This is an example of what happens when a society loses its base set of common values. Healthcare professionals are leaving or being chased out of small rural communities because they are espousing the evidenced based protocols (wearing a mask) that are based on the best available medical knowledge during a pandemic.
Living in Canada we are not immune to segments of society that have been inoculated against evidence based medicine – witness the anti-mask rallies being held in my home province. But, as in most cases, the United States is well ahead of us in terms of committing to stupid actions based on political ideology rather than empirical fact. (Although we’ve gone off the rails with bullshit laws and pending laws like bill C-16 and bill C-6 {8} ), those are another post)
The virus infecting thousands of Americans a day is also attacking the country’s social fabric. The coronavirus has exposed a weakness in many rural communities, where divisive pandemic politics are alienating some of their most critical residents — health care workers.
“The values of hard work, the value of community, taking care of your neighbor, that’s what small towns shout from the rooftops, this is what we’re good at. We are salt of the earth people who care about each other,” Darnauer says. “And here I am saying, then wear a mask because that protects your precious neighbor.”
But Darnauer’s medical advice and moral admonition were met with contempt from some of her friends, neighbors and patients. People who had routinely buttonholed her for quick medical advice at church and kids’ ballgames were suddenly treating her as the enemy and regarding her professional opinion as suspect and offensive.
[…]
“Hard things should bring us together,” Darnauer says. “And instead, this hard thing has driven a wedge between us.”
That wedge is splitting off health care workers from communities that desperately need them.
More than a quarter of all the public health administrators in Kansas quit, retired or got fired this year, according to Vicki Collie-Akers, an associate professor of population health at the University of Kansas. Some of them got death threats. Some had to hire armed guards.
“These are leaders in their community,” Collie-Akers says. “And they are leaving broken.” Collie-Akers notes these professionals also leaving at a terrible time. The pandemic is still raging. Vaccines still need to get from cities to small towns and into people’s arms; public health officers are as important as ever.
[…]
“In community after community, after community, all I hear about is workforce, workforce, workforce losing clinical staff, trying to attract clinical staff into these communities. It is taking up the full time of our members right now,” Morgan says.
Closing rural hospitals, Morgan says, cuts health care to places where residents tend to be older, sicker and poorer than average.
[…]
Merrett says towns that let pandemic politics drive medical professionals away are choosing what he calls “toxic individualism” over the common good”
People seem to be willing to die for their beliefs, even when they do not correspond to reality. The pandemic has brought to the forefront the necessity of a set of shared common values for a society to function properly, as we can see the evidence of what a fractured combative society entails.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
3 comments
December 29, 2020 at 12:37 pm
Bob Browning
Rural health care services have been reduced and closing for decades on the US because it is not as profitable as centralized major facilities. Here in WV, kinda in the rural small market category, it appears the majority of ppl are nearly excessively wearing masks as advised by authorities. The hysteria in the article above is typical of almost daily “reminders” from media to do as the authorities say. The websites of the CDC, NIH and WHO show research and conclusions that are equivocal about or contradict the interpretations touted these days. Most ppl go w the narrative and terms used today like “evidenced based protocols” and don’t want to ” endanger their neighbor”. Remember it’s our fault their system is failing.
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December 29, 2020 at 7:38 pm
Bill Malcolm
I used to be consulted by many people, mostly women, on which car to buy. As an engineer with a keen interest in cars and constantly researching them, taking test drives and assembling that knowledge, I took pleasure in listening to the requirements, learning about the person to see what they valued and wanted and needed, and advising accordingly. Apparently, I became well-regarded enough that by the mid ’90s all sorts of people would pop out of nowhere to consult me. I never charged, because I enjoyed the challenge.
However, with the rise of the internet, every Tom, Dick and Harriet decided they had wonderful opinions, and it became obvious that what people were doing in asking me about their idea for a new vehicle was for me to endorse their brilliant choices, which their innate genius had preselected. Hearing objections from me was NOT on their menu. I gave the whole thing up over 20 ears ago and told people to buy whatever caught their eye and good luck.
Same has apparently happened with these doctors in rural areas on a far more important topic – healthcare. Your average nobody is now a medical genius. When people go to the doctor, they already KNOW what their problem is — they expect the physician to endorse their own diagnosis, not tell ’em they’re full of it. If the doc doesn’t agree, well, they’re obviously incompetent. So the doctors become dunned. No wonder they leave Dodge. It also about sums up the anti-intellectual attitude Trump cultivated, for example. A complete unread dope like him can run the USA and the world on a part time off-the-cuff basis, and be the best ever in his own eyes. Right? 70 million agree.
Welcome to wilful dumbness. It’s not stupidity, it’s an inflated opinion of oneself based on nothing tangible except some website written by someone as expert as you are and who seems to agree. The now fabled echo chamber. Half-an-hour on the internet and you are an expert Fauci cannot refute. If he tries, well he’s an egghead, part of the secret plan to desex the world by surreptitious vaccine funded by Bill Gates. Can’t trust the experts, hell no.
Most people cannot even define or understand what it is they DO NOT understand in the first place. Like centuries of foreknowledge — who cares about that stuff, right? Bring out the mummified chicken feet, powdered dried racoon kidneys, a keg of bleach and LET’S HAVE A PARTY!.
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December 30, 2020 at 6:59 am
The Arbourist
Good Morning Mr.Malcolm.
It seems you are somewhat bitter toward this streak of anti-intellectualism that has been nourished by a certain person who fell into the highest office in the land. I too share your bitterness but cannot feel at least partially responsible for the current state of affairs. As a teacher, I’m supposed to equip children with the tools to be able to function and make decisions within our society. I feel that much of my profession has fallen well short of this particular mandate.
Educators have failed to provide their students with the tools to recognize the Dunning-Kruger effect and it has been evinced loudly and clearly for the last four years.
It seems evident that the uncertainty I feel when discussing topics outside my area of expertise isn’t really a shared experience for much of the population. That, as you stated, is a frustrating but also dangerous state to be in.
Much of social media and the news media schism that is present in the US contributes to people populating and staying firmly on Mt.Stupid (see Dunning-Kruger graphs) instead of progressing forward to a level self awareness and appreciation of advanced expert knowledge.
I hope we can pull back from where we are because the decision making process at Mt.Stupid is far from a ideal way to run and exist in society.
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