“The virus simply does not factor into my calculations or those of my neighbors,” boasts Matthew Walther (Atlantic, 12/13/21).
A second Delta wave of Covid-19 is hitting parts of the country hard at the moment, as public health experts anxiously keep an eye on the newest variant, Omicron, to see what impact it might have on the pandemic here. On a day when some outlets (e.g., New York Times, 12/13/21) soberly reported that the recorded US death toll is about to surpass 800,000—a number greater than the entire population of Seattle, Denver or Washington, DC; greater than the US toll from the Spanish Flu or the Civil War—the Atlantic (12/13/21) gleefully marked the occasion by publishing a glib piece headlined “Where I Live, No One Cares About Covid.”
One could imagine value in a sociological piece attempting to explain why, despite the fact that case rates have gone up by 49% over the past two weeks, with nearly 1,300 Americans dying of Covid per day, people in some parts of the country deny the reality of the pandemic, resisting vaccination and other public health measures that would reduce those numbers and their attendant suffering.
This is not that piece.
Author Matthew Walther (of Catholic magazine the Lamp and the American Conservative) turns his lens not on those who don’t care, but rather on those who do. His point is not to enlighten readers about the pandemic, but to tweak the Atlantic‘s largely liberal audience by mocking their “relentless adherence to CDC directives,” which he compares to other “silly novelties—no-fault divorce, factory-sliced bread, frozen meals and, of course, infant formula—[that] are adopted enthusiastically by the upper middle classes.”
Matthew Walther
Walther describes being gobsmacked by news articles untangling what behaviors might be safer than others at family holiday gatherings and brags about his “hundreds of hours” of maskless time spent in bars, restaurants, travels and weddings during the pandemic. He finds those “still genuinely concerned about this virus” to be “almost absurdly overrepresented in media and elite institutions.” Readers are apparently to understand that in publishing Walther, the Atlantic is just doing their part to correct the bias.
“In my part of America,” Walther writes condescendingly,
the only people one ever sees with masks are brooding teenagers seated alone in coffee shops, who seem to have adopted masks to set themselves apart from the reactionary banality of life in flyover country in the same way that I once scribbled anti-Bush slogans on T-shirts. The survival of such old-fashioned adolescent angst is, at any rate, deeply heartening.
Or, perhaps those teenagers have more interest in reality and more regard for others than Walther does, knowing that their adherence to public health measures helps protect not just them, but their vulnerable neighbors, from a deadly pandemic. He wears his disregard as a badge of honor:
Covid is invisible to me except when I am reading the news, in which case it strikes me with all the force of reports about distant coups in Myanmar.
I thought about searching the Atlantic‘s archives for pieces with titles like “Where I Live, No One Cares About Slavery” or “Where I Live, No One Cares About Child Labor,” or, more recently, “Where I Live, No One Cares About the Opioid Crisis.” Perhaps they would indeed publish such things as well. Beyond the clickbait shock value of the sentiment is a truly sociopathic contempt for others’ lives, a narcissistic dismissal of neighbors both near and far who, through age, health condition or simple bad luck, have been devastated by Covid, or live knowing they are at high risk of such devastation—as well as a blithe indifference to the overworked, burned-out and emotionally traumatized health professionals who treat them.
Walther lives in Michigan, which is among the hardest hit states in the country at the moment. He acknowledges only parenthetically that the case rate in his county is currently at its highest level of the pandemic, as if this is largely irrelevant information. Meanwhile, hospitals in his state are at their breaking point, not accepting transfers, canceling elective surgeries, and asking for emergency staffing help from the Defense Department (CNN, 12/10/21; Bloomberg, 11/23/21). (Walther dismisses this by saying that “hospitalization statistics…are always high this time of year without attracting much notice.”)
Michigan is currently the state with the highest death rate from Covid-19, with an average of 120 people—1.2 people per 100,000—dying daily. Since the start of the pandemic, more than 1 in every 400 people in Michigan has died from the virus.
Why would the Atlantic, which counts among its staff reporters Katherine Wu and Ed Yong, who have been leading exponents of illuminating, science-based coverage on Covid, also lend its prestige to those driving this crisis and unwilling to critique their own behavior? (The Atlantic did publish a piece the next day by staff writer Clint Smith, headlined “800,000 Deaths,” making the point that 800,000 is indeed a large number of deaths—a piece that does not mitigate but underscores the recklessness of publishing a piece that will increase the number of deaths to the extent that readers take it seriously.)
On December 14, 2021, the top three articles on the Atlantic‘s website were either examining or celebrating the rejection of public health measures to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
That the Walther piece is currently ranked the site’s most popular—presumably a combination of hate-clicks and Covid denialists looking for confirmation—no doubt has something to do with why it was published. But the Atlantic‘s opinion section also seems to take a particularly aggressive approach to the magazine’s branding as “fearlessly questioning the assumptions of the moment.” (See, e.g., its solidarity with bigots and transphobes and “not taking offense easily.”) They ought to pay more attention to another “core principle” of their mission: that “ideas have consequences, sometimes world-historical consequences.”
As NPR recently reported (12/5/21), attitudes like those disseminated in the Atlantic have increasingly deadly consequences. As political ideology has become inextricably linked to pandemic behavior, the most Trump-loving counties now have the highest Covid death rates:
People living in counties that went 60% or higher for Trump in November 2020 had 2.73 times the death rates of those that went for Biden. Counties with an even higher share of the vote for Trump saw higher Covid-19 mortality rates. In October, the reddest tenth of the country saw death rates that were six times higher than the bluest tenth.
NPR (12/5/21) reported that counties that voted for Donald Trump in 2020 had both lower rates of Covid vaccination and much higher current rates of Covid death than counties that voted for Joe Biden.
Statistically, many Americans will not personally know someone who died of Covid; it doesn’t mean hundreds of thousands—millions, globally—haven’t been lost. It’s the critical job of news outlets to help people see the big picture that’s not always obvious from one’s narrow individual perspective. Writers ridiculing attempts to mitigate a deadly pandemic as “parochialism” are barbaric trolls, and they shouldn’t be treated as brave truth-tellers by news outlets worth reading.
ACTION ALERT:
Please ask the Atlantic not to publish articles urging people to spurn public health measures during a pandemic.
CONTACT:
You can send messages to the Atlantic here (or via Twitter: @TheAtlantic).
Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread of this post.
Walther: a hard-to-beat combination of arrogance, ignorance and snobberance. (Well, okay, snobbery.) What a pathetic excuse of a human being! Sliced bread, upper middle class? Reportedly some 80 percent of bread sold in the US is, you guessed it, sliced. I guess that means 4 of 5 Americans belong to the upper middle class. Yowza! If you wish to inform them of their amazing good fortune, I’ll hold your Bud Light.
Might one imagine Walther as a lord in medieval Europe?
“All this fol de rol over the Black Death …
I mean, it only kills peasants.”
I actually thought it was a good article. He never promoted his views as something to be emulated, just pointed out the facts of how things are where he lives and that he’s pretty much OK with it. I also live in Michigan, albeit in the SE portion by Detroit, not the SW where he lives, but I pretty much see everything he described in my neighborhood too. I do wear mask most of the time when I’m shopping and such, but if I forget to bring it from my car, I just shrug and go on, I don’t go back for it. The mask isn’t going to save me from the 90% of people who aren’t wearing one anyway, it’s more to protect those folks from me. I am triple vaccinated though, so I’m not much worried about myself.
It will absolutely save you. Any kn95 or n95 protects the wearer as much as it protects others. Maybe that ideology is why Michigans hospitals are critical capacity right now
How many people do you see wearing N95 or KN95 masks? I don’t see many. Most people are more concerned about mask fashion than function and the masks they do wear are loose fitting and even many under their nose.
https://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/epa-researchers-test-effectiveness-face-masks-disinfection-methods-against-covid-19
And *why* do you think it is that not many people are wearing good masks or wearing them properly?
Because they’re expensive and a pain in the ass fo use would be my guess…
Because masks that work are uncomfortable and inconvenient. I have n95 masks that are as comfortable as they get, and are still uncomfortable. Prior to being 3x vaxxed myself, I wore them religiously. Now that I am *almost* guaranteed not to die, I go with my sneeze protector versions.
Hey Fritz, Clue us in on how comfortable you are hooked up to the respirator when your dumb luck runs out. Enjoy.
Oh Mr Walther:
I looked at your picture and into your eyes—- I am sad to say that I do not see a man of confidence. I see distrust—possibly of the world? I wish you well—but it’s not to late to get the vaccine. I looked at your picture again—and this time saw, a hair style reminiscent of Nero. Get the vaccine, please.
Disagree. Considering this virus is never going away, vaccines have been widely available in the United States for almost a year, and everyone will get infected (and reinfected) eventually, articles like this are a bit more forward-thinking than the rest of the scare mongering media.
The Hacklantic also just ran an article claiming that child sex trafficking is a right wing “conspiracy theory.” Meanwhile Ghislaine Maxwell is on trial in the biggest coverup since Obama’s Look Forward policy. The Hacklantic should just be ignored if not regularly ridiculed.
What if the ongoing high profile disregard for the spread of COVID in the U.S., is fueled by a cynical attempt to reduce the growing number of people who receive social security and disability payments, ultimately reducing the long term cost of these entitlement programs?
Bradley…..not to be a tone troll….but if I were a tone troll (lol) I’d have to take issue with that term “entitlement programs.”
Can you imagine if we referred to our direct deposited paychecks in such a way?
I Googled “Stop calling Social Security an entitlement” and this popped up –
“All too often, the other side of the aisle refers to Social Security as an “entitlement”. That is simply wrong – it’s the insurance Americans have paid for to fund retirement, disability, and survivor benefits through a lifetime of work.
The legal definition of the term “entitlement program” is as follows:
“Entitlement program is a federal program that guarantees certain level of benefits to persons or other entities who meet the requirements established by law, such as social security, farm price supports or unemployment benefits. This program does not leave any discretion with Congress on how much money to appropriate, or which entitlements carry permanent appropriations.”
https://definitions.uslegal.com/e/entitlement-program/
Why do you hijack conversation threads to put forth opinions as fact?
Bra cause words matter and even though you are able to thoughtfully use an accurate vocabulary and explain yourself, many many many ppl read the word “entitlement” and think “welfare queen” “lazy” “get a job” etc…. It’s a “dog whistle” used by those against essential socio-economic programs.
Logic 101 teaches us that “many many many ppl” are WRONG, and that their opinions are completely worthless. Period.
FUN FACT: There are literally tens of millions of American morons who are currently dragging our nation towards a second civil war.
Why respond with a pedantic argument regarding conversational tone including a bogus definition, or another replete with a fallacious argumentum ad populum?
One could easily choose to research the projected budget for entitlement programs into the coming decades, and offer some sort of well-reasoned or coherent response not dipped in partisan politics.
It’s cynical but not quite at that level.
The Republicans like the distraction of being angry at Fauci rather than tax cheats and their own scandals.
Some on wall Street simply accept that people die when they go to work in a pandemic, because they’ll die sometime anyway, maybe in the next war.
I hope what you say is true, but have a hard time squaring the fact that Republicans are currently legislating and litigating on behalf of anti-vaxxers, when this has already killed hundreds of thousands of their registered voters.
75% of those lost to COVID were older than 65, and 1 in 100 older Americans have already died of the disease. MORE THAN 600,000 DEAD THUS FAR!
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/13/us/covid-deaths-elderly-americans.html
They’re fully courting the anti vax vote, to shake the public’s faith in government. Wherever that leads. It’s how they have decided to stay in power and I’m not sure enough people realize it yet. It’s not a principled discussion, it is all about greed and distraction.
There’s clearly not many principled discussions conducted within any representative body, where Ted Cruz and Chuck Schumer could both somehow be mistaken for a legitimate statesman.
Sam Pizzigati just wrote a piece about the prospects of Democracy, and Biden.The World Inequality Report was just put out as well.
Just read this, Julie: “…In the end, the most striking indictment of market fundamentalism emerges from what has happened to life expectancy in the United States. Life expectancy is easier to measure than income; in many ways it is also more informative than the more materialistic notions of well-being discussed so far. Most people care about living a long, healthy life more than anything else. On average, for every five dollars they earn every year, Americans pay one dollar to doctors, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, and insurance companies. They have never spent as much on health care as they do today, and they spend much more on health care than residents of any other country. And yet, Americans’ life-expectancy is falling. It fell for the third straight year in 2017. In 1980, life expectancy in America exceeded that of other OECD nations by 1.5 years. Today it is almost two years less than in other wealthy countries.
“This deterioration took place gradually; its timing precisely mirrors the gradual worsening of relative living conditions for the working class. The affluent live longer, the poor die younger. In recent history, there is only one comparable example of life expectancy falling during peacetime–Russia during the chaotic transition away from communism in the first half of the 1990s…” ~from “The Triumph of Injustice”, by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman
Disappointing to read the fear porn has infiltrated FAIR. Re-check your numbers with the re-ality that makes the use of old statistics for the purpose of mass psychosis unacceptable.
Otherwise, keep up the great work. It’s really quite shocking how the “left” or “progressives” or whatever, have ceded skepticism about the bio-chemical shenanigans to the “right”. Best thing that’s ever happened for the GOP. It’s a shame.
Do you have a degree in biochemistry?
Thank you for bringing this forward. It is a disgrace that Atlantic published it. A sign of the total slide of establishment media into a nihilistic babble of opinion pieces that mimics the structure of the market and consumption it purports to
criticize by means of a fable of a “democracy” that is supposedly confirmed by its inexistence. The media believes that the “invisible hand” of the market is what supports the void of the latter. This belief system brands serious critique as heresy.It is precisely as you say, a form of narcissism. That the piece is by a conservative Catholic reconfirms Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor “. Strange that nobody writes about Putin’s cynical courting of the Russian Orthodox Church. An old aspect of Russian politics. Your piece is important as it situates politics in a cultural/ethical context abandoned by the Democrats and little used by a Left in the U.S.A caught in the quicksands of postmodern “identity” contortions. Thanks.
The Atlantic is becoming Rush Limbaugh for intellectuals.
They should have never hired Jeffery.
My wife and I live in the reddest of red-state Missouri. I have an exotic disease that periodically tries to kill me. I wear a mask whenever I go into any indoor establishment as I know that if I contract this disease, post three vaccinations, I’m a dead man. I wear a mask to protect myself and others. I am protecting those who refuse to protect people like me; yes, even those who seem to have skipped over the enlightenment period, empiricism, and rational thought. Why is that irrationality to dominating in Trumplandia?
It is a shame that the discussion of Covid vaccines has degenerated into a shouting match, with each faction trotting out its stable of scientists and doctors who share their views. The social media censorship of arguments against the vaccines only reinforces the view that they are a hoax, since if they were not there would be no need to censor them instead of discredit them. Arguments do not report statistics, but instead demand we accept the authority of “experts.” Passionate antivaxers insist that the pandemic is just a fabricated excuse to enrich big pharmaceuticals and establish legal precedents that will allow further destruction of civil liberties. That the U.S. oligarchy uses the pandemic as a pretext to spread panic through the corporate media, enrich multibillionaire pharmaceutical companies, and abrogate basic human rights is what should be expected, considering that the U.S. form of government is plutocracy. But it does not mean that the pandemic is not real and that the vaccines are ineffective.
Absolutely obtuse. A disease so deadly they have to retroactively contribute a month old infection to a death caused by car wreck or a sky dive accident. A disease so deadly you have to test to see if you have it. How can they actually test for a disease they’ve yet to actually isolate and instead have to use related dna profile of another coronavirus (which are common colds)-the spike protein and its associated vaccines (which they aren’t actually vaccines but rather gene therapy and have never been used in long term studies yet media prestitutes and big pharma whores lie about that fact which is is exactly the same kind of lies and coverup done by Nazis and journalists and medical workers including doctors were hung for. No one who has been jabbed has been given informed consent. No one.
All the dying athletes. Those falling over in the middle of a game who are in their prime and fit! Dead after vaccination. Hundreds of pilots have been dropping dead after vaccination. No wonder the unjabbed (hospital workers) refuse and would rather be homeless. Why would they refuse it if it saved lives. They see first hand the truth.
Personally everyone I know doesn’t know a soul dead from the virus. But we all know someone falsely accused of dying from it or someone who got jabbed and is now dead. Or even worse disabled.
So while you continue on with your fake pandemic (exactly how is a death rate so small even considered a pandemic) jabbing and masking-continue as you will ignoring the actual genocide and bang the drums of what is truly – a Covid Cult. You’ve got your head so far… you can’t see the truth through all the crap.
Our great leaders have a plan well under the guise of this-you are playing your part perfect but trust me when the plans are done you won’t be a part of them. You just a pawn. A puppet. So let’s be FAIR.
Alrighty then. Say hello to Q for me…
“How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!
-Mark Twain(1906)
As a paying subscriber, I expressed my disgust at this decision and suggested they take some credit when we hit 1,000,000 deaths.