Thread by @luckytran

Seeing some progressives say that the mask "culture wars" are a distraction from #MedicareForAll.

What they miss is that many people can't even access healthcare right now because it's unsafe to ride public transport or go to medical facilities because there's few mask mandates.

Also, if you care about #MedicareForall, you should care about preventing chronic illness and death in the first place. We need to push for both public health measures like masks and for structural changes like universal healthcare.

I think part of the left had this idea that COVID was temporary, and so prevention was a distraction from long term structural policies like universal healthcare. They got this badly wrong. COVID is here to stay, which means we need prevention policies too to mitigate harm.

A lot of the "mask wars are a distraction" rhetoric comes from ableism and privilege.

If you are higher risk, immunocompromised, disabled, elderly etc, mask policies make the difference whether you survive this pandemic, and whether you can access basic needs like healthcare.

When you build a society that cares about protecting each other through measures like masks, that makes it more possible to implement collective structural policies like universal healthcare. We should work towards both things together!