ARGUMENT: Liberal CassandrasThe Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown

Among the relieved Americans going back out to restaurants and planning their summer-wedding travel is a different group, Emma Green writes in The Atlantic: liberals who aren’t quite ready to let go of pandemic restrictions. “For this subset, diligence against COVID-19 remains an expression of political identity—even when that means overestimating the disease’s risks or setting limits far more strict than what public-health guidelines permit.”

Green writes that last year, when the pandemic was spreading and scientists and public-health officials were still trying to understand how the virus spread, extreme caution was warranted. People all over the country made great sacrifices to protect others. Some conservatives, skeptical about the severity of the disease or reluctant to give up their freedoms, refused to wear masks or stay home. “But this is a different story, about progressives who stressed the scientific evidence, and then veered away from it,” Green notes.

For many progressives, extreme vigilance was in part about opposing Donald Trump - but the spring of 2021 is different from the spring of 2020, as scientists know a lot more about how COVID-19 spreads—and how it doesn’t.

Public-health advice is shifting. But some progressives have not updated their behavior based on the new information. And in their eagerness to protect themselves and others, they may be underestimating other costs. Being extra careful about COVID-19 is (mostly) harmless when it’s limited to wiping down your groceries with Lysol wipes and wearing a mask in places where you’re unlikely to spread the coronavirus, such as on a hiking trail. But vigilance can have unintended consequences when it imposes on other people’s lives. Even as scientific knowledge of COVID-19 has increased, some progressives have continued to embrace policies and behaviors that aren’t supported by evidence, such as banning access to playgrounds, closing beaches, and refusing to reopen schools for in-person learning.

Very effective COVID-19 vaccines have become widely accessible, but many progressives continue to listen to voices preaching caution over relaxation. “Scientists, academics, and writers who have argued that some very low-risk activities are worth doing as vaccination rates rise—even if the risk of exposure is not zero—have faced intense backlash,” Green writes.

Green writes that personal decisions during the coronavirus crisis are fraught because they seem symbolic of people’s broader value systems. “

When vaccinated adults refuse to see friends indoors, they’re working through the trauma of the past year, in which the brokenness of America’s medical system was so evident. When they keep their kids out of playgrounds and urge friends to stay distanced at small outdoor picnics, they are continuing the spirit of the past year, when civic duty has been expressed through lonely asceticism. For many people, this kind of behavior is a form of good citizenship. That’s a hard idea to give up.

And so, as the rest of vaccinated America begins its summer of bacchanalia, rescheduling long-awaited dinner parties and medium-size weddings, the most hard-core pandemic progressives are left, Cassandra-like, to preach their peers’ folly.