Jeanne Marrazzo, new leader of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, everyone:
Can I make a quick digression? We recently had a long Covid [research] meeting where we had about 200 people, in person. And we can’t mandate mask-wearing, because it’s federal property. But there was a fair amount of disturbance that we couldn’t, and people weren’t wearing masks, and one person accused us of committing a microaggression by not wearing masks.
And I take that very seriously. But I thought to myself, it’s more that people just want to live a normal life. We really don’t want to go back. It was so painful. We’re still all traumatized. Let’s be honest about that. None of us are over it.
So there’s not a lot of appetite for raising an alarm, especially if it could be perceived subsequently as a false alarm.
Edit - thanks for the help in bypassing the paywall.
From context they’re saying covid “was” traumatizing and masks et al are a reminder of that.
Idk where they’re going with the rest of it.
I would like to read the full interview this is excerpted from to be sure, but I definitely read this as saying “People just want to live a normal life [by not seeing anyone wear a mask]” rather than “People just want to live a normal life [and not be infected with a deadly disease they caught at an infectious diseases research meeting].” Since she started that part with “But,” I see it as a response against taking mask-wearing “very seriously.” Especially since she doesn’t say she took those concerns so seriously that she asked everyone to wear masks.
Edit - Ah, Christ, her next paragraph, thanks to JoeByeThen’s link, is “So there’s not a lot of appetite for raising an alarm, especially if it could be perceived subsequently as a false alarm.”