"Just because I wear a mask doesn't mean I'm locked in my house" is an ableist argument
let's not fall into ableism
https://camaradademian.substack.com/p/just-because-i-wear-a-mask-doesnt
From time to time, there are trends on social media from people who call themselves COVID-conscious. A few months ago, one of the trends was showing everything you could do while wearing a mask. This, in principle, isn't a bad thing, but the problem is that the narrative and the phrases being used were that y"ou don't live in a cave when you wear a mask".
These kinds of phrases and trends erase those of us disabled who are forced to stay home, either because we are too disabled to go out, because we know we can't afford infections, or in general because of the inaccessibility of not wearing masks in public spaces.
In all communities and all movements, there are revolutionary and reactionary lines. There are people who call themselves COVID-conscious but have lack an anti-capitalist analysis of eugenics. And coincidentally, they are often the same people who don't focus on disability justice (they often simply name it but don't practice it). It could also be that a person simply made a mistake and fell into liberalism. Just as we know we're not immune to COVID, we're not immune to propaganda in general.
I have Crohn's disease, and since the beginning of the pandemic, I could do many things in my life. In 2023, I started to consider setting limits because I was seeing that so many people were not wearing masks anymore and I was trying to find the words to really figure out what I wanted to do. In May 2024, I had a symptomatic COVID infection that caused me to develop dysautonomia and that really disables me (even more).