To the degree I trust and count on the accuracy of polls, I believe the country has strong support for masks and other covid precautions.

To the degree that I mistrust the bandwagon effect among anti-science and reactionary zealots, I fear the worst, regardless.

Often in life, such an active minority can do limited damage (though to those damaged, it’s rarely limited). In the covid-19 case, that minority is significantly controlling the fate of the rest of the population. Their behavior constitutes assault and attempted murder. They keep the pandemic active and, especially now (and indefinitely), expanding.

The rest of us are hostages at their mercy as we (especially those of us who aren’t financially independent) navigate the exigencies of staying at home—or in numerous cases, going to jobs with dangerous and sometimes debilitating or even fatal conditions (like working in health centers or supermarkets—see, for example, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/albertsamaha/july-4th-barbecue-food-coronavirus).

Sufficiently stopping this population-wagging tail is probably impossible. But its power is enhanced by frequent failure (or fear?) of officials to enforce adherence to formally mandated behavior like wearing masks. And the waggers are often bullies whose threatening demeanor in public cows many of the rest of us when we see them practicing their bad behavior.

I don’t fail to notice how much less official vigor is paid to curbing them than to interfering with, for example, anti-racism protests (which, after all, are legal).

I have no practical answer to this problem, but I don’t think it’s waiting for enough of the bad guys to be bedridden or die as a result of their behavior. Nor, alas, is it our continuing to twirl and snap at that ever-elusive tail attached to us, with righteous outrage.

A partial though insufficient solution may mean that many of the good guys need to restrain ourselves from mingling in justified public protest of the wide range of outrages, which these days focus on racism (and about time!), we’ve been raging about especially strongly for 3 ½ years (many of these outrages, of course, existed before trumpism). Much as I support the protests, photos from them make me anxious about how much viral transmission is occurring at them; I suspect resolutions to practice social distancing easily get compromised in the heat of crowded, inspiring moments. (I don’t know because my wife and I are in the old-codgers’ high-risk locked-down group, where we expect to stay for a long time to come, so that we’re confined to cheering on virtuous actions from afar.) We need the good guys healthy…and alive.

Will a successful election of Biden turn this around? I don’t know. A boy can hope.