Media blames society for shaming people who've had COVID

I haven't written anything long form for a while but this has driven me to gripe again. Today I noticed a tweet thread from Chris Cillizza, CNN Politics Reporter and Editor-At-Large. (He's the guy who tries to not sound as batshit crazy as Brian Stelter.) Cillizza was bemoaning the fact that those in his bubble wouldn't admit they had COVID. 

Cillizza goes on to observe that "societally we unknowingly turned having Covid into some sort of judgment on your character". (emphasis mine)

The pure self-unawareness here is the completely ignoring the role the media (Chris' team), government and big tech have played in pushing this sort of thinking onto society. This is not a collective we. This was not unknowingly. It was a collective, coordinated and completely conscious effort by media/tech/gov to shame people into getting the unproven and untested vaccines, wearing masks, isolating and social distancing. 

So if you got COVID, naturally you must be doing something wrong. Maybe you went to a football game (even though they have not turned out to be the super spreaders Fauci predicted). Maybe you didn't wear your mask 100% of the time. Went to a birthday party. Let your kids play with those unwashed heathen kids down the street. Shopped at a crowded store. Didn't stay on the 6' dot. Got the wrong vax at the wrong time. Or maybe you had heretical thoughts like why are my kids going to get vaxed when they rarely get really sick from COVID?

Since Cillizza no doubt associates only with like-minded left-leaning political types, it's easy to see how the shame factor can kick in. All you have to do is watch a few hysterical, over the top videos on TikTok to realize how deranged some people's thought processes have become. And not just about COVID but about nearly everything. Rational thinking has been supplanted by "feelings".

Cellizza closes his tweet storm with Omicron changing the dynamic. Sadly it's true. When the supposed smart people start realizing that the virus is gonna virus no matter what, it may change some minds. HOWEVER, it's still not enough to force the necessary introspection needed to admit THEY were wrong all along about pretty much everything from the response to the positioning.

We still don't have testing for antibodies to tell the unvaxed if they should get vaxed. (Yes, I firmly believe that natural immunity is far more durable and long lasting from having had COVID than any mRNA vax can deliver.) We still have a coercive approach to vaccinations. We still have teachers using COVID as a weapon so they don't have to work. We still have pressure on kids to get vaxed when they are at almost zero risk from COVID. We still have people being required to wear a mask when they walk to their table in restaurant only to take them off when they are seated. (Because of course, COVID doesn't transmit at seated level, only when standing.) We still fire healthcare workers because they refuse to take an experimental vaccine (and may have natural immunity),

So Chris' little "ah-ha" moment is really a drop in the bucket that will ultimately change nothing about the politics of COVID. As long as the left continues to see COVID as an opportunity weapon of control, nothing will change.