Matthew Walther, editor of The Lamp, a Catholic literary journal and a contributing editor at The American Conservative, penned an article for the liberal Atlantic magazine stating what should be a truism but is actually a shock to the liberal intelligentsia and opinion molders and makers on the coasts.
Nobody really gives a rat’s patootie about COVID.
I don’t know how to put this in a way that will not make me sound flippant: No one cares. Literally speaking, I know that isn’t true, because if it were, the articles wouldn’t be commissioned. But outside the world inhabited by the professional and managerial classes in a handful of major metropolitan areas, many, if not most, Americans are leading their lives as if COVID is over, and they have been for a long while.
Walther spent the last two years going to two weddings, traveling extensively, taking family vacations, spending hundreds of hours in bars and restaurants, and never wearing a mask once.
Meanwhile, our children, who have continued to attend their weekly homeschooling co-op since April 2020, have never donned masks, and they are distinctly uncomfortable on the rare occasions when they see them, for reasons that, until recently, child psychologists and other medical experts would have freely acknowledged. They have continued seeing friends and family, including their great-grandparents, on a weekly basis. As far as I can tell, they are dimly aware that “germs” are a remote cause of concern, but only our oldest, who is 6, has any recollection of the brief period last year when public Masses were suspended in our diocese and we spent Sunday mornings praying the rosary at home.
