D.W. McLachlan responds to the recent discourse around COVID safety at meetings by comparing risk probabilities. Ultimately, it’s unclear what advantage we gain by refusing to protect each other from COVID, which poses an existential threat to any organizing effort.

If we don’t want to mitigate the effects of this risk, we need to account for it and describe a plan to win even with such high rates of attrition. I personally don’t believe it’s possible to attrite a significant portion of your organizers each meeting and win, that seems like a dead end.

This is all beyond considering the frankly ghoulish opposite side of the equation. We grudgingly risk traffic accidents so we can organize for a better world. What do we get for risking COVID infections? We refuse to wear masks so we can feel normal? We refuse to clean the air so we don’t have to think about how the authorities are lying to us? Or about how each of us is vulnerable to Long COVID? Is it the snacks? I can’t really imagine what’s on the other side of the equation for the COVID denialists that makes it worth it to refuse to mitigate the risk so fervently.

Vaccinations and boosters are not enough. If it is alienating to require your organization to mask up…why? Is it more alienating than when they find themselves no longer able to work — or much worse, for that matter — after however long of continued unmitigated exposure? We are not a serious working class movement if we are not handling this, and no one is. Whose interests do you serve by refusing to mask and mitigate the spread of COVID? This is the question I have never seen anyone averse to ongoing measures answer. It is certainly not our own!