Responding to Post-COVID Stress Disorder

As much as those of us who have known the truth about the COVID-19 fiasco from the beginning would like to shame those who are continuing to triple mask even after getting vaccinated, we must realize that these people (like all of us) have been on the receiving end of government abuse for over a year. It is perfectly normal for a person who is fed a constant stream of conflicting and false information concerning life and death to default to a fearful posture. Yet at the same time, those who willingly supported the government stripping you and your family of their constitutional rights deserve much of the blame for what happened and there must be a limit to our tolerance for their pathological fear.

If you told the average grocery shopper that the store is full of grizzly bears who are safely docile only if a mask is on the shopper’s face, might they still be hesitant to go shopping at all? If a year later you told the same shoppers that the bears were now tolerant of unmasked faces and were perfectly safe with or without masks, wouldn’t some shoppers still feel safer wearing their masks?

Such is the nature of Post-COVID Stress Disorder. To be clear, I have no idea if this is an actual, clinically recognized condition. It’s simply a term I’m using to describe the similarly irrational behavior of those who still seem traumatized into continuing their fearful, socially isolated, and distrustful behavior. And as much as we see some of their behavior as evidence of an inability to understand data or as blind compliance (and it is), we should understand the abuse they’ve suffered at the hands of those in positions of public trust.

These people have been fed a constant stream of lies. They were told that the virus would have a 3.4% case fatality rate (it’s actually 0.1%). They were told masks were not needed, then told they had been lied to on purpose to save inventory for essential workers. They were told the virus remained on surfaces, then that it didn’t. They were told everyone would get the virus, but that we needed to “flatten the curve” to make sure those suffering serious symptoms wouldn’t all need hospital care at the same time.

When it became clear this wouldn’t happen, the “experts” shifted the goal from flattening the curve to flattening the virus – even though there was no scientific evidence this was possible. They were sold a zero-sum equation, where they were expected to only focus on COVID-related deaths and forget about every other societal consequence – job losses, wedding postponements, funerals, etc. were all non-essential. Non-COVID medical care like chemotherapy, cancer screenings, and elective surgeries were postponed or missed entirely. The standard epidemiological framework used prior to 2020 was quietly replaced with new definitions designed to create maximum fear and ensure compliance with guidelines that were never better than an “expert’s” best guess. Everyone with the mere presence of the virus in their system was considered a case along with those who were on their death beds – again to create maximum fear and compliance.

Primal fear divided citizens against citizens, who now viewed others as an existential threat, and government officials like Jared Polis ramped up hyperbolic rhetoric to drive the fear – like the claim that showing up for Thanksgiving dinner was akin to bringing a pistol for grandma’s head.

The purposeful campaign to blow the entire thing out of proportion is why half of people aged 18-34 are worried about returning to normal life even though the COVID infection fatality rate for those under 45 is almost zero:

While we should attempt to be patient, we should so push them back into normal life for their own sake and the sake of society. We must also refuse to let them off the hook for continuing to propagate provable falsehoods like the idea that the flu disappeared because of masks or that government officials were justified in any way with their unconstitutional overreach. When they fall for this crap next time and willingly support the violation of theirs and your freedom, we must shame them and refuse to go along. It’s the right thing to do.