Great WAPO piece on midwest mask denying town: Really well written

[lindysalsagal]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/09/south-dakota-mitchell-covid-masks/?arc404=true

By Annie Gowen DECEMBER 9, 2020

~snip~

As Wellsandt-Zell led those mourning Timmins in the hymn “Jesus Loves Me,” the rumble of an approaching helicopter cut through the sound of the singing and the mourners’ soft tears. In Mitchell, the medical emergency helicopter, once a rare occurrence, now comes nearly every day, ferrying the growing number of people desperately ill with covid-19 to a hospital that might be able to save them.
~snip~
That morning, Nov. 16, Buck woke after a restless night and called out for his wife. He mumbled something — she thought he said, “I love you” — so she wrapped her arms around his head and said, “I love you, too!” Just after noon, he was gone. They had planned on taking an Alaskan cruise together next year, but now she was alone, 10 days before Thanksgiving with a stack of bills on the table she wasn’t sure how to pay.
~snip~
So many town leaders have died in such a short time that the impact has been profound, Tjarks said. Who will fill Timmins’s shoes as a mentor for young referees in the state high school athletic association? Who will raise money for the veteran’s park and the rodeo stampede now that state legislator Lance Carson is gone? There would be smaller absences too: her neighbor, John, now missing from the morning group at the doughnut shop.
~snip~
The anti-mask forces sat with naked faces, defying the mayor’s order. One by one, they got up to air their grievances. They wept. They swore. They cited junk science: Positivity defeats the virus. So does a healthy lifestyle, eating wild-caught sardines, pasture-raised beef liver and drinking raw organic kombucha. A young mother stood up and compared anti-maskers to Jews persecuted in the Holocaust: “The bare face is the new yellow star of Nazi Germany,” she said.

[Thomas Hurt]

1. Sadly, you can't fix that level of gullibility and fixation.

[hurple]

2. GD paywall

Ugh

[gratuitous]

3. What can be done for these people?

A group of people this determined to court sickness and death in the face of what's going on around them, what can be done? They won't trust anyone who denies their delusion. They aren't fazed by the obvious failures of their practices. They even grab the mantle of victimhood when outsiders tell them they're doing things wrong. What can you do? If you were to try to force them into best practices for their own good, you'd have a full-scale riot on your hands.

[Srkdqltr]

4. My first thought was the heck with them, let them die.

Problem is that they spread the virus to others and I can't wish death on others. How sad.

[kimbutgar]

5. I think these anti maskers need to get sick, seriously ill and perhaps die for their stubborn

Stupidity. I don’t feel sorry for them.

My adult son with autism understands the importance of wearing masks. We made him watch a documentary about the virus which was visual and he understood the virus was deadly. And he has an intellectual disability. MF45 really exposed a lot of underlying mental illness on people. To ignore what you see and hear with your lying eyes is insanity,

[PatSeg]

6. "Wild-caught sardines"?

Or "raw organic kombucha"? Wouldn't it be easier and certainly cheaper to just wear a mask?

[lindysalsagal]

7. I know! That stuff will give you heartburn or acid reflux.

[PatSeg]

10. Oh ugh, makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it

I seems they at the point where they will literally do ANYTHING to keep from wearing a mask. Of all the things in life worth dying for, a mask seems really absurd.

[Raven]

8. Little Jonestowns all over the country.

[crickets]

11. That's one way to put it... and all too sadly accurate. nt

[Alex4Martinez]

9. Watch "progressive" Santa Cruz, CA, county supervisor meetings for batshit craziness

I am aghast when I watch the folks who appear in person to protest how the government is taking away their freedoms, except these folks are not Conservatives or Republicans...

They're a special demographic of anti-vax, anti-5G, anti-mask, and they use the same rhetoric as in the WaPo article.