take it off even when eating and sleeping, even when they were having sex, she said.

“During the pandemic, his terror about getting sick has reached new levels. For the last year, he has refused to take off his face mask, even when we are at home—just the two of us. This is true even now that he is fully vaccinated for the virus.

“He wears it to sleep, to do most of his bathroom activities, and, yes, even during lovemaking. To eat, he pulls it up to expose his mouth, and then quickly pulls it back down between bites. While he does not insist that I do the same, I can tell it bothers him that I don’t.”

When she questions him about why he doesn’t accept the science, he says that that science doesn’t know everything about the virus yet.

“Scientists don’t fully understand the virus yet,” or, “I know it probably isn’t necessary, but wearing it doesn’t bother me, so if there’s even a small chance that it can protect us, I’d rather be on the safe side. What’s the harm?”

I disagree that there’s no harm. I want to see my beautiful husband’s face again. I want to kiss him on the lips romantically, like we used to, and not through a piece of fabric. (He does not change his mask very often and it is often smelly and soiled.) And I don’t want to feel judged by him for my own behavior, which I consider reasonable.

This is something bordering on psychosis, this isn’t science. There’s a reason that you’re supposed to expel the air that you do for your health. If you do not, you are actually harming yourself, not to mention the fact that what does he think he’s protecting against in his own home?

Now the advice they gave her was to get him to a doctor that might be able to preach a little reality to him. I wonder if even that would do it after it’s been so pounded into his head.

While this might be an extreme reaction, it’s just one example of how much this pandemic seems to have unhinged people. The harm from the reaction to the pandemic would be hard to even begin to calculate.