“Masks are encouraged, but not compulsory”
Phew! I don’t have to wear a mask. I hate wearing a mask. I’m so glad that the pandemic is over.
Except, that’s not really true, is it?
Masks were made compulsory at the start of the pandemic, upon recommendation by scientists. It quickly became common knowledge that a mask is worn: to limit the spread of the disease; with the awareness that some individuals whose lives are more at risk from the virus; and an understanding that not everyone can wear masks, so those who can, should.
Simply, wearing a mask became an expression of our duty and care for one another.
As such, masks have been imbued with symbolism. Initially, the omnipotence of mask-wearing kept us in high alert, provoking trepidation, an unknowing, and a sense of imminent destruction.
But they also symbolise solidarity. Together, we stayed apart. We, as a world, are fighting a deadly virus.
And we still are fighting this deadly virus.
Since the compulsory mask enforcement became redundant in February this year, there have been almost thirty thousand people admitted to hospitals with the coronavirus over sixteen thousand people died from covid-19. Vaccines provide some immunity against the virus, but this is little judication for people with immune-suppressed conditions.
Yet the UK government is keen for us to quickly discard our masks and discard the solidarity, duty, and care that masks-wearing has come to symbolise.
Despite coronavirus remaining a real threat to life, especially to those with disabilities or immunosuppressive conditions, the government is adamant that covid is a thing of the past. This perverse, eugenics mindset epitomises the systemic and structural ableism that the pandemic has emblazoned.
Writer and disability and transformative justice movement worker, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, makes the sardonic observation that the technologies needed to facilitate virtual working, learning, and participation - which have been long campaigned for by disabled people - appeared because suddenly ‘able people needed them’.
Technology which already existed. But, in true capitalist fashion, it took an existential threat to its entire labour force for these technologies to be harnessed. This epitomises the sheer depravity of the capitalist system.
Imagine how the transition into lockdown would have been experienced had these technologies already been nationally implemented and if businesses and institutions already made conscious efforts to cater for access needs.
Not only are they reasonable and feasible, but these accommodations also foster inclusivity and provide more equal opportunities within our communities.
Of course, for some people, going virtual has been an isolating and exclusionary experience, especially for people who do not have access to the right technology to meet their needs.
However, it has been proven possible to hold events, protests, classes, workshops and work online as well as in person. Hybridity between “virtual” and “in-person” promises inclusivity never before achieved. And that is powerful.
At this moment in time, there has never in history been more concurrent protests across UK streets, standing against the decade of Tory austerity, the cost of living crisis, the environmental crisis, institutional racism, and worker exploitation.
General secretary of the RMT trade union, Mick Lynch, who has rallied widespread support for railway strikes, asks: “You don’t think strikes are the answer? What is?”
And more than ever before, we are equipped to unite, organise, and campaign for justice.
No wonder the government is desperately pleading with us to go back to the “pre-pandemic” ways.
Under Truss’ leadership, the UK government’s agenda is to withdraw the UK from the European Court of Human Rights. The Home Secretary has a warped “dream” and “obsession”” to see refugees and people seeking asylum in the UK deported to detention camps in the UK. And lurking in the background is the proposition of overhauling the Human Rights Act and the implementation of the regressive Bill of Rights.
Solidarity, unity, and organisation is the last thing the government wants right now.
Instead, they want us to forget that covid-19 pandemic has been a ‘social murder’. That government lethargy at the start of the pandemic is causal in the alarmingly high death toll, disproportionately high amongst the most marginalised groups in society. That the heroics of our NHS owe nothing to the government and its decade-long underfunding of social services. They want us to forget, and move on.
To simply “move on” from the pandemic is to embed ableism even deeper into our society’s structures. Instead, we must hold onto our masks, and hold onto our solidarity, duty, and care for one another.
Image : Getty, BBC
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