JULY 8, FRIDAY

HERD BEHAVIOR

Today was my yearly physical checkup. Each year my passage through life is a little more perilous and the chance of my doctor finding something ominous increases. But he checked me out and didn’t find anything. I am overweight and have been for 40 years. Being overweight was one of the things that was going to kill me, but so far it hasn’t, and my doctor now lets it go without even mentioning it. Now that the medical community feels obesity is not a matter of weak self control but a result of the body being out of sync somehow, my doctor is not reproachful and I no longer feel guilty. I mentioned that if it was a problem I could take Ozempic and shed 40 pounds instantly. But he didn’t recommend it. It might not cost as much as I think, he said, but his experience was that many people who take Ozempic feel so woozie and weak that of course they don’t feel hunger and lose weight. So he closed that avenue for me.

But the thing that most struck me about my visit besides his cheerfulness and interest in my travels was that we were almost cheeky to cheek no longer wearing a mask.

Up today whenever I entered the waiting room at Asheville Family Health I needed to wear a mask. They provided masks at the door, checked to see if I was well and took my temperature. It made sense to me because they were doctors after all and if anyone knew the risks of getting Covid they did. But this time I went in mask free and no one working there was wearing a mask, either, when last time everyone was.

And then is suddenly struck me. At the beginning of the pandemic no one wore a mask, in fact we were told by the highest authorities that masks were of little use and were encouraged not to mask. At that point you felt like you were a fool if you wore a mask, as foolish as I thought that Japanese tourists were on their visits to Varnasi, all masked up because of India’s terrible pollution. I visited India every second year and at the end of every month long visit I was coughing uncontrolably. It was because of pollution. But I wouldn’t wear a mask because I thought I would look stupid.

And then all of a sudden, months into the pandemic, masks were in. Everyone in Asheville wore a mask and stood six feet apart. Anyone who didn’t wear a mask was considered a threat and looked down on for being a fool, and worse than that, a direct threat. Any MAGA person unmasked was the enemy.

And then all just as suddenly several months ago everyone took their mask off. Covid hadn’t gone away and people were still dying. But we had had enough. The pandemic was declared over. Now it was the MAGA people who had so long been irritated at being pariahs and were eager to get out from under the hand of the government telling them what to do that seemed to indicate, I told you so. And the rest of us went right along. No masks.

What struck me today as I went into the waiting room without a mask in sight, was that what had been happening for two years was herd instinct as much as it was being a responsible citizen. When the herd didn’t wear masks, I certainly wasn’t going to wear one. When the herd suddenly masked up, I did, too, and mocked anyone who didn’t for being a fool and a threat. When the herd took their masks off a few months ago, I resisted briefly and wore a mask as a badge of honor, but only briefly. When everyone was maskless I felt like a fool. I carried a mask in my pocket but never put it on and I didn’t stand six feet apart, either.

And then I had another revelation. During the worst of the pandemic there was another herd who believed that wearing a mask because the government, who they didn’t trust, told you to do it, was stupid. If you were a member of the MAGA herd, of course you didn’t wear a mask. If all your friends didn’t wear a mask you weren’t going to stand out like a sore thumb and be mocked by your friens, your herd. Of course you weren’t going to wear a mask. Many of the MAGA people got covid, but so did I and many of my masked friends. Finally I realized that it was herd instinct on either side that led to mask wearing or not wearing a mask. We were all alike, all equally righteous, moved by herd instinct.