The CDC finally announced that anyone who has been vaccinated is no longer required to wear a mask but some people are still not happy about it. In areas heavily affected by national issues like BLM and climate change a new health emergency has developed: a mental health crisis.
Shockingly, there are many Americans who are still afraid to take off their masks and wish to hide behind a paper shield. This behavior is irrational and a neurosis, like washing your hands several times in a row, they can’t get cleaner every time. Now, this mindset is spreading fast just as if it were its own virus.
Just last week, an anchor on “CBS This Morning” confessed that she had been suffering from extreme anxiety at the thought of walking around in public without a mask on.
GAYLE KING: Dr Fauci please help us with the mask situation. I know we were told we don’t have to wear it outside but I’m telling you, I was in New York where I live, walking down the street I just stopped a random lady and I said have you been vaccinated and she said yes. I said “Me too. Why are we wearing our masks?” and she goes “I don’t know.” I said me too, ma’am, me too. I think we all feel either guilty or we feel it’s not time. Monkey see monkey do. Do you really think it’s ok?
This is not an isolated phenomenon. CNN just published a piece by a psychologist named John Duffy. Duffy describes his patients’ “anxious nightmares” over going maskless. Some patients, he reported, “feel obsessive or compulsive about mask-wearing and distance, and are concerned that obsession will not simply abate because of the CDC announcement.” The announcement telling them they don’t have to do this.
Duffy also said the saddest part is that children are suffering from the condition. He said, “Some of our youngest kids may not remember a time before we were all wearing masks and remaining far apart. It’s going to take a bit of time for them to emotionally unravel this tangle of anxiety.”
