Yesterday someone confronted me about my social media content, saying that while I’m not wrong, I’m too radical? They asked me “ok what happens once everyone agrees [that covid infections are problematic], then what?” Then we clean the air. HEPA filters are not radical.

I don’t know what they expected as an answer. We regulate water safety and food safety in an effort to decrease population rates of waterborne and foodborne illnesses. Having clean air standards to lower the rates of respiratory illnesses isn’t radical.

It’s also not radical to suggest we keep masking in healthcare and essential indoor spaces so that the disabled, high risk, elderly etc and their families can safely enjoy community life again.

Wearing a mask is not hard. Wearing 4 inch heels is hard and I do that all the time for no good reason other than vanity.

Accessibility is not radical.

Advocating in favor of a public health response to an ongoing threat is not extremism. SARS2 is the #1 infectious disease killer in this country and our excess deaths are still high. It’s not radical to think we should do something about it…

It’s also not radical to advocate for the bare minimum in terms of public health education campaigns on long covid/ post covid condition and airborne transmission. Empowering people through education is not radical.

It’s just wild for me that someone would think my covid PH advocacy is radical when in reality they agree that we should clean the air, mask in healthcare and other essential places, and educate the public. Did they think I was going to answer LoCkDoWnS?

Or is the radical part that I care enough to advocate out loud? Even when it’s not popular? Even when there’s an increasingly intense push to frame covid health advocates as radicals and extremists?

Or maybe I’m a radical because I don’t value brunch or maskless grocery shopping enough to risk LC or to betray my values? Is it radical that my physical health and my integrity are important enough to me that I’m at peace with my decision not to conform to societal expectations?

If you’ve misclassified people you actually don’t disagree with as “radicals” in your mind, you should take half a second to examine how and why that happened and re-examine your assumptions. There’s nothing radical about clean air and compassion.

David Fisman wrote a commentary about this. We don’t lack scientific consensus. The pandemic is complicated because we lack values consensus.