By Sallust<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Telegraph<\/em> has a story about the \u2018Zero Covid\u2019 zealots refusing to re-enter society<\/a>. Not only that, but these forever maskers want everyone else masked up in perpetuity too. It\u2019s a remarkable instance of the emergence of a new form of cult based on a surreal new ritual. And just for good measure, it seems that those leaning Left are most likely to be on board:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The claims of links to Covid circulating online amid the deadly chaos were not always proved beyond doubt, but in this climate of fear and confusion, a determined \u2018Zero Covid\u2019 community emerged. Co-opting a phrase that was originally an official public health policy, the \u2018Zero Coviders\u2019 believed they were watching a massacre in real time, and the maskless \u2013 especially those who were unvaccinated \u2013 were to blame. As governments relaxed the restrictions, they felt they needed to step up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was like, \u2018Okay, this is not right. This is f\u2014\u2013,’\u201d says [Alyson] Hardwick, a second-year university student who does not have any underlying health conditions. The last time she ate indoors at a restaurant was in October 2022 for her 31st birthday. \u201cI felt sketched out [uneasy],\u201d she recalls. \u201cI was leaving every place I was going inside without a mask, wondering, \u2018Did I get it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hardwick began wearing a respirator mask \u2013 specialised, disposable facepieces called N95s or N99s which offer more comprehensive protection than a surgical mask \u2013 and spending most of her time alone.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n She\u2019s ostracised herself from other people and posts thousands of clips online and argues that it\u2019s everyone else, not her, who is living in fear. \u201cDenial is a fear response,\u201d she insists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hardwick\u2019s stance exemplifies the increasingly fraught Zero Covid movement \u2013 a citizen-led campaign across the Western world to keep the air clean. She is just one of thousands of geographically disparate people, many of whom are not immunocompromised, who are still living in their own self-imposed lockdowns, fearful of becoming one of the millions to suffer with serious long Covid symptoms, or anxious about transmitting the virus to someone less fortunate. Zero Covid has adherents across North America and Europe, including some in the UK, but followers from the US and Canada are the most visible online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The charged movement to end \u2018pandemic denialism\u2019 has some high-profile advocates, including Left-wing US journalist Taylor Lorenz. \u201cIf ur [sic] not masking ur absolutely facilitating eugenics,\u201d Lorenz posted to her 350,000 followers on X on December 6th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRefusing to mask during an ongoing pandemic is absolutely violent and it\u2019s undeniably participating in social murder,\u201d she said in another recent post, as well as calling out Leftist \u201csuper spreader\u201d events. \u201cYou are actively *killing* and maiming people around you by intentionally spreading airborne disease during an active pandemic.\u201d (Separately, she pilloried non-maskers for \u201craw-dogging the air and spewing ur disease laden breath all over ur elderly neighbours\u201d.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n By 2022, the pandemic and the panicked measures were retreating into the past:<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the cautious, despite getting vaccinated and then boosted, couldn\u2019t move on. Online communities became lifelines as in-person social circles frayed. Campaigners pushed \u2018clean air\u2019 as the next public-health frontier, and offered seatbelt analogies for masking: mildly inconvenient, obviously protective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Masking was increasingly framed as an act of love, and it was overwhelmingly Left-wing groups which encouraged \u2013 even mandated \u2013 their continued use. Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac encouraged continued mask wearing. \u201cI f\u2014\u2014 hate the masks, but I wear them,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople give you dirty looks. I dare anybody to give me a dirty look. I would just say, \u2018Hey, you know what? I\u2019m Stevie Nicks.’\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n That would presumably be the same Stevie Nicks who reportedly blew a hole through her nose from snorting cocaine<\/a>. By 2023 mask use was largely discredited<\/a>, but the Telegraph<\/em> quotes a Mayo Clinic source:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople who rebuilt their entire lives and recast their identities around reducing the risk of catching Covid to zero couldn\u2019t deal with this,\u201d one former ardent Zero Covider recalls, speaking to me on condition of anonymity. \u201cThe movement devolved into a massive online circle-jerk where members blindly validate each other on taking disproportionate precautions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n One ardent proponent of masking says that\u2019s the way he\u2019ll spend the rest of his life:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t just, like, go out the way I used to,\u201d says Evan Sachs, who is in his early 30s and lives in New York with his three cats. He always wears a mask outdoors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSometimes it\u2019s a bummer.\u201d Not because masking is keeping him from living his life, he adds, \u201cbut because other people [selfishly] aren\u2019t doing the \u2018wearing your pants\u2019 levels of easy things\u201d to keep everyone safe. He runs a \u2018bloc\u2019 in the Washington Heights area of New York which distributes personal protective equipment (PPE) to less well-off communities. \u201cI do not have Long Covid, thank goodness,\u201d Sachs adds. \u201cI am very, very lucky on that front.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He doesn\u2019t want to get it either. \u201cI honestly think I would [mask forever],\u201d he says.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n An Austrian doctor called Spela Salomon has no time for non-maskers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outside work, she does not spend time with people who do not take equal precautions. \u201cI just don\u2019t feel like I get anything out of hanging around the maskless masses,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s sad and isolating.\u201d In an article<\/a> published by the World Health Network earlier this year, Salomon predicted that a rising toll of Covid complications would lead to a societal shift in which air quality is recognised as an essential public health priority like potable water. \u201cIt is those who persist in denial who are truly living in fear,\u201d she wrote, echoing Hardwick\u2019s sentiment in her social media video.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n It appears that the forever maskers have become so dedicated to the cause that they are even fetishizing masks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n US college student Bela waxes lyrical about her powered air-purifying respirator, certified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. \u201cIt blows air out so that no outside air can get in through the edges from a poor fit or seal,\u201d she told campaign group MaskTogetherAmerica<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Alyson Hardwick is increasingly focused on her \u201cnew passion for Covid\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting a booster jab at least every six months is, for her, a necessary response to what she calls a \u201cmass disability event in slow motion\u201d that has completely transformed her life. \u201cI\u2019m rarely ever sharing air with people,\u201d she says. If she does meet up with anyone, it will be other Covid-safe people, outdoors. \u201cI feel safe around them, because they\u2019re also masking everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/dailysceptic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2025-12-19-16.56.57-750x375.png\")
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